They were a few hours from Boston before they stopped at a Waffle House and Chopper told Chelsea they would be meeting up with the rest of the “crew” in Ohio. Now that she stood in the bathroom, she told herself she should have known that most of the MC would be going on this trip, but it had all happened so quickly, and she hadn’t given herself much time to think about it, if any at all.

Chelsea had been devastated when her mother called and changed their plans for the weekend. She had four days off. That never happened on a weekend when she had plans to go to her parents’ ranch. She was going to leave on Saturday morning, be there by noon, and have almost three full days. She felt like she couldn’t breathe for a few seconds when she ended the call. Then she thought about how badly she wanted a drink. Then she called up the memory of a phone number she hadn’t used in over three years. It was probably a moot point now anyway. She doubted it would be the same number. Thank God, because it was the number of one of Wayne’s friends, the guy that used to supply her with uppers and downers and whatever else Wayne handed her along with a beer or a shot to wash them down. Then suddenly it dawned on her that she had a perfect distraction standing right behind her, and just like that she’d agreed to go on a nineteen-hundred-mile motorcycle trip with a biker she’d known for less than twelve hours. Now she sighed and looked at her face in the mirror of the Waffle House bathroom. It was things like this that her mother, her father, her sponsor, and her counselor, warned her about. Her impulsiveness would either lead her back into a life of addiction, or it would get her killed…or both.

A knock on the door brought her back to reality and made her realize just how long she’d been standing there staring at herself. She sighed again and opened the door. The woman outside gave her a look that said “Finally,” and rushed past her. Chelsea continued to stand next to the bathroom door even after the woman closed it. She could see Chopper’s profile from where she stood. He was staring out the window. She assumed he was watching his chopper since he’d made a big deal about having to park it close by and sit in a booth where he could see it. Chelsea looked from him back to the exit door. He wouldn’t see her if she left and unless he came looking for her in the bathroom, she could be in a cab and on her way home before he caught up with her. It would be a fucking expensive cab, but how the hell was she going to spend a weekend with dozens of bikers? Party was their middle name. They drank, they smoked, and if everything she’d ever heard was true, they did a lot of drugs too. Chelsea was sober, partially because she stayed away from temptation. Until yesterday, she hadn’t stepped into a bar for years. She didn’t go to parties where she knew people would be drinking a lot. She didn’t hang out with the people from the coffeehouse that she knew smoked weed. She wasn’t sure she was strong enough to be around it. She couldn’t take the chance. She had too much to lose. She turned left instead of right when she got to the counter and hit the outer door. She decided once she got outside it would be safer to walk a few blocks before catching a cab, and she was making her way across the street…safely and in the crosswalk…when she heard the sound of a motorcycle. Thinking it odd that Chopper had caught up with her so quickly, she turned around, just in time to see the bike coming right at her, and it wasn’t a chopper, and Justice was not the man driving it.

Chelsea screamed and dove toward the sidewalk. There was a man there waiting to cross, and when she hit the ground, he stepped between her and the oncoming bike. The man on the bike turned the wheel at the last second, just missing the man who had chosen to protect her. Chelsea could feel the burn of the cement on the side of her face and for a few seconds she just lay there, dazed and confused.

“Miss? Are you okay?” The concern in the man’s voice caused her to push up on her arms. She hadn’t sat up all the way before she heard Chopper’s voice:

“Chelsea!”

She looked up at the man above her and tried to manage a smile.

“I’m okay, thank you.”

“Chelsea! What the fuck happened…!” Chopper was squaring off in front of the guy who had helped her, and Chelsea realized he thought the man had done something to her.

“Chopper, I’m okay. He helped me.” The muscles in his arms were visibly tense as he towered over the poor good Samaritan. He was still staring at the poor guy, so Chelsea reached up and put her hand on his arm and said, “Help me up. I’m okay because of him.” She felt his arm begin to relax underneath her hand and he finally turned toward her and helped her up. He was holding her in his arms and looking down at her with the type of concern for her she hadn’t seen in anyone’s eyes other than her parents’.

“What the hell happened? Why did you leave?”

“Should I call the cops?” the man, who was now standing behind Chopper, asked.

Chopper turned to look at him and Chelsea said, “No!” No way did she want any part of a police report. Even if she was the victim, she didn’t want that on file. “No,” she said, more calmly. “I’m okay and I didn’t get a license plate or anything. Did you?”

“No,” he said. “It happened too fast.” Chopper was looking back and forth between them and he looked frustrated as hell.

“What happened?”

She tightened her grip on him and looked into his eyes, trying to calm him, and she said, “I’ll tell you back at the restaurant, okay? Can we just go back over there, please?” He looked back at the man, still seemingly suspicious of him. “Chopper, he saved my life, okay? He risked his own to save mine.”

