Trigger, page 14
Oh, I want to. I so want to. “Yes. I want to see everything.”
He whips his T-shirt over his head and my eyes feast on his body. Tattoos—skulls, snakes, weapons, & roses riddle his slightly furred torso. And his nipples, oh my god…. Rings of gold, exactly like his penis piercing, wink at me. “You are so hot,” I say on a weak breath as I tug one of the rings.
He catches my hand and moves it away from his chest. “You up for another fuck already, baby? ‘cause if you keep doin’ that, you’ll get one.”
My pussy burns at the thought of my teeth tugging those piercings while he impales me with his cock, but my body cries out for mercy. I find myself blushing as I admit, “I might need a small intermission.”
He crosses his arms, drawing my eyes to his magnificent bi-ceps. Maybe if we go slow, carefully. But no. We’ll start that way and then combust. There’s nothing gentle about my man and my body pulses at the thought.
He laughs like he knows what I’m thinking. “We’ll have a lifetime, gorgeous.”
“Yeah,” I sigh, taking a sip of scotch. “I want a big wedding. Designer gown, white roses, white everything. My mom will want that too.”
He frowns and I think we’re about to have our first fight, but he surprises me by saying, “Then I better meet the parents.”
I can’t contain the brilliant smile that forms on my lips. This man, my man, isn’t afraid of anything including walking into a den of vipers. “Yeah. I guess you should. And I’d like to meet your family too.”
“It’s just me and my old man,” he replies as his eyes stroke over me. It’s not a smouldering gaze though. I see the doubt in the furrow of his forehead, the small frown on his lips. “Me and him, we’re not your people.”
“You are my people, lover,” I tell him and then punctuate it with a whiskey-flavoured kiss. “You are the only people I want.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Trigger
I park my bike on the concrete pavement of the driveway of my dad’s house in Reno. There are ancient cracks in it, weeds claiming them, a mirror of the overgrown yard, all dandelions and junk. The house that I grew up in is a shack surrounded by other shacks in a part of Reno that no one gives a fuck about. Didn’t matter then and it don’t matter now.
I never had much when I was a kid except a few friends and parents that didn’t hate me. I had a superman complex back then, always thinkin’ I could help change the shit area we lived in. I thought I’d become a lawyer or advocate or something, but after mom offed herself when I was fifteen, me and the old man kinda fell apart. Dad quit talkin’ and I lost interest in tryin’ to save the world. We both started drinking more than we should. I was into the soft drugs, and finally dropped out of school at 17. Rocky and I were friends at the time and as soon as he got vested, he sponsored me. The Jury straightened me out and I straightened my dad out.
The old man’s sittin’ in his usual chair on the porch as I approach. It’s an old recliner, the once black leather so faded in places it looks like a jersey cow. I offer him money to replace it, offer to move him into a better neighbourhood, but he says, “I was born here and I’m gonna die here. I never took handouts from anyone and I’m not about to start.”
He lives on a government pension that keeps him in groceries and beer. Keeps his clunker of a car runnin’ and insured, lets him drink with his friends at the neighborhood pub once a week.
He never wants anything from me except new shoes, which I get him for his birthday, Father’s Day, and Christmas. “A man’s gotta have good shoes,” he says whenever one of those days rolls around.
“Hey,” I say as I amble up to the porch with my fingers tucked into the top of my jean pockets. With all the shit that’s been going down with the Jury, I haven’t seen him in a while.
He nods at me. “Beer’s in the fridge. Grab me one while you’re in there.”
I step inside the time capsule that I grew up in. Dad keeps it neat, but there’s dust everywhere and the floor needs sweeping. He won’t let me hire him a housekeeper and I don’t do that kind of domestic shit for anyone. He wouldn’t let me anyway.
The fridge is empty except for beer, cream for his coffee, and leftover lasagna, the kind from the freezer that you stick in a microwave. He never was a cook – that was mom’s job. After she died, the frozen food section of the supermarket became our hunting grounds.
I grab two Buds and head back outside, handing him one and then popping the top on mine as I sit down gingerly in a weather-beaten lawn chair. I’m not a lightweight and the rusted legs protest.
