Mona Myers was not like most girls. At the age of eight, she had ridden on the back of a motorcycle with her father for the first time, and though she never got her own bike or claimed to be a ‘biker,’ she grew up finding that the people who inhabited the world in which her father lived and breathed were the best kind of people to surround herself with. At the age of twenty-seven, she was tall, lean and muscular with a pixie cut dyed black with blonde highlights in her slightly-too-long bangs. She had two tattoos, one on each arm, and if a day went by that she wasn’t wearing black it was a sign that something was up.
On the day in question, she was wearing a pair of dark jeans and a green t-shirt that her father had given her when she was in high school. It clung to her chest and sat on her weirdly, too tight for her fully-grown and matured frame, but today she had to wear it. Today was the day she would bury her father.
Benny Myers was more than a founding member of the Running Hill Motorcycle Club – one of the biggest, most well-respected racing motorcycle clubs in not just Detroit, but all of the US. Along with being Mona’s dad, he quickly became everyone’s father figure and best friend from the moment they entered his group. Benny built the riders many years before Mona was born, and carried the group until it grew to its forty-person size, structured as innocently as a ladies’ yacht club but functioning much more like a family of misfits, knitted close by loss and hardship. Because of this, Mona wasn’t the only person who took Benny’s death badly, and it comforted her to know that she would be surrounded by her motorcycle club family as they shared in her grief and sorrow at the loss of such a great guy.
Mona worked at a bar that was a popular haunt of the Running Hill Riders for many obvious reasons. She was the owner and bartender; the drinks were half-price for members of the club; the music there was always loud and good. No one ever had to punch the jukebox or pay a waiter to change the song. The aptly named Hog’s Grogs was the riders’ meeting spot, a place to unwind, and more or less, a second home to all of them.
On the morning of her father’s funeral, she stood behind the bar, doing her best to keep it together while she waited for her friends in the club to arrive.
The first familiar face to show up was Ryan Kirby. He was a sight for tear-filled eyes. Biting her lip, Mona gave him a smile and a friendly nod. She hadn’t seen Ryan in years. He’d been badly injured in a race about a year ago and had been on the mend ever since. She’d sent flowers and cards to him while he healed. Now that her father was gone, Mona was thinking of making Ryan the new leader of the Running Hill Riders. If it had anything to do with the giant crush she had on him, she was never going to admit that out loud.
Ryan Kirby was tall and devilishly handsome, with black hair, green-blue eyes and a sharp chin that he liked to keep covered in a close-cut beard. He had dimples when he smiled, so he did his best to never smile when he was in a race, lest people not take him seriously as a competitor. He was thirty-two years old and had been a part of the club for twelve years. Mona had adored him for just about all of those years. He smirked when he came into the Hog’s Grogs and saw her there. “Hey there, gorgeous.”
Before she could go towards him or say anything, they were interrupted by the arrival of several of the others – including, quite possibly, the worst member of the motorcycle club.
“Ryan? Ryan Kirby?”
Ryan had appeared to be all set to hug Mona and console her, but he froze as a man spoke from somewhere behind him.
He turned toward the voice numbly, clearly holding out hope that he was wrong about the speaker even as his eyes rested upon Lance Olsen — as angular, pale and freckled as ever, but slightly more broad than he’d been the last time they met. Mona’s mind flashed back to the last time the two young men had met up, and she had to suppress a smile; they’d been racing down the city’s smallest hill, and Lance’s bike had stalled unexpectedly, sending him tumbling onto the pavement, his pride more bruised than his knees.
“Hey, Lance,” Ryan said, trying to keep his voice light. “How are you?”
Lance grinned, flashing a silver cap on one of his front teeth that glinted under the glowing yellow lights of the bar. “Much better now, especially since I changed up my ride.”
He nodded his red head toward a cherry colored Harley leaning against a glowing street lamp outside.
Mona scoffed at him. “You’ve finally upgraded to the big boy bikes, then?”
