Page 5 of Jacob

Sometimes, she thought he was a mirage, a figment of her imagination. Even that day he had to have been a phantom sighting. She was out of her damn mind to leave him that letter. She’d felt so guilty about having just stopped after her dad died. She couldn’t help herself.

It was the first time she’d seen a 1990 silver Harley Davidson Fat Boy around. She’d memorized what it’d looked like from the last letter she’d gotten from Jacob. He’d sent her a picture of him with his bike, and he’d promised to take her on a ride that summer.

She wanted that ride more than anything. However, the summer she turned fifteen, she didn’t get to ride on the back of anyone’s bike. Instead, her father got put in the ground and her mother stopped bringing her around the clubhouse.

Now, she saw silver Fat Boys everywhere, wishful thinking—what might have been.

She pulled up to the gate of the Roughneck Riders Motorcycle Club’s compound. With the car still rolling, not even waiting for it to stop, Pipes leaped out of the car to work the lock on the gate. Sighing heavily, Sparrow tapped her fingers on the steering wheel to the beat ofShatteredby O.A.R.

Once he had it swung open, he waved her through. She drove a few feet and stopped to wait for him to close their outdated security measure. However, he jumped back in the car quickly. “You can lock up when you leave.”

“What?” she asked.

“Yeah, I got business. You go ahead home.” He grunted as he shifted around in the seat. “Get some sleep. Pick me up later, I’ll need my bike.”

She nodded. This was her life. Carting Pipes around when he was too drunk or too stoned to safely do it himself. “Okay.” She put the car in gear. “I gotta study anyway.”

“For what?” he asked as he swiped through his phone.

If she had more energy, she might’ve slammed her foot on the brake and had it out with him. She might’ve screamed at him for not paying attention to her. She might’ve told him about how he didn’t care about the things that were important to her. But they’d been up all night. He was high as a kite, and the longer she sat in the car with him arguing, the longer it’d take her to drive home and climb in bed.

“Nevermind,” she said as she turned the sedan in front of the large paint chipped cinderblock building. It sat in the rear of a large, ill-kempt, cracked parking lot.

Before she could put the car in park, Pipes leaned toward her, kissed her cheek, and jumped out of the car. Through the passenger window, the arched patch on the bottom of his black leather vest, his cut, reading “prospect,” taunted her as he trotted toward the other prospect who acted as a bouncer at the door of the clubhouse.

His excuse for everything since she’d introduced him to Bowie, the president of the Roughneck Riders, had been “It’s stressful with things in the club right now.” Apparently, he’d forgotten that she’d been connected to the club longer than he had. So, yeah, she knew how stressful things got with the club.

He’d been a prospect for the past two years. His probationary period with the club, of doing all the grunt work, the shit work, of being the club’s bitch, had led him down the path of meth use. She’d introduced him to Bowie, but it’d been Tut, another member, who’d sponsored him, or suggested he’d be a good fit for the club.

It nagged her sometimes—on the nights when Pipes got particularly fucked up—wondering if things would be different if Bowie had been his sponsor instead of Tut. Just how much of being at his mercy influenced the shit Pipes got into? Would he have earned his patches by now if Bowie had been his sponsor?

It was on Tut to go to the other members and suggest Pipes was ready to be voted in. They’d have to vote on whether or not he’d earned it. If they voted him in, they’d give him his rockers, curved patches stating the club name on top and the location on the bottom. Those patches were known as club colors—the Roughneck Riders logo: A skull wearing a helmet with two wrenches crossed and an oil rig behind him, and his member patch.

Things would improve then, Pipes promised. She’d keep telling herself that. The Roughneck Riders didn’t lead easy lives. Neither did their women.

As she turned the car, she caught sight of the line of bikes parked along the wall of the clubhouse in the reserved parking spots for the patched members. Each officer in the Motorcycle Club parked their bike according to the hierarchy. The club president had the spot closest to the door, then the vice president, then the wrong bike.

That spot wasn’t for that bike.

The Sergeant at Arms was next, but the bike there, it wasn’t her father’s bike. It should be, but he gave his life for the club seven years ago.

All the emotions, unwelcome, massive, and ones she refused to deal with threatened to surface if they ever got dislodged from her throat. The backs of her eyes burned with tears, insistent on falling. Grabbing a bottle of warm water left in her car for God knows how long, she tried to swallow the emotions down like a massive pill.

As she made a left out of the club compound, she thrust her middle finger out the window at the open gate. She wasn’t about to stop and close it. That was his responsibility. Let him get in trouble for it. She just wanted to go home, and she had to take the long way to avoid the motel.

Reaching for the radio, she twisted the knob. She needed something to break the silence, to interfere with her thoughts because she didn’t want to go down memory lane. She didnotwant to remember that day—the day her father died.

Metallica’s James Hetfield crooned through the speakers,Nothing Else Matters. She tapped her fingers, singing along as loud as she could.

Chapter 3

Jacob

Jacob’s knee bounced under the cheap table in the diner. The rising sun streamed through the window, illuminating the dated eatery as he scanned it, searching for her. Finding only the truckers grabbing breakfast, he considered sneaking into the kitchen.

Using his thumb and forefinger, he stroked the part of his mustache that joined it to his beard. Every part of him ached from their long ride, but he’d insisted on stopping at the diner first. Sure, it was a long shot, but he couldn’t stop himself from taking it. The last place he’d seen her seemed the most logical place to start.

Granted, after the long ride, it might’ve been a better idea to start searching the following day. He had to look like hell. Jesus, he probably smelled worse, but he had to know. He had to check in on her. He’d waited seven years—that was enough.

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