“Cheers, my boy,” dad says as he raises his can in the air and we clink them together, then take a long draught. We’re father and son, there’s no doubt, although it’s hard to tell since I’m covered in ink and hair. He’s got a couple of small tats, a grizzled shadow of a beard and short grey hair that’s starting to fall out. It bodes well for me in terms of keeping my fur cap for another 30 plus years. He’s 62 but looks older. Life’s been hard on him.
I pull a smoke from my pack, offer him one, which he takes, then I light both.
He coughs as he inhales. “Should quit this poison,” he rasps as he flicks an ash.
“Me too.” I take a drag. I smoke a few a day. Maybe ten, sometimes less, sometimes more. Depends on how busy I am. But he’s right. I should quit.
“Yeah. Before your lungs turn to shit.”
“Yeah.”
Silence settles between us, but it’s companionable. I’m not a quiet guy, but around my dad I don’t have much to say, mostly because he don’t. I take another swallow of my beer.
“You eat?” he asks.
I shrug. “I’ll eat later.”
He smirks. “Got a girl yet?”
These are the two questions he always asks.
And I always answer the same way, except today I surprise him. “Yeah, I think I do.”
He shifts in his recliner so he’s almost facing me. “You shittin’ me, Casper?”
I snort out a chuckle. “Wait’ll you see her. She’s gorgeous from her toes to the top of her head.” I pause as I think about her. “I haven’t seen the arches of her feet yet, but soon, I’m thinking.”
“Not like you to be turned by a pretty face,” he grunts as he settles back in his chair. “You got dozens falling over you.”
I don’t bring girls home to dad, but I don’t sugarcoat my life. He knows who I am and what I do. He knows I’m a whore. “This one’s different. She’s more than a pretty face.”
“Not tappin’ her yet?”
What a ridiculous question. “Of course, I am.” I think about Evanee. “I’m no trophy so I gotta figure out how to make her want to stay. She’s confident, smart, and knows what she wants. Gets it too.” I grin. “I can’t really figure it out myself.”
The old man laughs. “Now she, I gotta meet.”
Fuck. This was why I was dropping by, but lookin’ at my old man, the overgrown yard, the shack I grew up in, I start doubting myself. “She a veterinarian, got degrees and shit.”
“Too good for your old man then?” He tries to sound casual, but there’s a hurt undertone.
“Nah,” I say, deciding if I have to meet her fucking county club parents, then she can slum with me for a while. Maybe she needs to know where I come from before we’re settled. Maybe I need to know how she’s gonna be around my pops before I get in too deep. Maybe she’s not perfect. Then what?
“I’ll set something up,” I tell him.
He grins and I see light in his dirty dishwater eyes. “I’ll cook.”
I groan and slap my forehead with the palm of my hand. “I want you to meet her, not poison her.”
He laughs. “I’ll throw something decent in the oven.”
“Fairs fair, I guess. I gotta meet her parents and they’ll make me eat some of that goose liver pate shit.”
“She’s posh then.”
I hear the same doubt in his voice that I had a minute ago, but it’s a done deal. “As they come.”
He runs a critical eye over me. “You meetin’ her uppity parents lookin’ like that?”
I’m offended as I look down at myself. Sure, the jeans need a wash and the boots are worn, but the T-shirt’s fresh out of the laundry basket. “Of course not. I’ll change my clothes, leave my cut at home.” I think about it. “Take a shower.”
“Get a fuckin’ haircut,” he growls as he stabs a finger at my head.
I open my mouth, then close it. Cut my hair? “Are you fuckin’ nuts? I don’t do that for anyone.”
It’s like he hasn’t heard me. “And shave off that poodle you got on your face.”
I touch my beard. My face hasn’t seen the light of day in six years. “I don’t think I can.”
“You better or her parents will hate you on sight and she might not wanna be with someone they don’t like. Besides it’ll make them respect you more.”
“So would my gun. Maybe I’ll just bring it to dinner.” I drain my beer and crush the can between by hands.
Dad grunts as he faces forward again. “Cut the hair, shave, get a decent pair of jeans. You might have the girl right now, but if you wanna keep her, you gotta respect her.”
