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I rolled through campus and parked my car. I heaved my bag out of the back and stowed my phone away in my back pocket. With my headphones in my ears, still listening to lectures, I made the trek across campus. Breaking a sweat in my jeans and my long-sleeved shirt just to get back to my dorm room before night fell.
And hopefully, before the bikes came out. So I could catch an unimpeded glimpse from my dorm room window.
You’re hopeless, Dani.
I dragged my things into the elevator, huffing and puffing for air. I pressed the button for the top floor and closed my eyes, ready to be back in the safety of my dorm bed. The only other place I felt even remotely comfortable was in my dorm room. And as terrible as it sounded, I hoped and prayed Hannah wasn’t in there.
Because I knew she’d try to drag me off to some party.
“Please don’t be there. Please don’t be there. Please don’t be there.”
I breathlessly chanted it down the hallway as I came to my room. I threw the door open, my heart sinking when I found it unlocked. I dragged my bag in and pulled the headphones out of my ears, preparing myself for the onslaught of convincing she’d need to get me to go anywhere tonight.
The room was empty.
“Hannah?”
I pulled my phone out and paused the lecture recordings as I gazed around the room.
“Hannah, you here?”
I closed the room door and locked it for safe measure. Then I made a mental note to talk to her about leaving the door unlocked when she was gone. I hoisted my bag onto my bed, preparing myself to unpack. To dig around for my books and settle in for a night of studying in my pajamas while listening to more lectures through my headphones.
My eyes kept gravitating toward my laptop, though.
“Dang it,” I murmured.
I tossed my phone on top of my bag and dug out my laptop. I flopped down at my desk and quickly hooked it up to the charger I had forgotten to bring home with me. I knew if I didn’t do anything about it now, it would simply eat away at me for the rest of the night. Being back on campus heightened the memory of Max. Thoughts were already spinning about him, including that steamy kiss.
I brought my fingertips to my lips as my laptop chimed to life.
“All right. Let’s see what you’ve got for me,” I murmured.
My fingers flew across the keyboard as I sat there, searching every keyword I knew that might come up with more information on Max.
Red Thorns.
Red Thorns motorcycle.
Motorcycle clubs in Ann Arbor
Max Red Thorns
Motorcycle gangs
The last search result was what yielded the most information to me. And even still, it wasn’t what I wanted. After clicking through articles and blogs with red cursive writing and even Wikipedia articles for crews and gangs and tattoo symbols, I knew more about the culture than I ever wanted to know. I learned about gang tattoos. How different symbols and different pictures meant different things. I learned about the hierarchy of crews like that. A president, a vice president, a club arranger and a road guide. Or something like that. I read about meetings they held, called ‘church’ or sometimes a ‘gathering.’ I learned about prospects and initiation and how men like this usually made money.
And none of what I read sounded good.
After two hours of reading through all of this stuff, my head spun with so many things. Initiation traditions and hazing. How to leave a motorcycle club and all the terrible things that happened to a person if they tried. Why gangs like this were stereotypically made of men and why they treated people the way they did. How crews like this came into being in the first place and how they funded themselves.
I didn’t get what I was after, though.
Which was more information on Max.
I rolled my lips over my teeth. I could still taste him, even weeks later. How was that possible? How was it possible to feel this way and be so obsessed with a man who called me names? With a man who entertained company like this? With a man who clearly lived outside the law--or at least within the gray area of it?
Why did he treat me so cruelly if he didn’t strike me as a cruel person?
