History.

History had a way of rewriting itself over and over again when the players on the board didn’t learn the lessons of the past. No matter how many times Throttle tried to stick and move or even plot out the next strategy, it always blew up in his face. Love obviously didn’t want to be his friend and for a while there, Throttle was okay with that, until she waltzed her sexy ass into his bar and rode him like a rodeo clown on a three-legged horse. He still could feel the tightness of her around him and he wanted more. Lots more. On a bed. With condiments like honey and chocolate syrup that he could lick off the delicious breasts until she moaned like a five-dollar whore trying to make up her rent money with a John who didn’t want to cum.

The hardness irritated him as it throbbed against his leg, thinking of the caramel-skinned beauty. He’d never had a thing for Black women. They never had a thing for him, but her, his thing liked that woman a whole lot. The aggressive throbbing reminded him just how much. Never being the type of man who enjoyed self-service, his hand slid under the covers taking hold of the gear shaft, just touching it to soothe the ache. A touch wasn’t sufficient. Getting a good grip, he began a soft stroke, massaging, rubbing, playing with the instrument to quiet it down. The faster he rubbed, the better he felt. Closing his eyes, he thought of her and the huge wiener she was trying to get in her mouth, the image taking him to the crest of pleasure. His hand moved faster. The grip tightened. A soft moan escaped his lips as his fisted hand moved up and down the shaft. Keoni. Beautiful Keoni. He was close. So close. A few more strokes and his bed would be a mess but his brain would be happy. Almost. Almost. Right there. Right there. Keoni. He whispered her name again as satisfaction loomed in the darkness of the back of his eyelids.

“Who the hell is Keoni?”

Throttle jumped, sitting straight up in the bed as the shadow of his grandfather, Poppa J, stood in the doorway. The old man was a menace to his calm. He was also a true nut buster who prevented Throttle from doing the same.

“Damn it, Poppa J!” Throttle said, feeling the blue-veined throbber wilt to its natural flaccid state.

“Stop playing with your dick and give this Keoni a call so she can do that for you,” Poppa J told his grandson. “Ain’t no need for a man to do for himself what a woman would happily do instead.”

“You are a sexist, misogynistic pain in my ass,” Throttle told the old man.

“That might be, but you don’t find me lying in bed playing with my dick every morning. I call Ruebell over to do that for me,” Poppa J offered. “At first, you know, I thought the touch of shakiness she was developing from the Parkinson’s would be a turn off, but man, let me tell you…shaking and stroking gets me there with speed.”

“You are a troubled man,” Throttle said, throwing back the covers and getting to his feet.

“No, troubling is seeing you standing there with your willie hanging out of your trousers, like its playing peek-a-boo with me or something,” Poppa J said, shuddering. Throttle ignored the taunt.

“Have you had breakfast yet, Old Man?”

“Naw, just some coffee.”

“Okay, I will cook you something,” Throttle told him. “I’m going to cook for the whole weekend and put the meals on plates for you.”

“You riding out this weekend with them bitches you call a biker gang?”

“Poppa J, not every motorcycle club can be the 1% of your past,” Throttle said to his grandpa. He liked being a member of the Legion of the Guardians versus the pussy grabbing Easy Riders his grandfather chartered locally, who made him an honorary member. He was only a member because he now owned the bar. “Going to jail isn’t any fun. I know I don’t want to be locked up with hardened criminals who enjoy fucking other men up the ass. My ass is a one-way street.”

“What the hell you know about One Percenters?” Poppa J asked. “In my day, that meant something. Now it is just a bunch of meth dealers who dabble in hillbilly heroine and run nasty women. We made a difference in our communities.”

“Yeah, Yeah,” Throttle said, slipping on a pair of pants and stepping into his slippers to go to the kitchen to make a meal for them both.

He’d heard all of the stories before. Poppa J, biker name Second Gear, was a founding member of the Gypsy Jokers back in 1969. As a young man, he and his brothers, Ralph and George, were as unalike as three men could be. George, who had a head for numbers, reluctantly became the Treasurer for the biker gang. Ralph, a natural born sociopath with strong criminal tendencies, was the mastermind. Poppa J, or James, was the muscle.

