After a bowl of Blueberry Shredded Mini-wheats, I took a quick shower. I should have put my clothes into my hamper, but I didn't have it in me. I left them on the floor of the bathroom like a lazy bum. Then I put my phone, ID, keys and money back into my purse and wallet. My phone chirped at me shortly thereafter, and I pulled it out. I saw I had a voice mail, and remembered not answering Gwendolyn’s call yesterday afternoon.
Her voice mail informed me that the police had questioned her about my break-in. She sounded worried, and I regretted not answering her call yesterday.
I hit go to dial her number. She picked up on the second ring, “Oh, Mallory! Are you okay? The police officers said you had a break-in.”
I curled up in my overstuffed armchair, “Yeah, Gwen. There was a break in, but everything’s fine now. They think it’s a case of teen-age vandalism, or maybe gang initiation activity. I have a new door, and Monday I’m going to schedule a security company consult.”
Gwen sighed, “Well that’s good to hear, honey. Though, I don’t understand why the police thought I’d know anything about it.”
“I’m sorry Gwen. It’s just that my pantry was ransacked hard. I picked up the container Greg and I stashed cash in and the officer saw me do it. He asked who knew we kept money in the pantry, and you’re the only one. He said he had to follow up. They’re just doing their job.”
“Hmm. I wouldn’t think a hundred dollars would be worth trying to steal.”
I shrugged to myself, “I don’t think thieves think anything is off limits, Gwen. But then again, I’m not a criminal, so I really wouldn’t know. Anyway, the fact that the money went untouched just makes me think it was a bunch of random teens being jerks.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re quite all right. Listen, honey, I have to go get ready for church. I’m headed to the eleven o’clock service at Lakewood Methodist.”
We hung up, and I noticed the bags from World Market where I left them. I put the teas, cookies, and wine away and put the bags in my recycle bin. Gwen’s mention of church made me think of Natasha. I decided I would call her just to leave her a voice mail, because she always turned her phone off during church.
I grabbed my phone and hit Natasha’s contact. It rang once, “Girl! Sometimes I think you’ve got the sense. I was just thinking about you. You at home?”
“Yeah. I was just calling to thank you again for yesterday. Aren’t you in church?”
“I went to the nine o’clock. We just got out, and I’m walkin’ to your house.”
“Hunh?”
Natasha giggled, “You heard me. I just crossed Staples Mill and I’m walkin’ to your house. Leon’s takin’ the boys home in the car. You don’t have Cal over there do you? I mean, if I’m not imposing, I’m damn sure not opposed to seeing him again.”
I snorted, “Uh, no. Cal is not here. In fact, Cal and I are done. D-O-N-E, done.”
“Oh, no. There’s a story there. I’m gonna put some serious pep in my step. Be at your door soon.”
So much for a late-morning nap. I went to the kitchen and put a chai latte K cup in my Keurig. I put a mug under the spout, and waited for my tea to brew. When it was finished, I put two ice cubes in my cup and set it on the counter. I looked around to see if I should straighten anything further before Natasha arrived, but then, just yesterday she helped me fix the fiasco that was my home. Suddenly, I heard the thunder of a motorcycle. Surely, it wasn’t Cal? A curl of feeling went through my stomach. I tried to ignore it, but it flared some more when the grumble of the bike seemed to be stopping at my house. I was thinking the feeling was dread, curling and flaring through my belly, but then I realized it was hope. I did not need to be hoping Cal was in my drive. Gah!
Then the sound of the bike rumbled away. Maybe Cal had caught sight of Tasha and decided to leave. Then there was a knock at my door; thank God for this impromptu visit. When I approached the front door, though, I heard Natasha was talking to someone. Someone who was female. I opened the door to find Natasha and Jackie introducing themselves to one another.
“Hi, Tasha. Um, Jackie, hi again. Not to be rude, but what are you doing here? I thought you were stuck at the compound with Volt?” I asked, as I stepped out of the way for both ladies to come inside.
