Page 162 of Long Way Down

She watched the tenderness come into his face, a warmth that was a light from within. “Of course.” Then his grin turned mischievous. “But you better not run off and became a biker chick. You gotta come back. I can’t get partnered up with Rojas or Novak long term.”

“I promise I won’t run off and become a biker chick.”

“You say that now, but have you seen the chaps? Those are cool.”

“Oh,shut up.”

~*~

It was different being on the back of the bike outside the city. On a stretch of dark highway, headlamp illuminating nothing but yellow and white lines, shaggy verge, and, once, the eyeshine of a deer that thankfully didn’t dart across their path, it felt more like flying than anything. An untethered forward fall through time and space, stars wheeling overhead, the wind burning her cheeks.

The clubhouse itself was found at the terminus of a dead-end road, one at the end of a series of small, twisting, two-lane back roads studded at intervals with small family homes. The street narrowed to a one-lane, concrete driveway, marked by a mailbox, and a wooden sign swinging on an arm from two chains, the wordsBeware of Dogsartfully branded into the surface of the wood in Old English lettering. The drive wended, snakelike, through a hardwood forest that was no doubt brilliant with fall color in the daylight, rising steadily the whole time, until they finally crested a hill and entered a clearing that blazed with light.

Melissa adjusted her grip on his waist so she could sit up straighter and take a better look.

A wide lawn swept up to the steps of a large, rambling farmhouse, one that had clearly been added on to over the years, simple, prewar pediments butting up against Victorian gingerbread on wings that flanked a central, simple saltbox house, all of it a weathered gray clapboard topped with a red tin roof, the rails of various levels of porches strung with party lights.

More lights swung gently where they stretched from pole to pole, bordering a rectangular patch of yard given over to picnic tables, horseshoe pits, and fires burning in copper pits that gleamed and danced with the light of the flames. People milled around, on the porches and within the yard, dark shapes of men and women holding drinks. Lights blazed in all the house windows, and she could hear the twangy strains of country music above the rumble of Pongo’s slow-moving bike.

The driveway looped around to a wide parking pad that sat in front of a massive, five-doored detached garage that had once been a barn. She spotted lots of Harleys, some cars and pickup trucks – and, backed in alongside one another, a black Range Rover and a black Jaguar, wildly out of place amidst all the American-made horsepower.

Pongo walked his bike backward into a line of others just like it, and killed the engine. That was when Melissa realized her shaking had nothing to do with the vibration of the bike. Her knees and hip flexors felt watery; she didn’t trust her legs to hold her if she dismounted, and so she sat, fingers fumbling the clasp of her helmet, as she stared at the big house, and its big yard, and its big crowd of people, and her sitting here, the enemy at the gate.

In front of her, Pongo set his helmet on the handlebars, tugged off his gloves, and fluffed his curls back into place with his fingers. When he half-turned to look at her over his shoulder, she saw that he was smiling, expression animated with eagerness. He was home; these were his people.

His face fell, though, when he caught sight of hers. “Babe?”

“I–” Her jaw was trembling so bad it was difficult to form words.

In a startling gymnastic feat, Pongo twisted around on the seat, legs lifting up, and over, and resettling, boots on the ground, so he straddled the bike backward, facing her. He hooked a hand behind each of her knees, and dragged her forward off the bump seat and into his lap; his belt buckle dug into the fly of her jeans. He didn’t ask what was wrong, when her trembling hands landed on his shoulders and pressed in tight, her nails digging into leather. He knew. He said, “Baby, if you think you’re the scariest, most dangerous person who’s ever walked into that house, you think waaaaay too highly of yourself.” He softened the words with a grin, and leaned in to kiss her before she could gather a response.

It was a good kiss. All of his were, but this was the kind that went unexpectedly deep and illicit in a matter of moments. He could kiss her with tongue, deep and nasty, on a crowded sidewalk, and then smirk at her afterward in a way she never would have allowed with anyone else. He could do it here, now, in the dark of a parking lot, and settle her jangling nerves.

He cupped her face in one hand when he drew back, and squeezed her waist with the other. “Just be yourself and it’ll go fine.”

“No one likes it much when I’m ‘myself.’”

“I do. And everyone in there’s a bastard and a half, so.” He tilted his head, imploring, gaze sparkling. “Whatcha say?”

She slid her hand into his, and let him lead her off the bike and across the parking pad, his arm settling sure and proprietary around her waist. They went up a set of wooden steps onto the back porch – “Yo, Pongo!” someone called, and he shouted a “hey!” back – and around the corner to a side door.

They entered a tiled, lamplit room paneled in pale wood that seemed to be a mudroom: boot racks, and coat racks, and a fogged-up window above which were hung a variety of helmets. Beyond lay a series of interconnected sitting rooms with timbered ceilings, and more pale paneling; old, scraped-pine floors scarred with age, but new furniture, comfy and sparsely-populated. Most everyone was outside, it seemed, which gave Melissa time to catch her breath and urge the slowing of her pounding heart.

“Mav had the whole place redecorated when he became prez,” Pongo said, quietly, as they passed a roaring stone fireplace. “It looked like somebody’s grandma lived her before. Now it’s…” He cast a glance across the gray sofas and sleek glass tables, the woven rugs, and the tasteful Lean Dogs memorabilia on the walls, in shadowboxes and simple wood frames. “It’s classy, I dunno.”

It smelled pleasant, she noted, unlike the frat boy funk of the apartment in Manhattan. Like wood smoke, and floor polish, and of warm, fresh bread, for some reason.

“Does Mav have an old lady?” she asked, curious, because the place had the distinct air of a home created by or for a woman’s viewing pleasure.

“No. This is all him. Here we go.”

They reached a set of double doors, solid-core and composed of four stacked panels, heavy and well-made more than a hundred years ago. The knobs were mercury glass, and Pongo turned both and pushed the doors inward with a flourish.

A bay window along the far wall let in the warm light from outside into what had clearly begun life as a dining room. A long, simple plank table ran the length of the space now, beneath a black iron chandelier, but the table held ash trays rather than place settings, and the tattered old cuts framed on the walls told her this was not a place for eating. She’d never seen one, but Pongo had talked about it. This was the chapel: the holy, solemn, secret beating heart of each MC clubhouse.

She halted on the threshold, because she also knew that this wasn’t a place where women were allowed.

There was one here now, though. A tall, slender, strikingly beautiful woman sitting midway down the table, across from where Melissa now stood. She wore her dark hair pulled back sharply, minimal makeup save a deep plum lipstick, and her dress was of the sort that looked simple and effortless, but probably cost more than Melissa’s monthly rent.

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