The stories were notorious about the men doing mischief and crimes. Ralph eventually ended up in jail, where he died. Poppa J moved to Georgia to start a new club that became the Easy Riders bar, which Throttle now owned and managed, and George settled in Atlanta and raised a family. The Chief Financial Officer for a bank, George had married well and had three children who barely spoke to Throttle and his other cousins, except for the occasional funeral.

The one funeral they did come to was the one for Throttle’s grandmother. It was a sad time in all their lives but George stood by his brother. Little did Throttle know that George still managed the finances for the bar. He also bought it for his brother and was a silent partner. Well, that was until Poppa J had a heart attack last year.

With Poppa J unable to live on his own, Throttle had come home from California to live with his grandfather and take over his care. At first, it pissed him off to no end that he was the one to give up his life to assume guardianship over the old man since he had other children in the area, but they were all too busy with their lives to waste time on a crotchety old man with questionable associates. They wanted to put him in a retirement home.

“He has a home, Mom,” Throttle said to his mother over the phone.

“That house is full of ghosts of possibilities and missed opportunities. Me and Denise grew up in that house,” she said. “We hated it. I still hate it. It befuddles me to no end how my mother could stand living there with those miscreant men who often said things to us which were inappropriate. Poppa J never corrected them.”

“Did you ever ask him why he never corrected their behavior?”

“Dave,” she said to her son, “it wasn’t our place to correct them. The men were guests in his home. His daughters should have been off limits by hand and by mouth.”

“Mom, did any of the men ever touch or harm you or Aunt Denise?” He asked.

“Hell no, they knew better than that,” she told him. “Poppa J would have put a bullet in their hand and then their empty head.”

“Then he did tell them his daughters were off limits,” Throttle said. “This is his home which he worked hard to keep to put a roof over your heads. It would be unfair to take all of that from him at this point in his life.”

“Fine,” she said calmly. “You bring your butt home and take care of him. If not, you can stay in California and play with your computers and games.”

“Really? Really Mom?”

“Yeah, really Dave,” she said. “That man is a menace to society. I love him, but not enough to have to wake up to him every day walking around in those sagging drawers wearing biker boots. Your sister has small children and she is unable to take him.”

“What about Aunt Denise or her kids?”

Anna Gear, the eldest of Poppa J’s children, had married well, but her younger brother, killed in a motorcycle accident, was the only male son left carrying the surname. In order for the Gear name to continue, her son would need to be a Gear. George only had daughters. It was agreed upon by she and Denise to leave the Gear name standing to pass down to their children to continue the line.

Initially, Denise didn’t agree, since she had married a famous African American actor. However, he wanted his children to have a normal life, not as the offspring of a famous person since the media would hound and splash every failure in their lives on a tabloid’s front page, and he encouraged her to name the children Gear as well.

“Those kids all have bidets in their homes,” Anna said to her son. “They don’t bother to wipe their own asses, and you think they care about wiping Poppa J’s?”

“Putting him in a home is wrong. He has all of those bikes he’s painstakingly restored and cared for over the years,” Throttle said.

“And one of those bikes is why our brother is dead and your last name is Gear instead of Simon like your father,” she said. “I feel at times it’s all my fault that you and your brother don’t get along. You being a Gear and him a Simon.”

“James and I don’t get along because he’s a selfish asshole,” Throttle said.

“True, but he is still your brother, so he is your asshole,” Anna said to her son before giving him a timeline.

That was nearly four years ago. He’d sold two of his applications to major companies and three of his video games to major distribution houses which left him on solid financial ground. Silicon Valley and the nerds with pocket protectors were getting on his nerves and the women even more so. He longed for a “real’ life, with people who were unafraid to live.

