Janie
My meds were running low, I noted a few days later, peering down at the three pills left in one of my amber bottles. No refills, either. A quick call to my doc didn’t solve the problem. It’d been months since I’d seen him. He transferred me over to his secretary to make an appointment in order to get a new prescription, but I hung up before she answered.
Fuck.
I buried my head in my arms on the kitchen table and tried to breathe through the anxiety twisting my stomach. Without my meds, I would end up in the hospital again, and with things going so well with Hawk, I couldn’t allow myself to lose it.
“What’s wrong?”
Hawk’s low voice lifted my head, and I blinked away the tears hazing my vision of him as he shut the front door behind him. A smear of grease darkened the side of his nose, his hazel eyes full of concern.
“I need to get a new prescription, and my doc won’t give me one without seeing him.”
“How long until you run out?”
“Three days.”
“We can head down to New York tomorr—”
“No. He can’t even see me until next week,” I lied, the knot in my stomach rising bile up the back of my throat.
“I might be able to pull some strings. What do you need?”
I wrote down my meds and dosage and handed them to him.
“Jonny’s sister suffers from bipolar, too,” he said, glancing down at the sticky note. “He might be able to get you some help.”
My shoulders relaxed, but the worry in my gut didn’t.
“It’s gonna be okay, little butterfly.” Hawk grasped my jaw in his hand and peered into my eyes. “I’ll take care of you. Trust me. We’ll figure this out.”
Tears watered the sight of him again, and I forced a nod.
He brushed his lips across mine, and I leaned into his chest as he wrapped his arms around me. A heavy sigh rippled through me, and I breathed in the scent of leather, motor oil, and exhaust that clung to his skin after a day’s work in his shop. I’d never known comfort like I found in Hawk’s embrace. Tender when needed, rough and demanding when filled with lust. A few ass slaps when he felt I needed a reminder of who was in charge.
“You’re too good to me,” I mumbled against his sweat-dampened t-shirt.
He squeezed me tighter. “You deserve better than me.”
We went back and forth a few more times about who deserved what before I giggled. “I love you.”
Hawk pulled back and framed my face between his hands. “Love you more.”
“Doubt that.”
“Come on.” He stood and tugged me to my feet. “Let’s clean up and go out for dinner.”
“Shower?” I asked, a tingle lighting between my thighs.
“After I turn you into a hot, panting mess.”
“Yes, please.”
****
Turned out, the doc Jonny’s sister went to for therapy owed the Gliders a favor. He fit me in the next morning, and because of the whole non-disclosure thing, I left with a brand-new prescription in hand written out for Janie Taylor. Easy to talk to, empathetic, and a great listener, he promised to get my records from New York and take over my therapy.
Crisis averted.
While the doc told me that he wouldn’t tell anyone who I really was, he encouraged me to tell the truth before something happened, something that had the potential to claim lives.
Nothing I hate worse than lying. Hawk’s words rang in my ears over and over, twisting my stomach into knots. I’d pretty much done nothing but lie since meeting him. The longing for normalcy, the happiness of a man finally accepting my broken self, made the truth that much harder to spill.
Hawk would hate me. He would send me packing, and I’d be forced to go back to New York, my heart broken, a low like I’d never known strangling the air from my lungs.
I called Tasha that afternoon while waiting for Hawk to get home.
“About fucking time,” she grumbled by way of hello.
I meandered into our bedroom, intent on the bed. “Sorry I haven’t called. Been busy.”
“Manic busy?”
“Actually, no. This is the most normal I’ve felt in a long time.” I lay back on our bed and closed my eyes. “Work is busy—I’m caught up from our Sturgis jaunt—and I’m keeping house for Hawk.”
“Little Suzi Homemaker, huh?” Tasha laughed. “Never thought I’d see that day.”
“I don’t even mind scrubbing the toilet.”
“Holy fuck.”
I giggled, although hiding the truth from my best friend added to the guilt eating at me. “Right?”