He shuts the line of conversation down and I let him. For all I know, I’m so ugly under the beard that Evanee will take one look at me and run for the hills. I’ll never have sex again.
We’re quiet for a moment, then dad says, “What else goin’ on with you? Do I gotta start watchin’ my back again?”
I think about it. I try to bring him in when the Jury’s in lockdown, but he refuses. “It’s my time to die when it’s my time to die.” He’s not that old, but I get it. He gave up on life when mom did. At least he stuck around, though I’m not always sure it was because of me. Still, I’m one of the lucky ones – some of my brothers had it a whole lot worse.
“You should always watch your back, old man,” I reply as I toss the crushed beer can on the pile that’s already there. “We have more fuckin’ enemies than you have hemorrhoids.”
That gets him chuckling. “Another beer?” he nods to the empty can.
“Can’t,” I tell him as I stand. “Gotta get a haircut.”
“Won’t recognize you if you do but lookin’ forward to seein’ your ugly puss.” He pauses as he contemplates me. “Bring the girl over soon.”
I grin. “I’ll let you know when.”
After I leave, I drive around for a while. My bike is my solace, but I’m not as obsessed as some of the guys. When I joined the Jury, I didn’t have a sled and Hangman bitched about that until I got one. He said I’d be a prospect until I showed up with a Harley.
I scrimped and saved and I’ll admit, rolled a few assholes in Reno until I could afford a rusted old bucket of shit Harley that someone had stashed in a back yard. The fuckin’ thing wasn’t even runnin’ but I walked it into the clubhouse to my brothers’ applause. It got me my cut.
Jawbone got it runnin’ for me and once I was part of the club, I earned enough to buy a new one. I didn’t though. I bought a used one in honour of my upbringing. Nothing shiny or precious for me. If it can’t take a beatin’ it don’t deserve to be rode.
An hour of delaying, I finally get the courage to follow my old man’s advice. I roll into Sagebrush, stoppin’ at the first place I see. It isn’t until I’m inside and being stared at by seven women of various ages, shapes and color, that I realise I should have went lookin’ for a barber.
A woman of about forty saunters up to the counter. “Can I help you, gorgeous?” she asks without a trace of fear. She’s wearing a tag on her chest with the name Annie on it.
Too late to back out now. I’m not about to lose face in front of a bunch of women. “Yeah,” I grunt. “Need a haircut and a clean-up on the beard.”
Her face lights up, but then falls when she looks at her appointment book. “I don’t have room until four o’clock.”
Relief hits me like a five-ton truck until a woman older than Rocky’s grandma pipes up from her chair in the waiting area. “Annie, he can have my appointment. Clearly the young man needs some TLC and I don’t mind waiting.”
There’s a general murmur from the other women and a big smile from Annie. “You’re a doll, Laura. I’ll discount you.”
I try to get Laura to change her mind. “Don’t wanna put you out.”
“Oh honey,” she says with a shit-eatin’ grin on her face that rivals mine just before I go down on my girl. “I wanna see the handsome under your beard.”
“Mmm hmmm,” says a beauty a few years older than me. She’s one of the hairdressers and has an ass on her that I’d have tapped in a minute a few weeks ago. My dick’s droopin’ though, knowing the best ass in town belongs to Evanee and that’s the only ass I’ll be tappin’ for the rest of my life.
Before I can run like the coward I am, Annie drags me to the back of the shop and shoves me into a chair that backs onto a sink. “You’re gonna need a wash before we get started. Hair and beard.”
She whips a bib with Velcro fasteners around my neck that covers me from my arms down to my knees. I get a sense of vertigo as she reclines the chair and shoves my head back into the sink. I have this horrible feelin’ I’m about to get my throat slit, but she starts sprayin’ the tepid water on my hair, then dumps some shampoo on it and rubs it in. Fuck if it don’t feel good to have her fingers massage my scalp.
“What kind of haircut are you having?” a voice that’s smoked too many cigarettes filters over to me.
The woman with the ass says, “I think it should all go.”
