As a teen I was preached to about what types of boys to avoid. My parents weren’t overly strict, but they wanted me to succeed in whatever endeavors I chose. Success, in their eyes, couldn’t be achieved unless I selected the right man to be at my side.

If I chose the wrong man, I’d be destined for failure. Or, so they led me to believe. Nonetheless, I was attracted to bad boys. The kids who were always in trouble. The boys who fought after school. The hellions who were ostracized by everyone else in school for their actions or beliefs. The kids who wore black, sat alone in the lunch room, and wore a scowl from first period until the dismissal bell rang.

Those were the boys I liked.

No, no, and hell no was my father’s common response to my expressions of attraction to the opposite sex. As I grew older, I developed much more than a fascination with bad boys. They were my only desire. I blamed my attraction partially on my father’s insistence that I avoid those types, and, in part because he was a staunch pacifist.

When I was in first grade, a man bumped into my mother while we were waiting in line to be seated at a restaurant. The collision was an accident, but it all but knocked my mother on the floor. When the man regained his footing, he looked at my mother, and then my father.

He was big and rough-looking. He wore a messy beard and a baseball cap, and his jeans had holes in them.

His brown eyes then looked my mother up and down. He reached for the bill of his cap and grinned. “Nice tits.”

I understood what he said, but at the time, I didn’t comprehend the magnitude of it. My parents fought about it during our meal, with my mother asking why my father hadn’t said – or did – anything when the man ran into her, or when he made the remark.

My father explained that nothing was worth fighting for. Men shouldn’t fight one another, they should learn to love one another, he said. It sounded like a good explanation at the time, but as I grew older, I realized exactly what my mother meant.

I didn’t take a vow to never fall in love with a pacifist, but my subconscious mind must have, because I was attracted to the exact opposite man my father was. I desperately wanted to be the significant other to a man who had the ability – and desire – to stand up for me. During my younger years I dreamed of being in a similar situation as my mother and having my beau make clear what was acceptable behavior.

Porter and I were walking side by side toward the movie theater’s ticket counter when I saw him. I clung to Porter’s side and diverted my gaze, hoping to go unnoticed as he walked past us. I considered saying something to Porter, but by the time I thought of what to say, it was too late. He paused several feet in front of us, turned to face me, and stared.

“Abby.” His voice floated to us on a cloud of desire. “Oh my God, it’s you.”

“Who’s that?” Porter asked under his breath.

“One of life’s bad F-ing choices,” I said. “Keep walking.”

I acted as if I didn’t see him or hear him. After we’d taken a few strides, he turned, took a few quick steps and intercepted us.

Crap.

“Abby, I never heard back from you after the last time we saw each other,” he said. “What happened.”

Luke Westham was a professional football player for the former San Diego Chargers. The team had recently been moved to Los Angeles, and my hope was that Luke went with them, for good.

He was an obsessed fan of my YouTube channel who had emailed me relentlessly over a six-month period. I finally agreed to meet him for a cup of coffee. That was all it took for me to decide he was a wacko. Ten minutes into our meeting, he was talking about getting married and having babies.

I couldn’t get away from him fast enough. The strange messages that followed caused me to block his email address and block him on social media. It didn’t prevent him from setting up alternate Facebook profiles and email addresses – with false names – and contacting me through them.

He was one of my worst nightmares. In fact, getting rid of him completely was number one hundred and eighty-four on my list.

I put on a face of surprise. “Oh, hi. It’s Luke, right? I almost didn’t recognize you.”

“I never heard back from you,” he said, his tone bitter.

Yes, you did. I told you I’d get a restraining order if you didn’t leave me alone.

I swallowed my desire to spew proof of his mental instability and choose to go a safer route.

“This is my boyfriend, Porter,” I said.

He gave Porter a dismissive look, and then looked at me dreamily. “When do you want to get together? I miss seeing you.”

“You only saw me once,” I snapped back. “For ten minutes. Three years ago.”

Porter cleared his throat. “Excuse us, please. We’re running a few minutes late.”

Luke shot Porter a quick glare and then reached for my left arm. “Don’t go. We haven’t even had a chance to catch up.”

Oh my God this weirdo’s hand is on me. Help! Help! His skin is touching my skin.

Porter grabbed Luke’s arm by the wrist. By the look on Luke’s face, Porter wasn’t being gentle either.

“I said we’re running late,” Porter seethed as he shoved Luke’s arm to the side. “Excuse us, please.”

