Out Bad (2 page)

A middle aged woman sitting with a couple other women at a
table in the corner was eyeing him, heavily. 

“First off, she hasn’t been a filly for years.  Second,
there is nothing little about her.”  Almost on cue, she giggled at
something one of her friends must have said causing her extremely large chest
to bounce all over the place. 

“Third, I’m not a good time.”  He stood, shoving the
stool away with the backs of his legs.  “I’m
gonna
take that as my cue to call it a night.”

“You haven’t been out in forever man and you’re going to go
home at—” Heath checked his watch.  “Holy shit it’s after one.  We
need to head out.”  He jumped up, nearly knocking his stool down, grabbing
it before it hit the floor.  “When this crowd tries to leave it’s going to
be ugly.”

Joe scanned the crowd.  Heath was right.  There
probably weren’t too many sober people here.

Throwing a couple extra bucks on the bar, he turned to
follow Heath out.  The closer it got to closing time, the higher the
chances got of bikes banging together.  So did the odds of getting pulled
over, and if a cop pulled Joe over it could be a difficult situation to say the
least.

“I’ll follow you until we’re well away from here.” 
Heath fired up his bike.

Joe nodded and started his own Harley.  His previously
decent mood darkened as he rode away from the bar, his friend following just in
case he needed to throw around his badge.  It always seemed no matter how
hard he tried, how successful and upstanding he became, he would never be able
to completely escape the life he used to live.

Gwen pulled her BMW into the garage and climbed out as the
overhead door slid closed behind her.  She stepped onto the travertine
tile of her mudroom, the stiletto heels of her boots clicking against the hard
surface. 

After latching the door and resetting the alarm, she made
her way into the kitchen, the staccato sound of her steps bouncing off the
walls of the silent house.  Opening the fridge, she grabbed a giant bottle
of water out of the door and headed down the hall. 

She was exhausted.  It had been a hell of a week at
work and the last thing she’d wanted to do tonight was leave the peace and
quiet of her house.  Her initial plans for the evening consisted of a nice
long session on the stair stepper and some number crunching in her pajamas with
a glass of wine.  Then Gabbi called.

So, against her better judgment, Gwen agreed to come out.

She’d been in the bar less than five minutes before she
regretted her decision.  Immensely.  If you were playing the game
about one of these things not being like the others, you would have found the
odd thing immediately.  It was her.

Every other woman in the place was wearing sparkly jeans and
black shirts, their hair pulled back from riding all day, skin tanned from
hours spent in the sun on the back of a motorcycle.  She’d rushed in from
work, tugged the bun out of her hair reorganizing the resulting curls with an
iron and threw on the outfit she thought would be the most appropriate. 

It wasn’t.  She stood out like a disco ball in a dark
room, drawing every eye her way. 

She was forced to spend the evening being ogled by men of
every generation and level of inebriation.  Luckily just about every one
of them was with their lady friend which kept them at bay and out of her
hair.  No one actually even spoke to her.  Well, except the guy who
ended his evening making out with the floor of the bar. 

That wasn’t actually true.  There was one other man who
spoke to her.  A man with dark hair that waved down to fall into his even
darker eyes.  With tanned skin, not just from the sun, but genetics. 
The golden richness made the white of his teeth stand out, even in his barely
opened mouth as he spoke.

The same man who turned out to be her brother-in-law’s
friend.  His best friend. 

Propping herself up against the railing of the stairs, she
unzipped her ankle boots one by one and slipped them off, hooking each over a
finger.  Tucking her water bottle in the crook of her arm, the cold
immediately seeping through to her skin, she climbed the plush carpeted stairs
to her room. 

She pulled off her clothes and left them in a pile on the
floor, dropping her boots on top.  Cranking on the shower, she turned the
tap to almost scalding.  As tired as she was, a shower had to happen
tonight.  She smelled like a bar.  Not a nice bar either.

Gwen stood in front of the mirror, inspecting as she waited
for the water to heat up.  She was really pale.  She turned to the
side.  Maybe a little too skinny.  Maybe more squats would help get a
little more shape to her ass.  Or maybe spending a little less time parked
in the chair in front of her desk. 

Most women her age had given up more than a couple years
ago, living in yoga pants and ponytails.  At least she wasn't at that
point yet.  Then again, most women her age had children and husbands
keeping them crazy and tired.  And happy.

A pang of sadness twisted her stomach.  If one single
day three years ago had gone differently, she would be crazy and tired and
happy too.

Gwen pulled a chunk of hair across her face and sniffed,
making a face at the stale stink of the bar that had penetrated the strands in
such a short time.  She sighed and tossed the hair band she was preparing
to throw her hair up with onto the counter.

It was almost two by the time she was washed, dried and
sliding between the crisp Egyptian cotton sheets of her bed.  She flicked
on the TV, dropping the remote on her lap so it would be easy to find, and
began scrolling through e-mails on her phone.  Nothing that needed her
attention now except Richard asking if he could call her tomorrow to discuss
some ideas he had.

Even when she hadn’t been up for almost 24 hours straight
Richard annoyed the shit out of her.  His enthusiasm for work was
sickening.  And more than a little obnoxious.  She opened a reply
e-mail and drafted a response.

