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“I don’t mean any of that in a mean way. You’re taking this all wrong. I know you can take care of yourself in normal circumstances, but these aren’t normal circumstances. The Three Striped Brotherhood are ruthless and that is something you and your family are not accustomed to.” Raider is getting upset because his logic is not my logic. I grab his hand.
“Are you ashamed of me and my age? Is that why you won’t be seen with me?” I ask Raider the question that has been in the back of my mind since we first met.
“That’s ridiculous. You know I adore you.” Raider pulls me to him and he gives me one of his toe-curling kisses. I’m helpless in his arms and I follow his lead until he starts to step back. I pull him closer and I give him everything I have in one kiss. I give him how much I want him, how much my body needs him and all I crave from him. We are both breathing heavily when I finally let go and step back. My cheeks are heated and my nipples are pebbled.
Raider grabs me to him. “Is there something we need to talk about?” Raider asks me in a deep husky voice.
“I want you and these baby steps we’re taking are too slow. I need you to make me yours. I thought you could come over to my house and eat with us tonight, and then you and I could have some alone time. The dinner you want for us and the alone time I am craving,” I say in a faint voice that sounds different to even me, sultry and sexy.
“I want us to be sure before we take the next step. I have fought myself over this every night. I have wanted to come to your house, take you from there, and find us a place with enough privacy so I could make love to you for the first time. I want this to be right for you. This means everything to me and I want you to only have good memories of our first time together. Nothing cheap or tawdry for my woman.” Raider’s embrace and deep voice is driving me crazy with desire.
“I don’t need special. I need to be in your arms and for you to let me know what love feels like. Show me how our love can feel. You keep saying you own me, so do it. Own my body since you already own my soul.” Raider kisses me again and gives me a small laugh.
“Do you know how much I want to do just that, right this second? I’m going to have a tough time getting my erection under control so Buzz doesn’t embarrass you.” I look down at his erection and then back into his eyes. I laugh at him softly. “I agree. I agree with everything you said. Dinner tonight at your house and time alone, but I’m not making love to you for the first time under your mom’s roof. That would be disrespecting your mom and I won’t do that.” I smile at my man. He always tries to think about everyone else.
“We can have dinner in the house and then there’s a loft apartment in the barn that my dad used for guests. His office is up there as well. We can spend the night there. I already talked to Mom about it. She says we can stay there anytime we like.” Raider looked at me with a strange look on his face.
“You talked to your mom about us?” I smile this time.
“Mom is my best friend. I talk to her about everything,” I say. “She’s known how I have felt for you all along. She trusts my decisions and she rather have me close to her in case I have questions or I want to talk about how things go.” Raider looks like he’s about to swallow his tongue.
“I didn’t know that you meant you and your mom were that close.” Raider steps back and he rubs his hand down the back of his neck, his eyes on his feet.
“Aren’t you close to your mom? I thought you told me that it was just the two of you when she was raising you. Have you ever talked to your dad?” I ask the question that I have been wanting to ask for the last week.
“My mom and I are very close but I don’t discuss my sex life with my mom. I’m a twenty-five-year-old man and that is something that has stopped since she had her initial sex talk with me. Buzz’s dad talked to me at the same time he talked to Buzz. My mom also had men she dated when I was growing up who tried telling me, but those conversations were more confusing than not. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with your mom knowing about our sex life.” I look at Raider’s face to see that he isn’t joking. I know I could let this go, but then down the road it would just be a bigger problem. In my family, we never walk away from our problems. It’s better to handle this now.
“Raider.” I make sure he is paying attention to me. “You can’t and won’t change my relationship with any of my family members. I understand if you aren’t as close and speak freely with your mom. I think it’s different with men and their moms than it is for females. It’s not like she’ll l know the intimate and intricate details of our relationship. She’s the only one besides you I will trust to ask questions if I have them. I don’t and won’t hide the talks Mom and I have. I will tell you about them. I’m not as experienced as you are and I want to make our physical love life as good for you as it will be for me,” I tell Raider honestly. There is something else nagging me in the back of my head.
“Let’s say we compromise…” Raider starts but stops.
“Let me hear this compromise,” I say with a small smile on my face.
“You talk to your mom but don’t tell me what it is you discuss unless it’s something I need to know, or she has a promising idea to a problem. I’m very shallow when it comes to my manhood and my feelings may get hurt.” Now Raider is back to flirting with me. I love the sideways grin he gives me. I call it his panty-melting smile. I want to forget everything and get lost in his kisses but I can’t. Not until I ask him the question that keeps nagging me. I pull him to me and kiss the top of his nose and then step back.
“Do you ever want to meet your dad and talk to him?” Raider stiffens his spine.