The two walked inside and down the hall to the living room. Jackie turned back to me and said, “Oh, they had church. I don’t know what they did in church, but when they came out, Volt told me I could go, but he had more business to handle. I said I wanted to come here. He didn’t know where your place was, but I talked him into letting one of the prospects bring me by. What happened to your fabulous biker outfit, Mal?”
I grimaced. “Well, those were the clothes I was wearing last night, before Cal had to handle the problems at the clubhouse last night. The sweater is probably too big for you, but you’re welcome to it. My days of needing a biker outfit are done. If Cal just would have brought me home instead of taking me to the compound last night, things might have gone differently.”
Natasha, never one to miss juicy gossip, piped up, “Hold the phone, you spent another night with Cal? Is that what I just gathered? What did I tell you about calling me, chica? I gotta live vicariously through somebody, and that somebody is you!”
I sighed, “I was a little miffed at the time, and I didn’t want to interrupt your Saturday night. You guys want coffee, tea, a chai latte?”
Jackie smiled, “Sure. I could take a cup of tea. Do you have Earl Grey?”
Natasha lightly smacked Jackie’s arm, “Does she have Earl Grey! She’s got tea stocked as if the Boston Tea Party is gonna happen again even though we have great international relations with merry old England.”
Jackie’s smile turned into a sly grin. “That’s what I heard.”
“Say do what?” Natasha asked.
My eyebrow arched at Jackie, “How would you have heard? What are you really doing here, Jackie?”
Jackie tilted her head slightly, “What am I doing here? You expect me to hang out with the skanks like Trixie? Thanks, but no thanks. I have other friends, but Cal’s never let a chick on his bike. Not even when Volt needs him to get me somewhere. He takes a cage. And you two may be new to the biker scene, but that is saying something. None of the other guys are touchy like that. But Cal, it’s a constant refrain, ‘No bitches on my bike’. Then I heard Cal nearly busted a vein in his head because Vamp’s checkin’ out your ass. I liked how you were givin’ him the what-for this morning. Just what he needs.”
I nodded slightly. “Well, he’ll have to find it elsewhere. Not my deal and not my scene. No offense.”
Natasha looked at us with her big coffee-colored eyes, “Vamp the one with the gages in his ears?”
I glanced at Tasha, “Yes.”
She gave a marginal chin lift and said, “He’s out-there. The way he looked at both of us when he was here. I can tell that man is out there.”
Jackie chuckled, “You have no idea.”
Natasha’s eyes rounded. “Mmmm, now there’s a story I want to hear. Since my vicarious living won’t happen through Mal here, maybe it can happen through you!”
Jackie smiled, “I’ll dish, but over lunch. First I want to see this extensive tea selection Cal was grousing about this morning.”
Cal grousing? And about my tea stash? Weird.
Jackie changed her mind about drinking Earl Grey when she spied my Republic of Tea Blood Orange and Cinnamon tea tin. She loved her choice, which was abundantly clear when she semi-shrieked, “Ooh! This is the shit. I love cinnamon, I love orange, and who the fuck doesn’t love hot tea? Well, I suppose Volt and his brothers, but you know what I mean. Mmmm, heaven in a cup. Oooh, do you have any Fireball?”
I nearly spluttered chai latte all over the kitchen table where we were sitting. “Uh, no, hon. I don’t have any Fireball. Though, I can see where you’re coming from. It would make a nice addition, like Bailey’s in coffee.”
Jackie pointed a long thin finger at me which had a well-filed fire engine red fingernail at the end, “See! I knew you were my kinda gal. What time is it? Is this World Market joint open? I wanna go there, stat.”
Natasha grinned. “You ain’t got to twist Mallory’s arm for a trip to World Market. They ought to give her an assigned parking space, she’s there so much.”
I pouted at her, “I’m not that bad.”
