Page 7 of Rider

“Here you go. It isn’t much but it should buy a toy or two.”

I knew that Rayleighn wasn’t well off. I knew that before I ever set foot inside her home but now that I had there was no way I was going to let her give her hard earned money to the toy drive. The thought alone was heartwarming but I couldn’t let her do that when I could easily give money on her behalf. If I got my way she was going to be living better from now on. It made me mad to think of her struggling to make ends meet and that deadbeat ex of hers out there living his life without a care in the world for his son. I was going to make her feel special and if she ever let me meet her son, I’d make him feel special too. I couldn’t help but notice he wasn’t awake or out in the living room when I went to pick her up.

I curled my hand around hers holding the money and shook my head. “Your money’s no good here, sweetheart. Keep it. Buy your son something nice or better yet let me get him something.”

“No.”

Her voice came out fast and firm. “You’ve done enough for me. I won’t accept anything else from you. You’ve been too kind already. I still can’t repay you for the battery.”

The battery. It didn’t mean a lot to me but it meant a lot to her. “Sweetheart, I’d give you the clothes off my back if you needed them. Now how about we go and you can meet some of my friends?”

She smiled shyly and nodded. “Yeah, that would be nice.”

We made our way over to all the tables and I quickly spotted a lot of the prospects doing the heavy lifting, moving toys around, helping set up tables for the food and basically doing the grunt work. When we moved past the main area of the event and made our way towards the clubhouse. Once inside I see a lot of the older members like myself. Griz and Ink are playing pool and I nodded in acknowledgement when they looked over. I see their gazes drift over to Rayleighn and I give them both a silent warning to be on their best behavior. Griz gives me the biggest smile I’ve seen on him in at least three years, leaving me to decipher if that’s a good or bad thing.

As we walked around the room, I pointed out things in the clubhouse so she could feel more comfortable. While I don’t live here now, this place was my home for years before I could afford to move out and get my own place. It’s been so long since I was an outsider I wonder what it looks like to someone brand new walking in. The old, neon and metal beer signs lining the walls, vintage pin-up posters in frames, alcohol advertisements and then of course our hall of fame. The mug shots of every member of the club who’s ever been arrested. Here’s where she actually decides to pause and take note of the club members’ faces staring back at her.

It takes her a few rows before I realize what she’s doing. She’s looking for me. I decide to put her out of her misery before she has to scan several more rows scrutinizing each face to see if it belongs to mine. “Fifth row, third from the left. And before you cast judgment, at least hear me out on my crimes.” A nervous laugh escapes before I can catch it. She looks shocked, and for a second I believe she actually didn’t expect to see my face. She turns towards me and crosses her arms over her chest. “Well let’s hear it. I better know if I’m going out with an ex-con.”

Her words were serious but her face showed that she was only joking. “Ex-con? Nah, I only spent the one night in jail. I was young and stupid. I was out with Griz over there.” I nod in his direction so she gets an idea who I was with. “And we got caught lifting street signs. We thought it would be cool to have all these metal signs around the clubhouse but it was a lot harder to steal them than we thought and got caught in the act. We were prospects at the time and thought it would make us look cool.”

The look on her face is priceless. I can’t decide if she’s amused or doesn’t believe that I was that dumb. I shrug my shoulders and hold my hands up in an apologetic manner.

She unfolds her arms and puts one hand on her hip and uses the other to point over to Griz. “So let me get this straight, you and that guy there thought you could blend in and steal big signs to look cool?”

“Yep. Pretty much.”

Her sputtering laugh makes me want her even more. It sets something off inside me. My stupidity might have been what set her off this time, but I want them all. All of her smiles, her laughter. I want to be the reason she laughs. Mine. She brings out all the possessiveness inside me.

We take the time to walk around the clubhouse and I show her everything except the room we use for our club’s meetings, what we refer to as church, and I avoid the guy’s rooms upstairs. Before we could make our way over to get some drinks, I introduced her to Hammer. He’s a few years older than me and I’ve always looked up to him as a big brother. I could tell he’s sober and it’s a good time to introduce him. We walked up to the barand I gestured for Rayleighn to have a seat on the stool next to him. I stood behind her and gently put my hand on her hip. She doesn’t shy away from my touch so I take that as a good sign that things are going well.

Hammer turned to face us and he notices Rayleighn before he eyes me. “Hammer, I’d like you to meet someone special to me, Rayleighn.” He takes a second to look at her and then back at me before he speaks.

“You’re as pretty as a peach Ray and if Rider says you’re someone special then I’ll take him at his word.” He held out his hand to shake hers and when she put her hand in his, he pulled it forward to kiss the back of her hand. I gave him the eye to watch himself and he smirked at me. Apparently everyone wants a poke at me tonight.

“Rayleighn.” I make a point enunciating her name since he decided to give her a nickname. “Not only is she gorgeous but she’s smart too. Working on her accounting degree.” I looked over to Rayleighn and told her. “Hammer here owns a construction business so if you ever find yourself in need of new drywall you found your man.” To his credit, Hammer laughed and nodded.

“Yeah, we do that and a little more that’s for sure.”

Rayleighn who’s been taking all of this in just laughs and smiles good naturedly. “Hammer, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Three hours, two drinks and a full belly of food later, I’m in the middle of one of the best nights I’ve ever had at the clubhouse. The toy drive ended a while ago and everyone who is associated with the club moved the party to the inside. Not that it mattered, Rayleighn and I had spent most of the night inside the clubhouse. She seemed more comfortable in here than being outside with the crowds. I don’t think she noticed the way I observed her when we were out in the open, any loud noise and she would flinch. At one point, a few guys in the club got rowdy and played around but she turned her head so fast I thought she’d pinch a nerve in her neck. She was definitely skittish and it burned me up inside that someone or something had made her that way.

Now as the evening was winding down we were relaxing on one of the couches and I had managed to get close to her. We sat side by side on the couch and my right thigh was up against hers. Normally, I’d be all over women in this setting but I knew Rayleighn wasn’t like that and that I was going to have to go slow. I never went slow, but I could do this for her if that’s what she wanted. We had been talking about her son for a few minutes, and mere mention of him made her entire face light up.

I tried to figure out the best way to put it because I wasn’t trying to insult her. “So I know I’ve mentioned this before but you’re so young. Did you want to be a young mom or was it a surprise?”

She laughed again and I tucked the feeling that she brought out in me deep inside. “If that’s your way of saying did I accidentally get knocked up the answer is yes.”

“Hey! No judging here. I promise. You’ve already seen my mugshot.”

“I too was young and stupid. My ex and I, we dated for about a year. I thought he loved me and I thought I loved him. When I found out I was pregnant it was a shock. I was always conscious of my actions and even then I became that one percent chance girl. I was so scared when I found out. I was just a kid myself. I was nineteen getting ready to turn twenty and only had my ex around me so I kept it to myself for awhile and when Grayson, that’s my ex, when he found out he split two weeks later.”

She looked down at her hands that she had clasped together and I reached out to loosen one from the other and interlaced our fingers. I have so many questions I don’t know where to start or even if I should ask them right now. There’s one question though, I’ve got to ask.

“He been around since? Does Colton ever see his dad?” Before I can even finish my question she’s emphatically shaking her head.

“I haven’t seen him since I was pregnant with Colton. I hid the news for months because I was scared of what would happen when he found out and I was right to be. He realized what was going on when I started to show. He lashed out, tried to throw me around and then he split. As time went on I found myself lucky that he never came around again asking for custody. I waited till after Colton was born and then we got out of Seattle and came up here. I like the cold weather and I just wanted to put more distance between us.”

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