SLAM HER(21)

I started to shake my head.

Slam breezed right by me. “Suit yourself. You stay, you pay.”

“Excuse me?”

I turned and started to chase after Slam.

Next thing I knew I was standing at the side of a motorcycle. Slam grabbed a helmet and handed it out to me.

“Take it,” he said. “Come for a ride. Taste the open road, babe. Live a little.”

“You can’t go into town,” I said.

“I won’t. We’ll go west. I know a little place. We’ll grab a slice of pizza and hang.”

I shut my eyes and grabbed the helmet. I couldn’t believe what I was about to do. But it seemed like the lesser of a hundred evils. Meaning… if I stayed I’d be around an entire club of bikers. If I went with Slam, it was just him. Me and him.

I climbed onto the back of the motorcycle a minute later and slipped my hands around Slam’s body. I felt leather and then hardness. Muscle. All f*cking muscle.

The rumble of engine made me shiver between my legs.

So did Slam.





His version of a little ride was different than mine. We blasted out of town and down the road I had broken down on. I couldn’t talk to him or ask where we were going. I was locked to him and his command of the motorcycle. It was freeing yet I felt anxiety. This was the kind of stuff that always got me into trouble. I couldn’t just say thanks and walk away, right? I had to end up with my car getting fixed and taking an hour long ride with Slam.

When he did stop, it was a small pizza place. You wouldn’t know it was a pizza place because it was an apartment building. A small sign stuck out that said Angie’s in small, black text.

“This?” I asked him.

“Best pizza you’ll ever have. And the view…”

He pointed and when I stepped to the side of the building I realized we were at the coast. The water crashing ten feet down into jagged rocks. The rumble of the motorcycle was fresh in my ears still but when it faded, in came the sound of the ocean.

I felt my throat tighten a little. It was so beautiful to me. Something that was so close yet I never got the chance to take advantage of. The meaning was so much deeper though. My mother loved the coast. She loved to take random road trips to different parts. Or on a nice day she’d just drive the coast.

When I saw the ocean it made me feel closer to her. If there was such thing as heaven, for my mother it would be the coast.

“You okay?” Slam asked.

“Yeah. Just… tired. I need a drink.”

Slam opened the door and the pizza place was small and worn. An elderly woman saw Slam and almost did a cartwheel. She let out a cry and hurried from behind the counter right to him. She reached up for his face. Slam bent and the woman grabbed his cheeks and pulled him down.

“Spencer!” her voice cracked.

Spencer? Was that his real name?

I felt myself blush as Slam looked back at me, curling his lip.

I had a little piece of information on him now.

Spencer.

How proper of a name for a guy thick was muscles, tattoos, and a criminal record that went for miles.

“I haven’t seen you in a long time. Where have you been?”

“Working. You know that. Hey, Auntie Ang, meet my friend. This is Belle.”

The woman looked at me. She had blue eyes like mine.

“Oh my,” she whispered. “You are beautiful. So beautiful.” She looked at Slam. “I told you, stay out of trouble and find a beautiful woman to spend the rest of your life with.”

“Oh, I’m not…”

“Auntie Ang,” Slam said, cutting me off. “I just got out of prison again.”

The elderly woman looked at me. “Men, right?”

“I’m…”

Slam grabbed my hand. I flinched and wanted to rip my hand away. He gave a sideways glance that told me not to do anything stupid.

So I kept my mouth shut.

“Auntie Ang, how about a few slices?” Slam asked.

“You got it,” she said and snapped her fingers.

Slam tugged at my hand and mouthed come on.

I walked through the pizza place to the kitchen. It looked like a regular kitchen in a house. There was a small TV on the corner of the counter with the local news blaring. We then went through the back door and outside. There was a deck off to the right and two picnic tables down on a small yard. At the edge of the yard it dropped off down to the ocean. It was an amazing view.

“Figure we could kill some time here, babe,” Slam said. He jumped up and sat on the top of a picnic table and took out a cigarette. He lit up and took a drag like there was nothing wrong with the world.

I slowly crept to the edge of the yard. A nice breeze hit me in the face. The rushing of the water, crashing into the rocks, it was so soothing. When I was a baby my mother had some kind of sound machine thing and she would set it to the sound of the ocean for me.

I felt my throat tighten a little and my eyes flooded with tears.

I took a shaky breath and had to get control of myself. It had been a weird day so far and I didn’t need it to get out of hand.

I inched forward again, my toes going over the edge. The drop wasn’t all that far. The points of the rocks would be a problem… but I sort of wanted to touch the water. I knew this had to be a place on the coast my mother never got to.