Luke puffed his steroid-enhanced chest. “I wasn’t done talking to her, asshole.”

I didn’t know much, but I knew those were fighting words. But, there was never a fight. Not to speak of, anyway. It was more of a show of speed versus stupidity, I guess. The word asshole no more than cleared Luke’s lips, and Porter stepped in front of me.

The rest, I didn’t see. I mean, I was there, and I was watching, but seeing it would have required recording it and playing it back in slow motion. Hearing it was enough to cause me to cringe. I mentally jumped for joy later, but the cringing came first.

Porter’s hands became a blur. A series of horrid crunching sounds followed. Luke’s legs turned to noodles, and he crumbled into a three-hundred-pound wad of useless flesh at Porter’s feet.

“Did you kill him?” I gasped.

“I hope so.” Porter chuckled. “He was an irritating prick.”

A crowd began to gather between us and the ticket counter. “Holy shit,” I heard someone say. “Did you see that?”

A man stepped through the crowd and looked at Luke, who was attempting – unsuccessfully – to rise to his feet.

“That’s Luke Westham,” the man said excitedly. “You knocked out Luke Westham.”

“He needed knocked out,” Porter replied.

Porter looked at me. “Who the fuck’s Luke Westham?”

“He’s a running back for the LA Chargers,” I responded. “And, he’s some weirdo that was stalking me. I almost got a restraining order against him. I swear, I only met him for a cup of coffee a few years ago, that’s it.”

“He was a fucking weirdo, that’s for sure,” he said with a laugh.

I’m sure women exist who would have been appalled by what happened. I wasn’t one of them. The fact that Porter knocked out a pro football player because he had acted disrespectfully made me swoon.

As I proudly took a position at Porter’s side, a few of the people who gathered helped Luke to his feet.

“Shit,” Porter said, looking at his watch. “The movie started already.”

I looked at the crowd that had gathered and realized it would only be a matter of time before the movie theater’s security arrived. “Can we just do something else?”

“You sure you’re okay with that?” he asked. “I know you wanted to see that movie.”

“We can do anything,” I said. “As long as we’re together.”

It didn’t matter what we were doing, I’d be doing it with the man of my dreams. Simply knowing he was willing to stand up for me was enough to make me weak in the knees.

Not as weak in the knees as Luke Westham, but close.

“Where’d you learn to fight like that?” I sucked a mouthful of chocolate malt through the oversized straw. “Chuck Norris hasn’t got anything on you.”

He pressed the heels of his palms to his temples. “I can’t drink any more of that thing.”

I paused from drinking, but left the straw in my mouth, just in case I wanted more. “Ice cream headache?”

He nodded.

“So,” I raised my eyebrows. “Are you going to answer me?”

“I’m thinking.”

I sucked another ounce of cold deliciousness from the cup. “About whether or not you want to answer me?”

He no more than lowered his hands and winced from the pain. “Something like that.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Your hands were a blur. I was just wondering if you were some Kung Fu master or some crap. That was awesome. I don’t hate people, but I come really close to hating Luke, just so you know.”

“He’d be an easy one to hate,” he replied.

Since the incident at the movie theater, Porter seemed sidetracked and incapable of focusing. “Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked. “You seem off, or whatever.”

“I’m thinking.”

I sucked on the straw until my cheeks caved in, gaining another mouthful of the perfect blend of chocolate and malted milk. With the straw resting on the tip of my tongue, I looked up. “About?”

He stared at the entrance for a while, and then looked at me. “I’m not who you think I am,” he said, his voice filled with regret. “Not entirely.”

My heart fell into the pit of my stomach. I pushed the malt to the side. “What do you mean?”

He glanced over each shoulder and then held my gaze. “I need to tell you some things about me.”

I felt sick. The malted milk rose until it tickled the back of my throat.

I swallowed heavily. “Okay.”

“The motorcycle club I ride with is an outlaw club,” he said.

I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. I’d heard the Outlaw MC term before but wasn’t completely sure what it meant. I didn’t think it was all that bad, though. Not when compared to other things.

“What does that mean?” I asked. “In terms I can understand.”

“Well, it means the members of our club fall within the one percent of riders that aren’t willing to live by the rules of society. But, with us, there’s more to it than that.”

So far, I was relieved with what he’d revealed. There was obviously more he wanted to say, and I wanted to listen to anything he was willing to offer me.

“If you want to explain,” I said. “I’ll listen.”

He nodded. “I can’t go into detail, but I can speak in general terms.”

