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“Those boys left their bikes outside and are buying drinks. So, there ain’t no bikers in here right now. They’re what you call customers. The thing about customers, Brad, is they help keep my dream alive.”
“Maybe, but they’re still bikers and have biker friends.”
Sam grinned. “Now that is a valid point. But consider that bikers… well, the truth is, they go into bars and drink. Who would’ve guessed shit like that went on in this wide and wonderful world, huh? So, when a guy comes in here, truth is, I don’t see no bikers, no bankers, no boy scouts. I see customers, and that makes me happy. I even celebrate seeing your ass planted in a chair, with your platinum credit card smoking in your hand.”
The answer flustered Brad. “I mean, why this one?”
“This one what?”
“Why would they come into this bar?”
Sam leaned on the bar and stared at Brad. “Here’s the deal, Brad, and I’ll speak slow and use little bitty words so you can understand what I’m telling you. People generally go into bars to drink, and these dudes done come into this one so that I get the profit instead of someone else. I like that about the men. It shows me they have good judgment and fine taste.” He guffawed as though to take the sting out of his words.
Brad felt his face turn red. Sam was being an idiot just to piss him off, that much was clear. Probably Simone had asked him to be an ass. “So, you want goddamn bikers coming in here? You want that kind filling up the place?”
Sam’s smile grew. “Now that you mention it… that would be sweet. The place ain’t never full enough for me. Like I said, if they got money and are old enough to drink, and they don’t cause problems… well, in that case I welcome bikers… and boxers, bankers, bimbos, baseball players… all them “B” types. And then caliphs, carpenters, crossing guards, cryptologists, and crutch makers. I can do a list for most of the letters in the alphabet, even if I get ‘em out of order sometimes. What’s your beef with men who want to sit down and buy a drink?”
Brad looked over at the biker, then at Simone. “He’s a biker. They cause trouble—scare the women.”
Sam laughed. “You scare the women, dude. The bikers turn them on.” Then he shook his head. “Hear what I said? Now I get it. You got some kind of a giant hard-on for Simone, and she won’t give you the time of day. And look, there she is chatting with these biker dudes who come waltzing in. It just isn’t fair, is it? So, it’s no surprise that you got your back up. It’s not ‘cause they’re bikers but just that you’re seeing her smile at someone else. And when it’s someone you don’t think much of, well, you’re gonna have a hard time with it.”
“They don’t belong,” he said, his argument sounding weak even to himself.
“Well, who the hell does belong in a bar? And if you think Simone has to like you because you’re a customer, well, you best get your mind out of that particular goddamn gutter. I insist she be nice to you, and from what I see, she’s more than polite. But beyond that, Simone is her own woman. I could throw bikers out of here all day long and she still won’t be going out with you if she don’t like you. What the hell do you expect?”
“I spend all day working with computers, Sam, tracking investments, dealing. I go out in the evening to blow out the cobwebs, have a little fun. So, I come in here looking for it.”
“I can guarantee drinks, but fun is your lookout. But hey, you say you make good money with that computer shit, right? Well, there are lots of girls who come around who would be happy to help you spend some of it and help you have a good time.”
He caught what Sam was suggesting and didn’t think much of it. “You mean whores? I don’t pay for pussy, Sam. I don’t have to.”
Sam shrugged. “Maybe you don’t, but you can’t just demand it, either. You need to either find a girl that thinks more of you than Simone or get used to doing without. Meantime, drink lots, behave yourself, and forget about bikers.”
Sam went back to the bar, and Brad sipped his drink. It tasted bitter. He’d expected Simone to see the truth by now, to understand that he really liked her and they belonged together. It wasn’t happening. What was wrong with her?
The more Bradlooked at the bikers, studying the cocky bastards as they sat drinking their goddamn long-necked beers and looking smug, the more he saw the way Simone smiled at them, the more pissed he got. She never got so warm with him, and now to be flaunting herself for two of those rough losers? What the fuck?