His first night in Easy Riders showed him how real people lived. Poppa J brought him into the bar to introduce him to members of the club as a Prospect, jumping over the steps of being a Hang Around and or an Associate. The next step would be as a fully patched member. Throttle was indoctrinated that same night in the Fucking Chair by a red head with pale breasts, bright pink nipples, and a juicy love muffin that smelled like cat litter. It took forever to get her stench off of him, which Poppa J thought was hilarious.

“Here,” he said in front of the men. A patch was stuck in his hand as well as the keys to the bar. “My grandboy is one of us now. He will look out for ya’ll and take care of this club in my stead. I’m old and tired and my ticker ain’t so tough. You’re in good hands.”

The five-year mark was now approaching, and Throttle was ready to sell. He hated the Fucking Chair and the fucking men who used it. The women he detested with everything in him. They showed up each week acting innocent and looking for an easy mark to threaten with a lawsuit or easy cash. Most of them, he stopped at the door. Keoni managed to get past him and lucked out for both of them. Today, he had two tasks on his mind. One, to meet with the buyer and two, go to the library.

“Poppa J, breakfast is ready,” he said, placing the scrambled egg whites and turkey sausage on the table along with whole grain English muffins. A halved grapefruit sat beside his grandfather’ plate as he took a seat and bowed his head.

“For this, O Lord, I give you thanks and praise,” Poppa J said, sliding his fork into the fluffy egg whites he hated.

James ‘Second” Gear was good like that—thankful for the small things, as well as the large sacrifice he believed his grandson made coming back to Georgia. For David Simon Gear, biker name Throttle, it wasn’t a sacrifice to do the right things for those you loved or wanted to love.

The idea of waking up next to Keoni Wiles seemed like a situation that would be just awesome to have every day of his life. She also was a tough hombre that wouldn’t shirk at a conversation with Poppa J. However, it was early, and he needed to know more about her. He couldn’t do that sitting at a table with an old man.

“Eat up, Poppa J, we are going to ride to the library,” he said to his grandfather.

“It’s bad enough you feed me egg whites and bird food paste, and now I have to go to the library?” Poppa J said, “Put me in a home,”

“Keoni works at the library,” he said.

Poppa J’s bushy eyebrows went up. Throttle was a different kind of kid. Throttle’s brother, a certifiable asshole, reminded Poppa J of his brother Ralph whom his son was named after as well. Both were dead and left a hole in the old man’s heart. But, that selfishness was in their blood, however the trait missed this Gear. He loved the boy far more than he’d loved his own son. Coming back to Georgia to take care of him and his bar was a big sacrifice, yet he never complained or appeared to be at odds with any of the family or his cranky old grandad.

“I ain’t riding on no bitch seat, so we will take the Rocketeer,” Poppa J said.

“Get showered and let me know when you are ready,” Throttle said, eating his eggs. He never really cared for the old Harley with the sidecar, but it was the best way to get his grandfather out and about. The old man was a biker. Riding in a car was an insult. Had it not been for Throttle’s mother, Poppa J would have come home from the hospital after surgery in the sidecar. The old man often said he was born to ride.

Anna wouldn’t have it. She was tough like that. Keoni reminded him a great deal of his Mama.

He liked that, too.

Throttle wasn’t about to pull up to every library in Atlanta to find Keoni. Instead he searched her first name along with “Atlanta library’ and found her quickly. It would be a ride from Underwood Hills down to the Southwest Atlanta, but Poppa J hadn’t been out of the house this week. Since Throttle would be gone all weekend, the ride would do him good.

He maneuvered through the traffic on I-75 to I-85 to Southwest Atlanta, listening to the GPS through his helmet, and located the small, drab looking building. A sense of depression covered him just standing on the outside. How such a vibrant woman could work in such a dull place was beyond his comprehension. The neighborhood seemed sketchy as well. A few homeless people loitered about the outside and a couple of teens eyeballed the bike.

“I’ll give you $20 if you keep it safe ‘til I get back,” he told the bigger of the four teen boys loitering outside.

“I could get more if I called my boys to come get it and sell it for parts,” the teen said.