Anything was better than nothing. His reluctance to continue made me more nervous than anything. His opening statement of I’m not the man you think I am still had my stomach in a knot.

“Okay. I mean, I’d just like to know more about ‘I’m not the man you think I am’. When you said that, it made my stomach do flips.”

His jaw tightened. He looked away, toward the ice cream cooler that was on the far wall. While he stared blankly at it, he began to speak. His voice was quiet, barely above a whisper. It was almost as if he was narrating a movie.

“I had a few run-ins with the law when I was a kid. Nothing much to speak of. Fighting, and riding a scooter through town without a license. I realized at a young age that I liked outsmarting the cops. I liked outrunning them even more. By the time I was a senior in high school, I’d been in a handful of high-speed chases with the cops and had never been caught. I’d stolen an old car from a salvage yard, built an engine for it in shop class, and kept it hidden on my grandparent’s farm, in a windrow of trees. My friends and I would take it out, raise hell, and get the cops to try and catch us. The thrill of outrunning them gave me a high that nothing else could match. Although they tried, they never caught me once. The local cop referred to the guy in the sixty-five Fairlane as a Ghost. The name stuck, and I became ‘Ghost’.”

A sigh of relief shot from my lungs. “That’s cool how you got your nickname. You had me scared there for a minute. I thought there was going to be more to it than that.”

“There is,” he said without looking at me. “Gimme a minute.”

My stomach started churning.

“Four of my closest friends and I moved here after we graduated school, and we started this motorcycle club. We didn’t abide by the law. In fact, we broke the law.” He shifted his eyes to meet mine. “Intentionally.”

I acted indifferent, waiting for him to elaborate. My stone-faced expression allowed him to continue without much pause.

“In our outlaw endeavors, we needed to escape quickly. I was, of course, the driver. Crime after crime, year after year, I never got caught. I became the club’s good luck charm. The getaway driver. The Ghost.” He looked at me. “That’s who I am. I’m a biker, an outlaw, and a getaway driver.”

The thought of him being a criminal was exciting. It also scared the shit out of me. The first question I asked him when we met was if he was a real biker. I didn’t expect him to be a model citizen, nor did I want him to be. I didn’t expect him to be a getaway driver for a group of outlaws, either.

I took a moment to digest what he’d said, and then drew a shallow breath. “Can I ask what kind of things you guys do?”

He shook his head. “I can’t discuss club business.”

His response sent me right back to feeling sick. The thought of losing him was real, and I didn’t like it one bit. He was either going to need to trust me, or chance losing me. I couldn’t be part of mass-murder plot or turn the other cheek if they were shooting gas station attendants in failed robbery attempts.

There were, however, some scenarios I could accept. Stealing truckloads of cigarettes and selling them on the black market was fine. Manufacturing methamphetamines wasn’t. My mind was going a thousand different directions and I wasn’t thinking clearly.

My eyes welled with tears. “Porter, I’m scared shitless right now, and I don’t want this, or anything, to come between us. Can you. Can you give an example of what you’re talking about? If you can’t, we might need to quit seeing one another.”

I couldn’t believe the words that came out of my mouth. I wanted to take them back, but it was too late.

His expressionless look changed to one of worry.

With a tight jaw, he studied me.

“I need you to trust me,” I begged. ‘You can’t expect me to accept who you are if you won’t tell me who you truly are. I’ve hidden nothing from you. Be truthful with me and let me make a decision based on the truth.”

He continued to stare. Fear clouded his eyes, leaving them dull and without much emotion other than distress.

“Do you trust me?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Prove it,” I demanded. “Prove you trust me.”

He blew out a long exhaustive breath, and then met my gaze. “Every one of us takes a stance against drug dealers, and what their dope does to society. It’s pretty common for us to rob drug dealers.”

“At gunpoint?” I asked.

He shook his head. “We’re professionals. Did you watch Ocean’s Eleven?”

I’d seen the movie more than once. If the crimes depicted in the movies were what his club was doing, it was going to go from bad to good in instant.

“We’re kind of like that,” he explained. “A computer expert to manipulate the alarms. Explosives expert to divert attention. A weapons expert just in case. A man damned good at planning to put everything together. A getaway driver to make a quick escape.”

“And you split the money?” I asked.

He chuckled. “We give more than half of it to charity. The club’s president is like Robin Hood. He doesn’t do it for the thrill, or for the financial gain. He does it for the betterment of mankind. When we rob drug dealers, we burn the dope in the desert, just to make sure it doesn’t end up on the streets. He gives the money away like candy to the unfortunate.”