“Whoa,” I choke out. The thought of not havin’ anything on the top of my head would bring me to my knees if I weren’t being held hostage by Annie and her magical fingers.
“No Jasmine, that’s too much.” This voice has a soft sweet lilt to her tone that makes me think of Haley, King’s ol’ lady. “I think he’d look gorgeous with maybe an inch on top and the sides shaved. The beard goes but leave a sexy shadow.”
The fuckin’ beard goes? Don’t I get a say?
There’s a collective sigh around the room as Annie sits me up and wraps a towel around my head. “Don’t need to wash the beard, I guess, if it’s all coming off.” She shifts her attention.
“Daisy, gonna need your chair, if you don’t mind moving to Bab’s. You have another twenty minutes before the dye gets rinsed.”
“No problem,” Daisy says as she gathers her bib with her hand and switches chairs. She’s the one with the soft voice. Pretty too, about 50, her hair in curlers with a bunch of white papers.
“You gettin’ a dye job?” I ask because I figure I need to say something.
“Highlights,” she smiles. “Goddamnit, Babs,” she says to the middle-aged woman who’s fussing with the rollers. “Of all the times to be married.”
Babs laughs loudly. “I told you to divorce the bugger.”
“I should’ve listened.”
Shit, now they’re objectifying me.
Annie steers me to the chair and twists it so I’m looking in the mirror.
“I got an ugly mug,” I say, thinking now’s the time to escape, towel in my hair and all.
“Let me see,” Jasmine says as she puts down her scissors and turns on… I mean… to me. She shoves her hands in my beard and feels around my face, chin, and neck.
“What the hell are you doing?” I growl, thinking to swat her hands away but I’m immobilized by the fucking bib.
“Don’t worry, honey,” Laura says from the waiting room. “Jasmine’s a face whisperer.”
There’s a chorus of agreement.
I forget myself. “What the fuck’s a face whisperer?”
“Jasmine can feel a face and know just like that what works.” The lady with the smoker’s voice says from two chairs over. She’s gettin’ her nails done by a small woman who’s almost jailbait.
I catch the girl’s eye and she smiles and quirks her eyebrows at me. She ain’t flirtin’ though and I feel offended. I’m in the fuckin’ twilight zone, I decide. It’s my charm though, that gets attention and for some reason, it’s gone missing. “Mrs. Jennings is right,” she says as she nods towards her client. “Jasmine’s the best.”
Jasmine steps back. “There’s a fine face under all that hair.” She looks me over from my boots to my ripped jeans, which is all she can see ‘cause the rest of me is covered by the bib. “It’ll go nice with that fine body.”
“Hey!” I protest with ironic offence. “Kind of unprofessional talkin’ about me like I’m a piece of meat.”
“You love it, baby,” Jasmine says to the loud laughter of the women.
I’m thinkin’ I’ve just about had enough when I hear the snip of the scissors and see a large chunk of my hair fall to the floor. Fuck!
“There’s no turning back now,” Annie says like she’s reading my mind. I catch her eyes in the mirror, and become afraid, very afraid. I’ve become their project, and I won’t get to leave until they’re ready to let me go.
“Does he have scars?” Laura from the waiting room asks Jasmine.
“You could ask me,” I say with a note of irritation.
“You might lie,” Mrs. Jennings observes.
“No scars,” Jasmine confirms.
“Then why’re you hidin’ that mug under all that hair?” Babs asks.
I start to tell her it ain’t any of her business, but Mrs. Jennings gets out in front of me. “It’s clear he’s a biker.”
Annie pats my back as she snips my hair off. “Hell’s Jury, his vest says.”
“It’s a cut,” I mumble. “Not a vest.”
“Just like your hair,” Jasmine says to general titters.
The young girl looks up from buffing Mrs. Jennings nails. “He’s looking better already.”
“He was pretty gorgeous to begin with, Elsa,” Laura observes.
Then horror sets in as Annie grabs my beard and starts cutting it off.
“Fuck,” I almost scream as I jerk in my chair.
“Don’t be moving around like that,” Jasmine says. “Or you’re going to end up with a scar on your perfect face.”