Of course, he understood the bikers represented someone who stood up to the world in a go-fuck-yourself way. That had to be the attraction, the bad-boy thing, and guys like these flaunted it because it worked.
The problem with his own life was it wasn’t flashy. His rebellion didn’t show. Hell, you could be the most brilliant computer geek in the world, and who would ever know? It was like being a spy. Online you used aliases to protect yourself and not just from the feds, either. It was the wild West online, and there were always other hackers trying to trash your code, or bring down your websites, or even steal your money.
Almost all money was online these days. Even the cash in banks wasn’t really there, in most cases. It was just a number, a hexadecimal code stored in the correct spot, and if you knew the spot and the right codes, you could move it from one account to another with no problem. A guy like Brad could do that better than most, but it didn’t show. He didn’t have some kind of uniform.
Even if there were a uniform, Brad prided himself on not being some stereotype geek. He didn’t live on junk food and stay in his room playing video games. No, he did project work, either for clients or himself, and when the projects were done, he turned off the damn computer and went out, usually to Sam’s to be with people—with women. But it was frustrating to work in secret. No matter how clever he was, unless he made some really big score—and he was thinking really big, like millions—he never got any credit for it. He knew as soon as he told a girl he worked with computers and she decided he was either a corporate IT jerk or some guy who lives at home with mom, he was shit out of luck. Nerds only appealed to girl nerds, and he didn’t like them.
So, despite what he’d told Sam, he did take whores home from time to time. It was efficient. He was in charge… the customer. You didn’t have to convince them you were something special, just that you had money, and they did what you wanted.
His head spun as he took a long look at the dudes Sam had called Hacker and Ace. So damned stupid. At least he left his code names in the digital world. How could grown men go by nicknames like those? He hated them, and he hated how they must have had it so easy. True, the big one didn’t talk much, but he was still getting plenty of smiles from Simone. A muscular rebel… what a cliche, and yet he turned women on. The leaner one probably had the same effect. That was exactly the problem. That a fucking biker, a big guy doing nothing more than wearing his colors was attractive to women—to Simone—bothered him. How did you figure something like that? What was it about that bad-boy image that made girls go nuts about them without the guys doing a fucking thing but swagger into a bar?
From his perspective, it made no sense. Bikers could be total morons, but they had that alpha male vibe going for them that was a bitch to compete with. A geek image sucked by comparison, even if he wasn’t like other geeks.
Brad wanted to believe that a smart girl like Simone would see through that crap. He expected her to realize those guys were just fucking dropouts in jeans with fancy motorcycles. The idea of either of them having any savviness with a computer, or doing even a tenth of the things Brad could do in seconds, almost made him laugh. It would have been a bitter laugh because that didn’t seem to be happening. She looked at the same slobs he did, but she seemed to see nice guys she liked to talk to more than she liked talking to Brad, and that made his blood boil. It was damn unfair.
It occurred to him that she might be playing a game. Women liked to string guys along. What if Simone was just being nice to the guys to make Brad jealous—make him crazy enough to do whatever she said, maybe buy her presents to win her over? Maybe she was telling Brad she liked this macho guy, and if he expected to be in the running for her attention, he’d better step up his game.
More than once, Brad had thought about getting a bike. Not that he cared about riding a motorcycle. Riding on something that couldn’t haul his stuff and got wet when it rained didn’t make much sense. No, he thought about riding a big fucking bike to the bar. It would be all chromed up the ass and everything. He could afford to buy a lot nicer bike than whatever these jerks rode. But then he’d have to put up with playing out that stupid biker image. He’d have to swagger around being all super-macho, maybe get in fights, or it looked bogus. Looking bogus was worse than getting no respect for what you did.
A couple of the other guys who were regulars talked with the bikers then sat at their table and kept chatting with them like they were just regular people. They were talking NASCAR, or some other race car crap that Brad didn’t understand the point of. Who cared which car was fastest around some track? Still, that, and sports of all kinds, drove the chicks wild. For some reason he couldn’t get his head around, girls that loved sports could be happy with guys who just thought they were jocks. Another fucking game.