Lance’s smug look faded. He was known for being fond of smaller, Japanese models of racing bikes when he joined the club about three years ago. Benny had been reluctant to invite him in; Lance was a cocky jerk. Mona couldn’t deny that. If it had been up to her at the time, she would have denied him entry. But now that Benny was gone, she couldn’t make such a rash change without angering more than just Lance. Her father trusted her to do right by the club. She was its owner now, by rights, but she was no biker. She didn’t know how to go about choosing racers for the team.
Lance looked from Mona to Ryan and the grin returned. “You up for a practice run later today? Ten bucks towards the club says I can beat you.”
“We’re a charity racing club, not the kind that just races along residential neighborhoods,” Mona argued.
He pointed a long index finger at her without looking her in the face again. “You stay out of this, bar wench. The men are talking.”
Ryan kicked aside a chair. “I’ll never be afraid of racing you, Lance. Ever.”
Lance’s smile widened, and he lowered himself into a chair at a table by the front door, his muddy brown eyes glinting with malice. “Sure, Ryan. Just come get me when you’re done fluffing up your feathers.”
Ryan bunched his hand into a fist, seconds away from breaking Lance’s freckled nose—
“That’s enough, boys!” Mona shouted, hitting her rag against the bar’s countertop. That alone wasn’t threatening but she had banned people from her bar before and was not above banning members of the club if they got too violent in her establishment. “Ryan, don’t forget that you have been arrested for fighting once in your life, peaceful and cool-headed though you may seem.”
Guiltily regarding the fine, wooden floor of Mona Myers’s bar, Ryan nodded and sat down at the bar. She did her best to contain herself that he’d chosen to sit close to her, though it wasn’t so surprising. Compared to Lance, anyone would want to sit by the level-headed daughter of their late leader.
Lance was the newest and youngest member of their gaggle of misfits. He was twenty-nine years old, but one wouldn’t know it to look at him or observing him in conversation. Because he was a rather green racer, he took losses hard and far too personally, and the loss of the group’s de facto leader was one he apparently hadn’t learned to deal with.
Ryan was baffled; his temporary departure from the riding club had gone very smoothly for the most part, but he hadn’t anticipated the flak he eventually caught from some of the younger, lower-ranking members. Most of them settled for making him the butt of ‘friendly’ ribbing that targeted his masculinity or even his dashing good looks, and that he could handle; he was less able to deal with the aggressive, strangely leading questioning that Lance preferred.
Now that Ryan was back in the motorcycle seat, Mona hoped that he would get everything back in order with the club. Several of the members had been absent lately and many of their charity races had gone with only one or two members racing. Benny’s ideal motorcycle club involved racers who knew their bikes and knew how to win. Their winnings earned money for military hospitals and families who had lost loved ones in combat. Sure, a lot of motorcycle riding was fun and games, but it was a sport that Benny took seriously. It wasn’t about being cocky or being the best to him; it was about following the rules and being the fastest.
Their races were performed largely as exhibitions at things like air shows and festivals. They were performed on race tracks. Benny did not condone street racing of any kind, which was why Lance’s roughhousing on the road was a problem for Mona. She was not good at being an authority figure. That was one of the many reasons that she was glad to have Ryan back around.
Now that the two boys had settled down and more and more of the other members of the Running Hill Riders were present, they could get started with their memorial service.
“Dad loved you all,” Mona said as she stood on the bar, looking as many of them in the eye as possible as her eyes scanned the large room full of leather-clad men. “He loved racing, too, and nothing would please him more than to know that we are going to continue on in his mission statement. We are going to participate in as many fundraisers and biking performances as we can possibly fit into a schedule. And we are going to do it… FOR BENNY!”
“FOR BENNY!” everyone else chanted in unison.
Everyone drank beer and celebrated the life of Benjamin Myers that morning. Mona and her workers did her father proud in the wining and dining department long into the night. Everyone seemed to take notice and appreciate all of her efforts and hard work getting the whole gang back together for this event.
No one noticed half as much as Ryan.