Page 7 of Riding the Edge

“Give them to me,” she orders.

I met Patty a month out of juvie. She was the counter girl at Rosalie’s bakery and I was the punk shaking down the owner. She knew I was trouble and still, she slipped me her number inside a box of cannoli’s. Gave me her virginity a month after we started dating and I gave up the streets the day I found out she was pregnant. Gave her my last name too and like a fool, I promised to give her the world.

Life got hard on us. Drowning in debt, no electric and a newborn became too much for us. Too much for me. It became clear being a laborer wasn’t going to help me make good on any of my promises. One score got the lights back on, another put diapers on Nico. Before I knew it, we weren’t living paycheck to paycheck, and I was a patched member of the Satan’s Knights motorcycle club. It was the beginning of my life as a brother and the end of my life as Patty’s husband.

There was no lack of love.

There was a lack of trust.

And without trust you can’t build so we got stuck and eventually she kicked my ass out.

Still, she’s the only woman to know Al and not Wolf. The man before the leather and mayhem. The man who kneeled before God and not the Devil. The guy who prayed to his grandmother’s rosary beads and still carried them in his back pocket.

Reaching behind me, I pull the beads from my jeans and drop them into her open palm.

“Chapel is down the hallway,” I tell her.

Turning to her sister, she closes her hand around my grandmother’s wooden rosary beads and leads her down the hallway without another word.

Once she is out of sight, I close my eyes and draw in a deep breath. The odor of gasoline still clings to me, reminding me what transpired moments before my sons pulled into the garage and this nightmare began. If a low-class pimp was standing in my shoes, he’d get more respect than I’m getting now. His fucking posse would be circling him and making sure he had clean clothes and a cup of fucking coffee. The streets would rally around him as he waited on word of his son.

The sound of heels clicking behind me causes me to shake away the thoughts polluting my head. As I turn, I catch sight of Maria from the corner of my eye. To be honest, I forgot she was there.

“Jesus,” I growl. “You’re still here.”

Her heels do a little more clicking as she walks towards the row of seats lining the wall.

“What are you doing?” I ask as she tosses her fancy purse on one of the chairs.

“My feet are killing me,” she complains, taking a seat herself.

Leaning back against the plastic chair, she lifts her eyes to mine and takes a stance.

Seen a lot of shit in my life, battled a lot of women too and I learned when a woman takes a stance there ain’t no use in arguing. Especially if that woman is as hot blooded as Maria Bianci.

“Someone once told me, even the strongest people sometimes need a hand to hold and a shoulder to cry on,” she says simply. “It stuck,” she adds, patting the empty seat next to her.

There is something familiar about those words and for reasons I won’t even begin to make sense of, I start for her. Exhaustion wears at me, and I drop into the seat next to her.

“You don’t have matches or anything else that might be flammable on you, do you?” she asks as she waves her hand in front of her nose.

“No,” I mutter.

“Good,” she replies. “At least I know I won’t catch fire sitting next to you.”

Turning my head, I study her for a moment as her words ring in my ears. Of all the people that have come and gone throughout my life, this woman, with all her sass, is the last one I ever expected to be lending me a hand or a shoulder. Yet, here she is, in her fancy shoes, giving me her time.

“Quit looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like, you’re waiting for me to hit you with a frying pan.”

“Word on the street says you keep one in your purse,” I tell her, tipping my chin to the oversized bag beside her. “That why they always so big?”

“The bigger the purse—”

“Thank you,” I say, cutting her off.

Keeping my eyes pinned to her brown ones, I touch my hand to her knee.

“Thank you,” I repeat.

Her gaze holds mine as she brushes my hand away from her knee.

“You’re welcome,” she replies. “But after your son comes out of surgery go to the gift shop and buy a razor. While you’re at it, see if they have a bar of soap.”

“Yeah, lady,” I reply. “I’ll get right on that.”

After all, I wouldn’t want to catch fire either.

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