Page 8 of Bad Like Me

7

Crow

I’d seenMary in town in passing but hadn’t gotten to carry on what one would describe as a meaningful conversation. Ray was never with her, so maybe, she’d moved back to Kentucky.

I was curious, and the obvious way to get answers would be to ask my sister, Wren, but that would mean admitting she was right. She’d dangled her continued friendship with Ray in front of my face for years, waiting for me to crack and tell her I regretted not moving. Parts of me did think I was a dumbass for letting Ray go so easily, but others were happy I still called Cleveland my home—mainly the portions bursting at the seams with satisfaction that I was a Royal Bastard in this chapter. It was something that gave me pride because even though we did a fair amount of shady shit, we also did things for the community, too. Things that helped our household out when I was little like our annual toy drive. There were countless Christmases Mom brought us to the event, and the toy the brothers gave us was the only one we got that year. The club did these things to help out, but it didn’t hurt that charity events were one of many unspoken reminders for the town of all the good we did. It helped them to turn a blind eye when we did illegal stuff because everyone had a little bad in them, right? No one was one-hundred-percent good, not even the best of people. My measurements leaned more toward the bad and horrific side of the scale, but I still had my morals that kept me from completely toppling over into Hell. In cartoons, the characters always had a tiny angel and devil sitting on each of their shoulders who helped them remain moral. I really thought both of mine wore horns, but on occasion, they decided it was best to take the high road when making decisions. Who the fuck knew?

“Give me two of the Boston creams, three with sprinkles, four glaze, and three blueberries,” I called out the order to the young girl behind the counter as her eyes roamed my body from the floor to my chest.

“Ah. Yeah. Okay. You got it,” she stammered, pinching the tongs and filling the box with the doughnuts one at a time. The barely legal girl batted her eyelashes, giving me what I could only assume to be her best attempt at a seductive look. I smiled respectfully trying not to completely crush her, but I didn’t want to give her false hope either. I wasn’t here to chase tail; I was here only to pick up a peace offering for Mary and get the fuck out. That was the plan before this random girl who was maybe in her early twenties crossed my path…technically, I guess I was in her way, but it didn’t matter. I definitely was getting out of the door as quick as I came through it now. Most of the guys didn’t care if a piece of ass was questionably eighteen or older, I did. It had always been one of my pet peeves.

“I’m taking this to my ex’s house. She likes the glazed kind,” I told her a white-lie, hoping she would get the point without me having to actually spell it out for her. I was technically taking them to Ray’s house, it just wasn’t the one where she currently lived. She used to like the glazed ones, which definitely wasn’t the reason I bought four as if I was wishing to see her. I liked them, too. At least, that was what I told myself because fuck, I didn’t want to go there with expectations.

“You know, most people are ex’s for a reason, right?” She pouted, pursing her lips outward and watched me as she stood closing the box. Not that I was entertaining the idea, because I wasn’t, but if I were thinking about it, I definitely wouldn’t be now. I hated how some people automatically thought they shouldn’t have to put any effort into getting things. Truthfully, the attitude as a whole pissed me off.

“That’s what people say,” I barked a little more aggressively than I had intended and paid for the doughnuts as quickly as I could.

* * *

Mary mentionedshe wouldn’t be volunteering anywhere today and should be home if I wanted to drop by. I took that as her way of politely telling me to get my ass to her house, and when her eyebrows pulled together, she made it pretty clear I shouldn’t have waited this long to do so. She loved sweets, therefore, going emptyhanded to her house, especially knowing she was pissed at me, would be colossally idiotic.

I killed the engine of my Harley and kicked the standout, carefully leaning the bike’s weight on it. Even though kickstands had been supporting things for longer than I’d been living, I didn’t trust it entirely. I was no physicist by any means, but such a tiny thing holding all that up was sketchy to me. There had to be a window of error, and I didn’t want my bike in whatever small percentage of failure I didn’t know. I couldn’t afford another ride now or anytime soon. The truth was, Ghoul helped me fix one of his old bikes, and I eventually bought it off him in order to have something to ride. To be a brother, you had to have a bike, that was common sense. A person couldn’t be a biker without a bike. There were special cases, like Spider, the old fucker wasn’t able to ride anymore, but he was still our brother. Hell, he was one of the original members of our chapter, and there was never a question of removing him when his arthritis got so bad he couldn’t straddle a motorcycle anymore. Whenever we had church or parties, we all took turns taking a cage to go get him and made sure he was in attendance. Ghoul enforced this rule, which was one on a shortlist that he did. Anyone that Ghoul personally brought into the club held a special place with him. I was one of those brothers.

