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“Will you be living with us?” She asked with excitement. “That would be so cool. They would like you and they’d adopt you and I would have you as my brother.”
I had no idea how to answer her. I couldn’t play along or her dreams of being with me forever would be dashed. I just smirked and left it at that.
***
Lunch - check
Laptop and Robux - check
Chai Tea and five potty breaks - check
Emilie was settled into the sidecar as I packed the saddlebags with my purchase. “Can I have my laptop now?” Emilie called out.
“It needs to be charged and you need wi-fi. So, no you need to wait until we get to the hotel tonight.” It wasn’t the answer she wanted judging by the groan, but she had to accept it. She also knew better than to ask for it now.
When I climbed on the bike, Emilie asked, “Hey, Jensen, do you want to meet Bimmickey?”
“Who?” She held up a stuffed brown monkey with a price tag on it. “Where did he come from?”
“The store. He told me he wanted to be my friend and asked if I could take him home.”
I shifted my body and leaned against the handlebar, “Can you open your backpack for me?”
“No. Pink Bunny is sleeping.”
“Emilie Elise?” I commanded as gently as I could muster for now, as I was losing my patience with this child. “Please open your backpack!” I cursed under my breath as she pulled out Pink Bunny, along with another stuffed animal. Emilie gave me a sheepish grin and closed the backpack, hugging it close to her body. “Emilie?”
She groaned and muttered, “Fine.” She reopened it and closed it quickly, followed by laughter. “I got me snacks for the road. Want some beef jerky? I got it for you. I don’t like it: it hurts my teeth, and I don’t like meat snacks.” It wasn’t until she pulled out a jar of pickles that I lost it and burst out laughing at the notion that I wasn’t the only outlaw here. We were only separated for ten minutes, and this child had lifted items from the store within record time. “I can’t open the jar though.”
“You’re not eating those in there. I don’t need the jar to break and have the sidecar smell like pickles. Um, I will- um, take the jerky though.” She opened the bag and handed it to me. “Emilie. Thank you for the road snacks, but don’t do this again.”
She sighed heavily, and grinned at me, “Do you have kids?”
I knew this question would come up eventually and my mind went back to the day I lost my wife and my children.
I thought about Rae and the boys constantly, Andrew had to be almost nine years old now and Teddy was about seven now. I often wondered who Teddy looked like. When he was a baby, he resembled his mother, with the dark hair and brown eyes, but then it was hard to tell with the smashed little Pug face. I’m sure Rae met a man and remarried, she was too beautiful and kind to stay single her entire life.
Back in 2017, I had been undercover as a member of this God-forsaken motorcycle club for two years and it consumed me more than I cared to admit, at the time. When I wasn’t at the office, I spent hours at the warehouse, sitting in on strategies.
The Chrome Poppies members had to strategize everything from thefts, which was constant and mostly from other surrounding motorcycle clubs. Anything ranging from money to bikes. One member coveted an old lady from one of the rival members and they had this idea to kidnap her and make her a sex slave for the Poppies. I recalled that was the only time Levi ever put his foot down. After the conversation I had with him, it was understandable how he was dead set against kidnapping. In fact, the member who had this idea was stripped of his vest and escorted off the property, by force.
That was the first time I bore witness to how cruel a few of the members were and the ones who would not follow in the same violent footsteps.
Anyway, I shook my head and went back to the day that my marriage to the girl of my dreams came to a head. There were a lot of nights I would come home drunk as a skunk, not understanding how the hell I got my bike home in one piece. Not understanding how or when I got home in the first place. At first, Rae nursed me with a tall glass of water and a couple aspirin. She’d feel sorry for me and bring me breakfast in bed. But the further I went down this dangerous path of being surrounded by toxic men and even more toxic alcohol, it wore on Rae.
She complained I wasn’t attentive to her or the boys, as well as the lack of intimacy we engaged in. We were animals and couldn’t keep our hands off one another. However, my mind shifted from my wife’s sweet sex to this fucking motorcycle club and nabbing Levi.
One morning, the sound of a gunshot bolted me out of a dead sleep. I laid in the bed, dizzy from the alcohol-induced headache. Rae’s shouting and screaming at me would have pulled me out of bed, it was something I was accustomed to, but I couldn’t move. “Our son could have killed someone, you stupid son of a bitch,” she screamed as she tossed my revolver at my head. She missed but getting smacked with the heavy gun would have served me right for my negligence.
“How did he get my gun? I—”
“Oh, fuck if I know.” She answered as she dialed the phone.
“Don’t call the police, I could lose my job,” I begged her and jumped out of bed to take the phone out of her hands.
“I’m not calling the cops, you stupid, fucking asshole. I am calling my mother and taking the boys with me. I can’t live with you anymore. I love you, Jensen—err—I loved you, but I can’t live like this anymore. You’re drunk all the time. You don’t even speak to any of us anymore—it’s like you care more about that slimy, Levi Shields more than us anymore. I want a divorce.”
I want a divorce.
