Page 1 of Odin
Chapter 1
Willow
Does size matter? Well, when the size in question was eight inches, belonged to my fiancé, and was fucking my mother on the living room floor, I’d say yes, it matters a great deal. About as much as two tiny letters matter.Ex. Ex-fiancé. Ex-mother. Ex-home. Ex-everything-I-thought-I-knew.
Goodbye LA, RIP to my future marriage, and the life that I thought we were building together.
What’s worse than coming home and catching your fiancé sleeping with your mother? Having to walk upstairs and pack the few things that you know you’re not going to be able to live without while he fluttered and flapped, garbled and snorted, spat and pleaded, all around you, the entire time. It all fell on deaf ears. I was ondead-tomeground. I’ll never go back to that house. Once I had a few bags packed, I got in my car and drove.
I drove, and drove, and drove. I drove until four in the morning, when I pulled over at a truck stop and slept in the back of the car. I didn’t need a pillow or a blanket. My rage and the hot, useless tears I cried kept me warm.
I woke up to a knock on the window at seven in the morning, a stern faced older man telling me I had to get going. The old guy was working the morning shift, and he was nice enough to let me use the bathroom to wash up when I promised to buy breakfast at the little diner on the side of the building.
I choked down what I could and packed up the rest as force of habit. It was something Preston always hated about me. The fact that I knew what it was like to be poor, and I couldn’t let anything go to waste.
Actually, there were many things Preston didn’t like about me. It was actually about him. But you know what? Fuck Preston. Fuck him and his nasty dick, his fragile ego, and all his stupid friends. Fuck the way he never defended me against them, fuck the looks his mother gave me like she hated the reminder of where she came from. Fuck his plastic surgeon stepfather, and all the fake bullshit in that family. Fuck his job and all his co-workers who made him so insecure about himself that he had to beg me to give up everything I wanted.
And fuck me too, for ever taking my mom’s advice, for considering Preston’s feelings, for trying to understand, and for making massive changes that I thought would help our marriage grow, because… compromise.
In the brutal light of day, my wrath still burned just as bright and driving for miles hadn’t dimmed it, but now that I’m actually here in Hart and got directions from a sweet lady at the diner on the edge of town to the Satan’s Angels clubhouse, I’m starting to feeltwinges.
I could get back in my little white car and keep on driving until I find somewhere that seems… nice. I could start over again. I have a small amount of savings in my bank account. I could rent an apartment and find a job. I could pick up the pieces and survive this, because what’s the alternative? Maybe I could finally get that cat I always wanted.
Whether I go through with my wild revenge plan or not, I’m here in Hart, Washington, and that’s where I’m going tospend the night. It might be in the back of my car again, or… it might not.
I grasp the wheel so tightly in both hands that when I unfurl my nearly numb fingers, my palms make a sucking sound against the leather.
Wincing, I rub my hands against my short black pleated skirt. When the GPS told me I was fifteen minutes from Hart, I pulled over, drove five minutes down a backroad, and enacted stage one of my revenge plan.
Dress to impress. Impress meaningseduce. I’m not entirely sure what it would take to bring a forty-something year old, surly biker to his knees, but I figured that a short skirt would do it. I have five-inch heels on, which makes me look a little less like the teenager that people often mistake me for, and a tight black leather vest. I pushed my small breasts up, nearly right out of the cups of my bra, arranging them near the V cut out of the vest.
I’ve been staring at the brick clubhouse for the past fifteen minutes. I parked across the street so I could have a good vantage point. Aside from the chain link compound on the far side of the building with rows and rows of motorcycles, the place looks pretty harmless. It’s nicely landscaped in front, with immaculate green grass bisecting a neat sidewalk. There are even trimmed shrubs, and two large stone angel statues flank the front door. The parking lot on the other side of the building has a few vehicles parked, but nothing crazy. There are a few trucks, some old and some newer, two cars, and one older SUV.
The area is quite industrial, with other factories, garages, compounds, and things like tire shops, scattered around. It makes me think that the big brick building wasprobably renovated from a factory or a warehouse and given new life. This late at night on a Saturday, the only signs of life come from the two tall, muscular young guys walking around in the compound, and the thumping bass that drifts out through the sturdy building and into the dark night.
I pictured a dank, creepy compound in a seedy neighborhood, punctuated with the sounds of yelling, loud music, and gunshots. Knife fights, scantily clad women, and men beating the shit out of each other while smoking joints and cigarettes at the same time.
I still came anyway.
Over the years, I’d done a little bit of research on Satan’s Angels MC. From what I’ve read, the club doesn’t sound all that bad, but I thought maybe they were paying whoever published those articles so that they’d look good.
I tug my vest down and do one last check on my breasts. The last thing I need is a nip slip. Even in my most determined moments, when I had nothing but revenge and rage flowing through my veins, that wasn’t part of the plan. There’s seduction, and then there’s justtoomuch. Honestly? I suck at both. I can’t say I’ve really even flirted before.
I get out of the car, my feet already aching from the heels, but I’m used to having to parade around in them, sucking it up and pasting on a fake smile for hours.
I manage to walk with a saunter, forcing confidence I don’t feel. I’ve had a lot of practice doing that over the past few years too. The one thing I do miss about being poor is that I never had to fake shit all. Maybe there were a few moments here and there, but the only fronts I truly remember putting on werethe charades and the masks that I made sure were always firmly in place the day I stepped back into Preston’s world.
How the fuck did I think I could make that my life?
I don’t know if I want to scream, rage, or throw back my head and laugh hysterically at how that all ended up.
I approach the chain link fence where the gate is. I figure if I’m going to get in, it’s going to be through there.
The two younger men approach, somewhat cautiously, but with genuine smiles on their faces.
“Hey,” the first one says. He looks all of twenty, with dark hair, a fledgling beard he’s struggling to grow, and what probably passes for the biker uniform because the other guy, even though he’s taller and broader and maybe a few years older, is wearing the exact same thing.
They’re both clad in shitkicker boots, jeans, black t-shirt, and a leather jacket with a patch on the front that says ‘Prospect’. I can’t see the back, but I know what Satan’s Angels’ logo looks like. It’s a bowed stone angel with big wings swept overhead.