I took over Dad’s shop a year before he passed away, and it was the reason I stayed in Ohio not chasing Ray and her dream in Kentucky. Someone had to run the family business, and being that I was the only child remotely interested, it fell to me. Honestly, I was lucky it did. We didn’t have the money for me to go to college, and my grades were just below the required level of receiving scholarships. Of course, I could have gotten grants of some type, if I wanted to get technical, but I really didn’t want to do anything other than work on vehicles. I loved taking things apart and putting them back together as did Ray. She tried her damnedest to get me to enroll in electrical engineering with her, saying it was basically like being a mechanic to machines. The thing was, I didn’t want to work on high-tech shit, I liked the simplicity of cars and trucks. With them, there weren’t as many surprises. They all needed their oil and tires changed eventually, and for me, that meant money in my pocket. Well, that was excluding the newer models of electronic cars, those things were foreign to me. I didn’t know the first damn thing about them, but lucky for me, most people who lived around here couldn’t afford them. If they could, they sure as shit didn’t bring them to my shop.

The shop was actually how Ghoul and I met. He rolled up in a mint condition 1969 Pontiac Trans Am, and man, fuck, that thing was sexy. I whistled when he stepped out of it, which earned a very warranted concerning look from him. The whistle was for the car, not him. “Did you wash that motherfucker in a fresh coat of paint?” I said laughing. “That sweet ass car can’t need much. What can we do for you today?”

“Nothing today,” he said. “Just wanted to see that I’d be welcome when I did.”

I smiled and threw him a business card. “Pal, you could fuck my old lady in my own house, and I’d still take care of that ride.” He laughed and shook my hand, and we’d been friends ever since.

* * *

Immediately,a new Buick in the nearby driveway caught my attention. Without question, it was Ray’s. While I hadn’t asked much about her, Wren liked to drop hints and keep me updated on the little things in Ray’s life. Fuck! She wasn’t in Kentucky as I had stupidly predicted. To make shitty beginnings worse, I hadn’t fully thought out the plan of buying doughnuts instead of a fucking sealed box of chocolates. They were all smushed together, and a big part of the glaze was at the bottom of the bag. Saddlebags weren’t exactly designed to hold a box of doughnuts.

“Fuck me,” I complained a little too loud and wiped the glaze off my fingers and onto my blue jeans.

“Logan Williams, I will not do such a thing,” a familiar voice answered, and I jumped at the sound.

“Mrs. Flowers? Damn it, sweetheart, I didn’t know you were still alive,” I joked, recognizing the calming tone that flooded a large number of memories from my youth.

“Don’t act like you didn’t see me just last Tuesday. You know damn well where I live, and if you came around more, you would know I hadn’t keeled over yet.” She tipped her nose downward and glared at me over her bifocals. “You used to like us.” She released the screen door from her hand, and it clattered against the wooden door frame.

“Still do.”

“Poor way of showing it,” she called me on my shit, both of us knowing I hadn’t visited here in quite a while. It was too easy to go on with your daily life and forget those who you didn’t see on a daily basis. It was something people rarely gave thought to, unless of course in situations such as this.

“You’re right. I’m a shit, but I’m your shit, and the only shit that you’ll laugh and smile at when you step on it.” I smiled meeting her at the bottom of her steps. “Doughnut?”

“We both know those aren’t for me, but I’m going to take one anyway.”

“Go ahead.”

She grabbed one and nudged her head toward the house across the field…Ray’s house. “Now, go on. Take that girl some happiness. She could use it.”

I wanted to argue with her, but just like any other time, there wasn’t any point. Mrs. Flowers always had called me on my shit, and truthfully, it was refreshing to see that fact hadn’t changed. In a world that was constantly altering every second, it was nice to know some things remained untouched.

I was nervous as fuck at the possibility of seeing Ray. It’d been years and much had changed, but in the same measure, not a lot had. I was balls deep in the club; it was my life. I didn’t make any decision without keeping my brothers in mind. The thing that hadn’t been altered too much was that I still thought of her. I wasn’t sure if that meant I missed her, or just the idea of having someone by my side. I guess now was as good of a time as any to find out that answer. The only thing I was convinced about was that I picked the wrong time to quit smoking cigarettes cold turkey. I never half-assed anything, and when I decided to do something, I was all in. Now, I wish I hadn’t done it that way. I regretted it, that was for damn sure.

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