“I don’t even want to talk about that son of a bitch. A dad is a man who is there every step of the way after he has a child. A dad teaches his son how to ride a bike, how to throw a ball, and tucks him in every night. The man who helped create me had no use for me or my mom. He’s not even a man to me. I would never let a woman I loved walk away for any reason. I would go after her and show her how much she is loved and cherished. I’m a grown-ass man now and I don’t need a damn dad. I don’t need a deadbeat asshole.” Raider walks away from me. I know he’s pissed but there are two sides to every story and he has only heard one side. My heart hurts for the little boy Raider was and I know he wanted a dad then. Raider jumps out of the back of the truck and I go down behind him. We stop at the front of my truck and I take out the iced tea I have in a thermos and pour him a plastic cup full. I hand it to him and he takes a long drink from it. “We just need to drop this. I don’t discuss my sperm donor with anyone.” I see Pete, one of our farm guys, coming our way in one of the farm trucks. He’s still a way away, so I need to say what it is I’m thinking.
“Look, Raider, I know this isn’t my business, but since you call me yours and I have spilled my guts to you about my family, I’m going to let you know what I think.” Raider looks at me. I can see that he’s getting angrier but I won’t back down. “I don’t know your entire story but there are two sides to every story. Don’t you think you owe it to yourself to hear his side of the story just once before you condemn him? I’m going to tell you a little story my dad told me. ‘If you sweep everything under the rug that you don’t want to deal with every day, you’ll get a clump of stuff under the rug you need to walk over every day. As the days go by and the pile gets bigger, you will first stub your toe on it. Then you’ll stumble over it, and finally, you’ll need to jump over it or go around it. Each day it will get worse and then become a nuisance to deal with the pile. Then you will need to either clean the mess up or stay blocked off from things that you used to enjoy in your room. Why not just face it and clean it when it is a small pile than need to face it later?’ Each of my family members was given that talk at an early age. That’s why we face things instead of burying them to face later. The problems never go away until you face them and resolve them. Raider, that’s how my family will face their problems, with or without you. Be a man and take that problem by the balls and make it your bitch. You do what you think is right for you. I didn’t think I was just anyone. I thought I was your woman since that’s what you keep telling me. You know love is about taking the good along with the bad. Thank you for the tea and have a wonderful day, since you have no manners at all today.” Pete stops at the end of my truck. I turn and walk to Pete and tell him to bring my truck back to the farmhouse when they’re finished with the transfer. I say nothing else to Raider. I leave the tea I brought. It’s too hot to leave the men our here without something cold to drink. He just watches me as I get into the farm truck. Raider isn’t the only one with a temper. Maybe he’ll think about what I’ve said but I doubt it.
10
A FEW DAYS LATER
Raider…
I bang the gavel after the last member is seated. Today has been a shit day from the beginning. I started it off with another phone call to my mom. The stubborn woman is still not listening to anything I tell her. Now I know where I get my stubbornness from. I tried talking to Billie and she sounded normal, but she’s waiting for an apology from me. She’s not going to be getting it. My relationship with a dad who didn’t care enough about my mom and me to even check in with us once during my childhood isn’t something I talk about. The way I deal with this issue is my business and my business alone. Billie will deal or she won’t. I just hope she can. I get what Billie was talking about, dealing with problems, but this one problem is not something I ever want to deal with. It’s better left alone the same way it has for twenty-five-years.
I look at all my brothers sitting, waiting for me to talk. This here, my brothers in the clubhouse, are what I know how to deal with. The rest I will need to deal with later. It has always been so easy for me to focus here. Today, not so much. Billie is always there in the back of my mind. She’s like a siren calling to me. I hate to think she’s upset with me. Tonight, after dinner, we’ll have a chance to clear the air. I don’t know how in the little time I have known her that I have fallen in love with the crazy woman. I know we come from different family backgrounds, but I know the two of us will have a great foundation for our family to grow on. With both our mothers behind us, we can’t not succeed. I just need to tell her I love her.
I bang the gavel again. “Everyone, come to order,” I say as loud as I can. My voice carries throughout the room. “Our situation with the Three Stripe Brotherhood needs to be handled. I know I’ve been dragging my feet out of concern for everyone here, making the decision of stepping on the wrong side of the law in a bigger capacity than we have before, but I know everyone has a vote here. Right now, they’re at the weakest numbers they have been in the last year. Not that I don’t think we could handle them full force, but I want this to be ended with the least amount of bloodshed in our community. The thing is, we will fight with honor and they will take our weakest link and use it to their advantage. I am not saying our families are our weakest link, but that is who the Brotherhood will target. Anyone have any suggestions on how to keep everyone safe? I have a few, but I want your suggestions as well.”
“Kill the fuckers first,” Buzz says loud enough for everyone to hear. He gets a lot of cheers for that.
“We need a plan before we do anything. None of us want to be spending the rest of our lives in prison for this scum.” Lit, my VP, is right.
“We still have some of that C-4 we confiscated in one of our raids on the Brotherhood when we burned that house out by County Line Road. We could watch the three houses they’ve been using as headquarters since we burned the last one, and blow them up, but we need a distraction and then a follow up to hit them while they’re scrambling to regroup. They only have one other house to run to that we know of.” Smooth, our secretary, is right. This has been the plan that we have been formulating for a while now.