“You sound good, Janie. Real good.”
“I’m feeling the best I have in a long time. Hawk takes good care of me. Got me in to see a new doc. Keeps me on a schedule.”
“You’re fucking gone on him, aren’t you?”
“Said the L word and everything.”
“Goddamn, that was quick.”
“As cheesy as it sounds, he completes me. Grounds me in a way even my dad couldn’t do.” The underlying shit swept over me, dissolving my smile.
“Well damn. Guess you’re never coming back then, huh?”
I chewed on the inside of my lip as my eyes popped open to stare at the white, bedroom ceiling.
“Janie?”
“I’m here.”
“What’s up?”
Tasha always seemed to know when something bothered me. More like a sister than a best friend, I’d told her everything, every detail to ever enter my brain. Maybe being truthful with Tasha would ease my conscience a little. “If I tell you something, do you promise to keep it to yourself?”
“Shit. You have to ask me that?”
“I’m serious, Tasha.”
“So am I,” she shot right back without an ounce of annoyance in her voice.
“Hawk is a Fallen Glider.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah.”
Silence settled as I chewed on the inside of my lip again.
“Damnit, Janie. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?”
“Keep it to yourself.”
“Does he know who your dad is?”
I snorted. “Fuck no, and it needs to stay that way, or he’ll toss me on a bus back to New York so damn quick I’ll lose my shit and end up in the hospital.”
“Fuck,” she whispered. “This isn’t good.”
“I know.” I clenched my eyes shut again as pain knifed my stomach. “I—I should tell him the truth, I know, but I just can’t bear the thought of losing him. It’s like he’s a part of me, and leaving would tear me in two.”
More silence, the kind that brought on tears, lingered over the line.
Tasha finally sighed. “I won’t tell anyone, Janie. You know that, but you need to figure this out. Keeping the truth from him will only hurt more the longer you let it go on.”
“I know,” I whispered past the ache in my throat.
“If he loves you like you love him, I doubt he’ll be so quick to let you go.”
“We’re a Romeo and Juliet disaster in real life. No way this can end well.”
Tasha didn’t contradict me, and when I hung up the phone a few minutes later, I didn’t feel any better for having unloaded the worries clawing away at my brain.
****
Three weeks of normal, three weeks of sex that left me boneless every time, passed, and still, I kept my secret close. We packed up and headed north on Hawk’s bike, off to the sticks at Capone’s camp where the Gliders used to party hard back in the old days.
We had tents set up and music blasting before the second hour on site ended. The lazy, hazy smoke from a couple of campfires wafted over the grassy area, lending an acidic yet pleasant tang in the air. September had brought an Indian summer to die for. The sun hung in the sky but didn’t bring the August heat that sweltered. A gentle breeze rustled the oaks and maples surrounding the meadow, but not chilly enough for a sweatshirt.
Kegs, cases of liquor, and a dozen grills littered the area … and don’t forget the club whores who’d come up in a couple of vans. A handful of other old ladies had come along with their men, and although I’d chatted with them a time or two at the club, I still didn’t feel as though I belonged.
I stepped out of one of the rented outhouses to find the blonde with the resting bitch face who stared at me whenever I went to the club with Hawk pressed against her. She leaned up to talk in his ear, her hand slipping down over the colors stretched over his back.
The green, plastic door slammed behind me, and I fisted my hands at my sides. She pressed her big tits against him. Hawk sidestepped, but she followed. His frown didn’t deter her.
I found myself striding over the trampled grass, the “Wanted Dead or Alive” blasting from the outdoor speakers barely reaching my consciousness past the ringing in my ears. Fucking bitch getting all up in my man’s wheels.
“Back the fuck off,” I said, grabbing her arm and spinning her away from Hawk.
He chuckled, but I kept my gaze on the bitch.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” she hissed, leaning toward me with narrowed eyes.
