We did the trip in two sets of two hours each before we reached Jayna’s hometown. It was a small place, hardly a place worth noticing on the map, and it looked like it belonged on a postcard.
We stopped at a gas station on the main road just as we entered the town. It was a little oasis in the middle of the desert, with a square grid of roads from what I could tell and gardens that had green grass thanks to excessive watering.
“This place is nothing like LA,” Jayna said when we stood next to the bike, drinking water. “I don’t know how to explain to you how different it is.”
She looked nervous. Maybe it was because she was seeing her parents. I could see how different it was from LA. Everything was small, as if was a model built to scale, the kind of place where everyone knew everyone and you couldn’t have a scandal in your life and get away with it without everyone knowing about it.
“It looks great, Jayna,” I said to her, and kissed her.
She nodded. “It’s difficult to think that I grew up here. I drive in here now and it all seems so familiar, but at the same time I feel like I’m a stranger to this town. You know how you watch a show on TV and you miss a season, and when you watch again you’re aware of how much everyone has changed when you didn’t keep track?”
I shook my head. I sort of understood what she was trying to say, but I didn’t generally watch television. I was always too busy doing things that weren’t exactly legal or running after people that had screwed me over.
Having said that, I wanted to change. I wanted to the be the wholesome kind of person that could fit into a place like this. I could see where Jayna got her purity from, her innocence and her small town goodness. The planes of Arizona and the fact that everyone knew who you were would do that to you.
I wasn’t sure if I would be able to live in a place like this. Of course, that wasn’t up for debate at this point, but I liked to think that a part of me could fit into Jayna’s life at least. A part of me that might be able to stay with her forever. If we combined our lives into something good but still wild, maybe we could make it work. I really wanted to make it work with her.
Jayna looked around and then pointed in a direction.
“If you go down the road and then turn right you find the schools. Two of them, and they’re right next to each other, so it’s like you spent your whole life in one school. And all the people went with you. Unless you were kept back a year, you were with the same kids in your class every year until you graduated.”
“I can’t imagine that.”
She shrugged. “It’s hard when you fight with your best friend or break up with a guy just after junior prom, because you end up facing the same people for years and years. You learn to own up to your mistakes, accept what’s happened, and not to burn bridges.”
I nodded. That made a lot of sense. In fact, it made me think that being in a small town like this made you stronger as a person. There were so many misgivings about people who grew up in small towns. Maybe it was better to start thinking about them as heroes, not country folk that didn’t know which way was up.
“We have to get going.”
Jayna nodded and swallowed. “Not everything around here is great, but when you grow up here, it’s nice.”
I smiled and put my hand on her cheek. “I’m sure it’s amazing. I like it here, okay? And I like you, so anything that took part in making you this way is already in my good books.”
She looked like she visibly relaxed and pulled on her helmet before getting back on the bike. This was the last little stretch. I started the bike and we drove down the road. The road was narrow with a speed limit on it that I hardly ever stuck to even in residential areas - and this was a main road. Trees grew on both sides of the road, trees with trunks so thick they must have been planted here fifty years ago or more. The whole scenery was spectacular.
We drove into the residential area - only one as far as I could tell because this place wasn’t very big - and the houses all had the same old feel to them. They were all well-maintained, though, and the streets were clean, the gardens well-manicured, and everything looked like it came from a real estate brochure.
I couldn’t help noticing that there were no bikers around here, no corners that held foreboding, and I was sure that there were no people that looked for trouble. I imagined the kind of people living here to all be on the right side of the law.
Maybe it was time I had people like that in my life. People who weren’t always running, people that I could aspire to be like. It sounded weird that a badass person like me, who had everything in the world and did anything to get it, would want a role model, but there it was. Hell, even Jayna was someone I looked up to.
I had money. I had put so much away in different bank accounts and around my house in safes, that I had what I needed if I wanted to make a life change. I could keep myself - and Jayna - and sustain us for long enough that I had time to find a job that wasn’t exactly wrong. Besides that, since Akira had been caught, everything she’d done had come out. As a result, the entire club had come to me. They’d told me they were sorry for betraying me. I forgave them, but I wasn’t going to just rely on them. If it took one pretty face to get them to mistrust me, what else would they follow instead of me? But I did have an opportunity to get a job with them if I wanted it. Having plan B was the peace of mind that I needed if I wanted to change everything.
The truth was that I could see myself with Jayna, making a life in a town like this. Maybe not this town specifically because it would make her uncomfortable, but getting out of the city and making a new life somewhere else where no one knew me and I could start over again seemed like a grand idea. The concept of wiping my slate clean became more and more enticing the more I had to do with Jayna. The very essence of who she was inspired me to be a better person.
We arrived at her parents place only a couple of minutes later. The place was exactly how I imagined it to be. It was a quaint house, one story only, with a garden three times the size of what anyone needed and it looked like someone - probably her mother - took pride in it. The house was a deep terracotta color with brown windows and doors, and it looked like the kind of place that had been well lived in.
I parked the motorcycle, and Jayna slid off. She made a small complaining sound, and I knew her legs were stiff. The front door opened, and a man with gray hair in a short crew cut stepped out of the house. He wore khaki pants, a collared t-shirt with a jersey knotted over his shoulders like any retired man, but he had square shoulders, an upright stance, hands clasped behind his back and eyes that didn’t miss anything. This man had some form of training in some kind of armed forces. I was guessing Army or Navy.
I wondered if I had to be nervous about him. He looked at me with a death stare, but his face softened when he saw Jayna. The smile that spread over his face changed his whole demeanor.
“Daddy!” Jayna called out. She skipped up the steps and wrapped her arms around the old man’s shoulders. I was guessing he was the parent she favored.
“Who is it, Harry?” A woman stepped out behind the man on the porch. She wore a floral dress with an apron and her hair was in loose curls over her shoulders, streaked with gray but essentially the same blond as Jayna. When I put the two together, I could see exactly where she’d come from.
Jayna put her arms around her mom, too, and then turned around and looked for me, frowning when I was still at the bike. I was a little nervous to go in there. There was so much of me that they could reject. I was everything but a respectable gentleman. I’d worked hard all my life to look like a badass, and I was so good at it now that I was scared it was all they could see. Still, I swallowed and walked through the gate. I would toughen up and meet the parents. I wasn’t scared to go into dog fights alone, be attacked by dogs, take videos that would expose them, tackle someone with a gun to the floor. But I was terrified of meeting Jayna’s parents. It was ironic.
When I stepped onto the porch Jayna wrapped her arms around mine and leaned into me. At least, it made me feel like someone wanted me there, even if it was just her. Even if her parents decided never to like me - and judging by the way they were looking at me I was preparing myself for that - I would always have her on my side.
That was all I needed to get through life and die happy.
“I want you both to meet Dax. I met him in LA and we’ve been through... quite an adventure together.”
An adventure was right. If she told them everything, I knew what it would look like - it would be all my fault. My ex, my dog, my life. Everything about me that had gotten Jayna into so much trouble it had threatened her life. Why would good, down to earth people agree with their daughter having a man like me in her life?
Her mother held out her hand.
“It’s nice to meet you, uh... Dax. You can call me Lacey.”
I shook her hand. “The pleasure is all mine.”
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes and I was scared that she disapproved. I turned to her dad. Harry. His eyes were deep gray and the color of slate. I couldn’t read his face at all; the first thing I thought was that this man would be a hell of a poker player. I fought the urge to squirm like a kid as a trickle of sweat ran down my back.
I swallowed hard and held out my hand. The man took it and shook it, a hard, firm squeeze that I tried to mirror. He looked at me a moment longer, and then his face broke into a smile.