“So, you don’t manage car washes?” I asked.

“No,” he responded. “That’s true. I do manage car washes.”

“And you rob drug dealers?”

He laced his fingers and leaned forward. “The last job we did was this: a woman had her retirement account compromised, and two million dollars of her savings was taken. The financial institution wasn’t able to find it, but we did. We recovered the money and gave it to her.”

I was fascinated. I shouldn’t have been, but I was. “Cyber banking stuff?”

He shook his head. “No. Someone drained her accounts and converted it to cash. Then, he took the cash home and had it in his safe. We recovered it.”

“So, you physically took it back? That kind of recovery?”

He nodded. “Correct.”

I braced myself for the fact that at least one of them was a murderer. “What did you do to the guy that took it?”

“Advised him to keep his mouth shut, or we’d turn him in to the law for the crime.”

It sounded like he was more of a vigilante than a criminal. Granted, he was committing crimes, but they weren’t crimes against humanity. My gaze dropped to the table as I absorbed everything he’d said. While I tried to make sense of it all, he cleared his throat.

“For what it’s worth, the club has a rule,” he said. “We have a hands-off policy when it comes to women and the elderly. Men, on the other hand, are subject to the wrath of the club.”

I looked up. “But only as a last resort?”

He nodded. “Correct.”

“Would you consider walking away from the club?” I asked.

“I’m considering it now,” he said. “I haven’t made up my mind. I needed to come clean with you and see what you said. But, I need you to accept me, regardless of the choice I make. This has been killing me, Abby. I can give you as much time as you need. Either way, I understand.”

I didn’t need any time. I’d already made my decision. It wasn’t solely based on the fact that I loved Porter, but my love for him played a huge part in my ability to accept him for who he was. He was committing crimes in the eyes of the law, but they were crimes that many law-abiding citizens would commit if they were able.

“I’d prefer you walk away,” I said. “But only because I don’t want you to get hurt. If you choose not to, I can accept that. We’ll need to talk about it more, I’m sure, but I can accept it. Is there anything else?”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

Love is the key to coloring outside the lines. My prompt acceptance of my criminal boyfriend’s activities was proof. Losing him wasn’t something I was willing to risk. I managed to find a way to accept everything he’d said. I didn’t like the thought of him being hurt while robbing a drug dealer, but for the time being I’d reserve hope that he’d find a way to walk away from the club.

I offered a crooked smile and a nod. “Yes.”

“You’re one hundred percent sure?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Both eyebrows raised. “Abby?”

I sighed. “Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“Pardon me?” I blinked a few times. “I thought you said I love you.”

“I did,” he said. “When I admitted it to myself, I knew I had to tell you everything. Now that I have, it’s time for me to be honest. I love you, and I can’t imagine living a single day without you. I want you in my life, now and forever.”

I covered my mouth with my hand to prevent hyperventilation. After a moment of heavy breathing, I lowered my hand. “I love you, too I really do I think I have for a long time but I was too afraid to admit it I’m glad you finally said something because it was eating me up inside I went to talk to George about it God I love you.”

He stood and stretched his arms wide.

I wanted to attack him like a rabid spider monkey.

He swept me from my feet and spun me around, so my back was to the wall. Then, he kissed me like I’d never been kissed. I couldn’t remember if Disney princes and princesses kissed, but if they did, their kisses would have been like that kiss.

It was the perfect kiss. From the perfect man. On the perfect night. After the perfect fight to preserve our perfect relationship. And then, the perfect revelation.

He loved me.

And, he told me so in the perfect place.

My favorite ice cream parlor.

When our mouths parted, I began to cry.

He wiped my tears away and looked into my eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Number two on my list,” I blubbered. “I did it.”

“We did it,” he said.

I couldn’t wait to tell my mother and George. My father would shit a complete brick, but I didn’t care. He’d have to find a way to get over it.

“I can’t wait to tell George,” I blurted.

“Can we tell him together?” he asked.

As far as I was concerned, we needed to start doing everything together. Except for pooping. Pooping was an alone activity, even if I was in love.

I nodded eagerly. “When do you want to?”

He looked at his watch. “How about now?”

“What time is it?”

His mouth twisted into a smirk. “He closes in fifteen minutes.”

It was twenty-five minutes away, maybe more, depending on traffic. “Guess it’s a good thing I fell in love with a getaway driver,” I said. “You want to show me how you earned that nickname, Ghost?”