After tea, I carted Jackie and Natasha in my Camry over the bridge to Mandarin, and Jackie declared we had to go to Chili’s for lunch. Mama Fu’s, my go-to eatery when on the prowl to World Market, was right next door, but apparently Jackie had a hankering for a mango margarita. Needless to say, after a night consisting of a Mossfire margarita and three tequila shots with Cal, I did not have the same hankering. Once Jackie and Natasha had their mango 'ritas, and I had a mojito, Jackie gave us the dirt on Vamp. From a single story, it became clear that Vamp was a top notch, no holds barred, man-whore. I tuned out of the conversation when a request for a sex swing or two in the compound common room came up. Part of me wanted to like Vamp, but after this morning, it wasn’t likely I’d ever see him again. Plus, he was probably right about me. I like to think I’m a laid-back kind of chick, but at the same time I have a strong will. This means that even though I try to go with the flow, I can come across as a little high-strung or demanding. I was clearly too tightly-wound and prudish. It was just the way Vamp spoke to me and looked at me that made me reluctant to trust him.
Our food arrived and conversation died down as we dug in. I had just popped another piece of margarita chicken in my mouth when Natasha asked, “So, you told me on my way to your house you were and I quote ‘D-O-N-E with Cal’. You sure that’s the best move?”
Jackie had her fajita half way to her mouth and said, “Ooh! I hadn’t heard that exactly. What prompted that? Do tell.”
I swallowed and said, “Oh, let’s see, being quarantined in Cal’s room at the compound, then finding out that Cal had sorted out whatever cluster was going on there around 10:30, but he doesn’t come back until after one a.m. Then when he did return, Cal was all caveman-like and insisting I do not one, but three shots of tequila with him at one thirty-six in the morning. Then I get up starvin' like Marvin and make my way to the toaster and encounter Trixie. She gives me lip about how I won’t get any of the ‘good ones’ wearing so many clothes. Cal got in her face, like got in her face, and then some dude told Cal he was out of line and to put me in my place. I gave him a dirty look and he said, if Cal didn’t do it, he would. And that place would be in between him and Cal in a threesome.”
Natasha’s mouth was wide open. She threw back a healthy swig of her margarita and said, “I cannot even imagine your face when that guy said that!”
I nodded. “Neither can I, but then Cal covered my mouth when I was mid-rant at that guy, and then he like frog marched me out of the room and back to his room. I lost it at that point. I told him I was calling an Uber or walking to the bus stop on Blanding.”
Jackie let out a loud, gut busting laugh, “I would love to have been a fly on the wall for that. You are the shit, Mallory.”
I rolled my eyes. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Then he decided he would take me home, calling me a headcase no less, and we went out the back. We met you and Volt. He took me home. I told him he’s not my type, and he told me that I don’t get it. I asked how promiscuous he is and should I be concerned about mouth sores, which was fairly insulting, but seriously, he never answered my question about who was yelling outside his door when we got there last night.”
To this Jackie nodded. “That might’ve been Melissa. She’s a biker groupie who’s wanted Cal forever. He’s never even touched her to my knowledge, though he’s not hard-pressed for female companionship by any means.”
I shrugged, “Well, good luck to her, because she can have him. He finally came around to my way of thinking and started spoutin’ off about my World Market cookies and stuff. And did I tell you, he had the gall to say that I have Gavin, James and Bobby eating out of my hand?!”
Natasha chirped, “You do.”
“I do not!”
Natasha grabbed my hand on the table, “Honey. You’ve known those boys since college. They’re the reason you met Greg. If they didn’t force your ass to trivia every week, they’d probably only see you when you need handy-work done.”
Shaking my head, I said, “That’s not true.”
“Fine, but what is true is that those three guys wouldn’t nag your ass about weekly trivia if you didn’t have them eating out of your hand.”
Jackie’s cell phone rang, “Hello? Oh, hey, Cal. How’s it goin’?”