He nodded slowly, and then held out his hand toward the man. The man looked relieved as he took it. The two men shook hands and Chopper said, “Here, let me give you something…” Chelsea was shocked when she saw he was reaching for his wallet. The man realized what he was doing too and said:

“Oh no, man. No way. I just did what any decent person would do. I’m glad you’re okay, miss. I should take off now if you don’t need anything else from me?”

“No, thank you so much,” Chelsea told him.

“Yeah,” Chopper said. “Thanks.” They watched the man walk away and then Chopper took her hand and said, “Are you really okay? Your face is bruising. Did you hit your head?”

“No,” she told him with a gentle smile. It was sweet how concerned he was, if not slightly uncomfortable because she wasn’t used to it. “I didn’t hit my head. I’m okay, promise. Let’s go back to the restaurant.”

They walked in silence across the street and Chopper didn’t ask any questions until they had ordered their coffee and waffles. Once they finally had their food he said, “Okay, now please tell me where you were going and what happened.”

Chelsea took a deep breath and said, “I’m a recovering addict.” He cocked an eyebrow but stayed silent. “I haven’t touched anything in three years. Yesterday was the first time I even came that close. I’ve just kind of been having a hard time lately. When you mentioned the rest of the Skulls a little while ago, it really set in to me what I’d agreed to here…what I might be getting myself into. I’m not sure I’m strong enough to be around all of that, Chopper. I panicked, and I ran. I was going to take a cab and go home.”

He stared at her for a long time. She sat there, trying to figure out what he was thinking, but his face was impassive. Impatiently, she waited and at last he said, “I won’t lie to you, alcohol will be everywhere…weed too…no hard drugs, though, Dax doesn’t allow that. But I understand if you don’t want to be around it. We have a fairly new recruit and he’s on the wagon too. Has been for about a year or so. It took him a while before he was able to be around it. He tells me that he still wants a drink every time he sees one or smells one. But he also told me that he wants one even when he doesn’t sometimes. So, I understand, and I won’t ask you to do anything that would get in the way of three years of sobriety, Chelsea. That’s impressive, really.” She was shaking inside, either from the experience of nearly being run over again, or the confession…she wasn’t sure which. Her words came out shaky when she said:

“Thank you.”

“I’ll take you home if you want to go, though. Please don’t take a cab. But first, will you tell me what the hell just happened over there? Did you run out in front of a car or…?”

“No,” she said, slightly offended. “I’m really not in the habit of running out in front of cars or bikes.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just trying to figure out what happened.”

“I was crossing in the crosswalk, legally. I was almost to the other side and the guy that was there. He’d just stopped at the edge of the sidewalk. I heard a motorcycle behind me and I thought it was you coming after me. I turned and looked over my shoulder and this guy on a bike was coming right at me.”

“He was trying to hit you?”

She shuddered. “I’m not sure, but yeah, that’s what it looked like. Chopper, I think it was the same guy. The one that was following me last night.”

“Fuck! What kind of bike was he on?” He was taking his phone out of his pocket.

“What are you going to do?”

“The guys are just a few hours ahead of us. If this asshole is on his way to Sturgis too, we’re going to find him.”

“Chopper, I don’t want to get you guys involved…”

“Involved in what, Chelsea? Do you know this guy?”

She pictured him and heard him saying her name. She didn’t recall either his face or his voice, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know him. There were a lot of men in her past Wayne had brought into her life that she didn’t remember, either because she was wasted, or too ashamed. But she couldn’t tell Chopper that part. It was way too soon for that.

“No, I don’t think so,” she said. “But last night before he started chasing me, he said my name.”

“Fucker. He’s going to be sorry.”

“Chopper, really…the last thing I want is to cause trouble for you.”

“Won’t be any trouble. The fucker is bold when you’re alone, but his chickenshit ass disappears any time a real man, like the guy that helped you, or like me is around. I need you to tell me everything you remember about this guy, what he looks like, what his bike looks like…then if you want to go home still, I’ll make sure you get there safely.”

Chelsea stared at him, partially astounded that someone who barely knew her would be so willing to help. Part of her was terrified that by helping her he’d either get hurt or he’d find out more about her than she wanted him to know. Part of her wanted to just go home and forget about all of it. But Chopper didn’t seem like he was going to be dissuaded from helping her, and her odds of controlling what came out about her would be better if she was there when it did. “I’ll go to Sturgis,” she said. Before he could react to that, she started describing the stalker. She could visualize his face perfectly and she described him to Chopper in detail. His bike was a Harley, but not a nice one, an older one, she thought. She didn’t know much about bikes, but his face she would remember, and that look in his eyes, like he hated her.