Throttle took a picture of him with his phone. “If it goes missing when I go inside that building, then this photo goes to the cops, you go to jail, and you get nothing. If it is here when I get back, you get lunch money for you and your crew. Win-win, or you could just lose. Your choice.”

“Shit, $20 ain’t gone feed all four of us,” the boy said.

“Then I guess you will be eating alone,” Throttle said, walking off with Poppa J trailing behind him.

Keoni was behind the Circulation Desk when he walked in, the helmet in his hand and the scruffy old biker trailing behind him. Her eyes were focused on the old man. A familiarity hovered around him, giving her a feeling of déjà vu, as if she knew him, but had never met him before.

“Can I help you?” she asked Throttle as if she didn’t know him. He played along.

“I am interested in getting a library card for me and my Granddad so he can check out a few movies to watch this weekend while I am away at the lake,” he said. “That whole streaming thing is too much for him. Gets confusing you know.”

“Sure thing. Let me get you to fill out this card, and I need your ID,” she said to Throttle.

The old man stood back. He scrutinized everything about her from the hair to her mid-section, which was all he could see. She gave him a warm, cordial, hey-there-big-guy smile that made Poppa J shift his weight in the biker boots.

“Sir, current movies are here in this cart,” she told Poppa J. “We do have some classics like Easy Rider and Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, but there is one I think you will really like. I will get it for you soon as I finish this.”

Then she smiled at Poppa J again, and he decided right then and there that if she wanted him to watch fucking Mary Poppins, he would. The cute-as-button woman worked efficiently, providing his grandboy with a plastic tab for his key ring like they give you in the grocery story to earn fuel points.

“There you go, David Gear,” she said, distracted by how sexy he looked in the biker outfit. She looked at the name again, then back at the man, wondering how many Gears could be in Atlanta. Carlton was Black, but Throttle was not, but then again, it was the South, so anything was possible. She made a mental note to bring it up later but then her eyes drifted to the black leather clinging to his legs. The black jacket fitting loosely. The smell of sweat and leather filling her nose and soaking her undies.

Keoni came from behind the desk, asking the men to follow her as she led them to the stacks, searching for The Road to Paloma and Wild Angels. She located both, pleased to find them, and handed the selections to Poppa J.

“I think you will enjoy these,” she said. “You can check out up to five at a time. Let me know if you need anything else.”

The last part she said to Throttle. Her body hummed with excitement, wanting to touch him. Kiss him, like he had done to her last night against her car. Instead, he reached inside of his pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper.

“Yeah, here’s a list of things,” he said, giving her the sheet.

Her eyes scanned the paper, going over the items she would need to pack for the trip to the lake. It was a short list, most of which would fit nicely in a backpack, or in this case, a saddle bag.

“Got it,” she said, giving him a charming smile fueled by a twinkle in her eyes.

He only nodded as she walked away, leaving both him and Poppa J in the stacks watching her ass in the nicely fitted pair of slacks. Poppa J swallowed hard, then spoke, his voice raspy.

“Sorry I interrupted your thoughts of her this morning,” he said. “Hell, I feel like I need to go and do the same damned thing.”

“Yeah, she is something ain’t she?”

“And then some,” Poppa J said. “But why ya’ll acting like you don’t know each other?”

“She is the Branch Manager here,” Throttle said. “Her employees don’t need to know what she does on the weekends.”

“You’re a smart one. Take after your old granddad,” Poppa J said, looking at the movies he planned to watch this weekend. He even gave a good deal of consideration to asking Ruebell over for his version of flixing’ and chilling. That shaking hand of hers could be a good deal of fun. It would certainly stave off the boredom. He grinned as he took his new library card to the counter with two other movies.

The gal was cute as a button. His grandson seemed to fancy her a great deal. Poppa J closed his eyes and said a silent prayer for the two of them. Dave deserved a good woman. He just prayed that she was it. Time was running out for him and he didn’t want the boy to continue such a lonesome life.