Jackie’s lips tightened up. “I’m at Chili’s. Where are you? Just curious, you on your bike? Oh, really. Well, that would be because we’re at a different Chili’s.”
Suddenly, Jackie thrust her phone toward me; I took it. “Hi, Cal.”
His gruff response was, “Did you seriously take Jackie to the Chili’s on Wells Road instead of the one here at Oakleaf?”
“No. We’re at the one in Mandarin. Jackie wants to go to World Market. She heard from you about my tea and cookies.”
Cal blew out a breath. “You’re takin’ her to World Market?”
“I did not lie when I said it is the best store in town,” I don’t know why I did it, but I had to needle Cal. So I said, “I’m also going to return the sweater I was wearing last night, since SteinMart is right here.”
Cal semi-chuckled. “Gonna be a trick, since the sweater is still sittin’ on the floor of your bathroom.”
How would he know that? There was only one logical answer to that, “What the hell were you doing in my house?”
“Cool your jets, woman. I needed to give you the key to your new backdoor. Forgot to do it yesterday. Plus, Volt wanted me to pick up his old lady. Two birds, one stone. I didn’t get an answer at the door, thought your car might have been moved into the garage. Decided to go inside and leave the key behind. Then I called Volt to tell him his old lady wasn’t here, and he had just gotten a text about Chili’s. Which brings me to Oakleaf.”
My blood was boiling. He went in my house when I wasn’t there and he had been in my bathroom! He called me ‘woman’ again! He was coming to collect Jackie for Volt. Was that how things worked in his world? Caveman wants woman back in cave, he or his fellow caveman goes and gets woman. No, thank you.
“Sorry, you’ll have to take a cage over the Buckman Bridge.”
“Nope. I’m done. She’s on the other side of the river, Volt or a prospect can pick her ass up.”
The line was exceptionally silent. I looked at the phone and Cal had indeed hung up. I gave Jackie back her phone.
“How’d he get in your house, Mal?” Natasha asked.
“The MF-er had a key to the new backdoor. Guess I need to add a locksmith to my list.”
Jackie giggled, “It won’t matter. All the boys got picks.”
She mentioned this like all the guys had toothbrushes.
“Aren’t picks illegal?” I asked.
Natasha shot me a look, “Mal! Is there a little number 1 and a percentage sign on his cut?”
“I don’t know. I think so.”
Jackie said, “Well, I know so, and there surely is a one-percenter patch on the Riot MC cuts.”
“That means, he’s an outlaw, chica. He ain’t gonna much care that lockpicks are illegal.”
“Natasha, how do you know about this stuff?”
“Go binge watch Sons of Anarchy. You’ll be hip in no time.”
Jackie was shaking her head, “No! Don’t do that. Hang out with me more, I’ll get you guys with the lingo, and it will be much more authentic. Hollywood can’t be trusted for shit, you know. By the way, he was totally driving a cage, not his bike. You must be special.”
I thought I was going to dodge the bullet on dissecting the thing with Cal, but Natasha said, “Let’s get back to you and Cal. You gotta re-think breaking it off because he’s not your type.”
Again Jackie was adamantly shaking her head. “No way. Stick to your guns. That’s what I did with Volt. These bikers are infuriating, and I should know. Besides, there was something about his tone when he asked to speak to you. You get to him.”
“I’ll be sticking to my guns all right. You can count on it.”
Jackie beamed at me. Natasha just shook her head.
After lunch and shopping on Sunday with Tasha and Jackie, my life went back to normal. I went to work and I came home. Day in, day out. I knew that Cal and I would not work out. But I had no idea why I was in a funk about it. Every time I passed a motorcycle on the road, I looked at the rider to see if he was wearing a cut. Before, I never cared. I mean, I looked twice for motorcycles and all that safe-driver jazz. Now, I was paying far too much attention. Deep down, I wanted the next motorcycle that pulled up beside me to have Cal on it.