“Hawk’s woman, and if you’ve got a problem with that,” I said with a smile, adrenaline coursing through my limbs, “I’ll gladly help you solve it.” I stared, unmoving, although my body tensed, reading to flatten her out. Fuck hair-pulling and nail-clawing. Dad had taught me how to throw a punch, and I wouldn’t hesitate to defend my territory.
“I was his first, you know,” the bitch said with a smirk, tilting her head and glancing up at Hawk over my shoulder.
“And I’ll be his last.” I returned her smile. “Now back the fuck off before I rearrange that bad nose job in the middle of your fugly face.”
More snickering sounded behind me, but I didn’t take my gaze off the bitch.
She attempted a stare down, but I was Don Taylor’s daughter and knew how to stand strong.
Finally, she let out an exaggerated sigh. “You can keep his old ass. There’s others around here he couldn’t keep up with if he tried.”
“Hawk ‘fucking’ Richards with an endless supply of cum,” I reminded her of what Hawk had told me while laughing one night after coming three times. “Trust me.” I leaned toward her, needing her to lament what she’d lost. “That fact hasn’t changed. He’s a fucking stallion, and I doubt one single man here could keep up with him and his huge cock. You go on. Try to find someone to fill his shoes, but I promise you, he’ll be filling me. All. Night. Long.”
With a flounce of her dirty blonde hair, she turned away.
Hawk palmed my ass and spun me, laughter rumbling his chest. “Goddamn, you’re so fucking hot when you’re pissed.”
“Who the fuck is she?”
“Just a club whore. Name’s Shelly.”
“She touches you like that again,” I said, jumping up to wrap my legs around his waist, “and I’ll fucking lay her flat.”
His eyes twinkled. “I don’t doubt it, my feisty little butterfly. Speaking of…” He glanced over at Digger’s tent beside ours. His buddy had brought along his tattooing equipment. “Been thinking I need a red butterfly right over my heart. Whatcha think?”
While I needed to get rid of the adrenaline rushing through me—preferably by a good, hard fuck—I smiled. “You’d do that?”
Hawk tucked hair behind my ear with the hand that wasn’t still clamped to my ass cheek, his eyes full of love. “Been thinking about it since the morning you crashed, and I decided I wasn’t letting you go no matter what.”
Tears pricked my eyes, and I pulled his head down to kiss him.
“Fucking tent is right there,” Digger said from beside us a few minutes into our face sucking.
I pulled back, brow raised, my blood pumping and panties soaked.
“Later,” Hawk promised with another quick kiss. “I want you tattooed over my heart first.”
The Fallen Gliders partied late into the night—or early morning, rather. Hawk and I stumbled to our tent once the groping and blowjobs started taking place outdoors for all to see. I’d drunk more beer than I had in a long damn time. Enjoyed myself even, getting to know two of the other Gliders’ old ladies I’d never met before as we sat beside one of the campfires with our men, burning marshmallows and eating s’mores. Although both women had twenty years on me, they seemed to accept me as one of their own without the cattiness of the insecure club whores.
I crawled into our sleeping bag with a smile, and an hour later, sexually sated, sore, and still buzzed, passed out. The second night went pretty much the same, but when we returned to our tent, we found the zipper was undone and our things rifled through.
Hawk was pissed until we accounted for our belongings. The snooping, however, scared the shit out of me. I’d kept my wallet with my ID in the bottom of my bag, and although my clothing didn’t appear to be disturbed, I chewed on the inside of my lip with worry until it bled.
Before he could take the matter to Jonny and possibly make me have to lie more to cover my ass, I crawled over to where he knelt by his bag, grabbed the bulge in his leathers, and pushed him back onto our sleeping bag.
I had Digger tattoo a small hawk on my right shoulder blade the next morning, had Hawk’s cock deep inside of me countless times in the next two days, seeming to obliterate his memory of the “break-in”, and drank way more than was healthy. I clung to his back on the way home Monday afternoon, hungover and happy.