No.

She sent it and plugged her phone into the cord on her
nightstand.  After turning off the lamp, she curled up and started
flipping through channels filled with the terrible shows reserved for the after
2 a.m. slots, finally landing on an infomercial about some sort of new coffee
machine. 

She watched as an over-hyped actress ‘
oohed
’
and ‘
ahhed
’ over the machine’s ability to recreate
coffee house drinks for a fraction of the price at home.  She laid through
the whole hour long commercial hoping it would force her mind to shut down,
with no success.

Instead of slowing down and taking her to dreamland, her
brain crept toward the darkened edges where she forced all thoughts of that one
day that changed everything.

It had been years.  Long enough that she was usually
able to keep her mind free of the memories.  Definitely long enough that
this evening shouldn’t have created a problem.

She’d been around bikes and bikers plenty of times, and each
time it got easier.  Eventually, she could hear the sound of a motorcycle
and not give it a second thought.  But not tonight.  Maybe it was
being back where it all happened again, or maybe it was meeting a man who
reminded her in many ways of the one she lost.  It didn't matter why, just
that for whatever reason, tonight left her plagued with the memories and
what-if’s she did her best to avoid at any cost. 

Gwen rolled to her side and curled into a ball as memories
of a past so painful it was hard to breathe overwhelmed her.  Silent tears
of sadness and loss burned her tired eyes and soaked her pillow, making the
fabric stick to her cheek. 

She should have stayed home.  Then she would be
peacefully sleeping in her bed instead of tossing and turning, sniffling into
her pillow feeling sorry for herself.

Gwen flipped her pillow and laid her face on the cooler and
drier underside and closed her eyes, hoping not to be met with more images of
the past.  The mental picture that greeted her wasn't from her past, but
could turn out to be just as devastating.  It was Joe.  The tall,
dark and handsome man she'd only just met.

Who was he?  She’d never heard Gabbi or Heath mention
him, but tonight her sister introduced him as Heath’s best friend.  Not a
friend, not some guy he knew from riding.  His
best
friend. 
She hadn’t realized grown men had best friends.  But then those were
Gabbi’s words, not theirs. 

She stared at the ceiling, no longer even interested in
pretending to watch the TV, instead focusing on the play of shadows and lights
it cast above her head. 

What was it about the man that caught her attention so
effectively? 

His looks would definitely garner him more than his fair
share of female interest.  While she wouldn’t argue the fact that he was
nice to look at, she came across attractive men every day, but not one drew her
in like he did and they definitely didn’t keep her up at night.

There was something else.  Or countless something
else’s. 

It was the way he studied her when he looked at her. 
Not ogling like other men, but watching, taking everything in.  Like he
was appreciating a piece of art work, not checking out a woman in a bar. 

It was the richness and the depth of his voice.  She
heard it only twice, but that was enough to have her imagining him saying all
sorts of things to her.  Things she hadn’t heard in years.

“This is ridiculous.” 

She turned off the television, put a pillow over her head
and forced any thoughts of the past and the events of the evening to the back
of her mind. 

She started mentally running through the numbers of a
company she was dealing with at work and almost immediately, finally fell
asleep.

****

“
Gwennie
!” 

Her sister’s voice was muffled, but the sense of urgency was
still obvious.  She’d just finally gotten to sleep.  Was she dreaming? 

“Gwen!”  Gabbi’s voice was still muffled, but louder
than the first time. 

Gwen bolted upright in bed, the pillow she’d placed over her
head falling to the ground as she moved.  The bright light of the morning
assaulted her eyes as she shielded them with her hand.

“Oh thank God.”  Her sister was in her room, her hand
over her heart, panting slightly.

“What in the world is going on?”  Gwen blinked, trying
to adjust her eyes to the light and clear the cloud of sleep still fogging her
brain. 

“What are you doing here?”  

“I’ve been calling you all morning.  You always answer
your phone.”  Gabbi crossed the room and struggled to climb onto the foot
of the bed.  “This bed is awful Gwen.  It’s made for freaking
giants.”  She looked over the edge.  “You’d probably suffer head
trauma if you fell out of the thing.”

Damn.  What time was it?  Gwen reached down and
grabbed the pillow off the floor.  Hopefully no one from work was trying
to call her.  She grabbed her phone and began scrolling.  “I like the
bed.  I wanted to be comfortable and I’m not in the habit of falling off
of anything.”  Five calls from Gabbi and one from Richard.  “Ass.”

“I was worried about you!”

“Not you.”  She set her phone back on the table and
slid off the bed.  She’d wait to call Richard back until her sister
left.  She already caught enough grief from her family about how much she
worked, no need to add fuel to the fire. 

“I
gotta
pee.  I’ll be
back.”  She’d chugged almost the whole liter of water she brought upstairs
before going to bed and it was dying to come out.

She came back out to find her sister propped against her
pillows, shoes off, watching television.  “You might be right.  It’s
pretty comfortable.  Might be worth a concussion.”

Gwen climbed up beside her sister.  “You probably
didn’t stop for coffee on the way did you?” 

Gabbi turned to her, a look of incredulity on her
face.  “I thought you were dead.  No, I didn’t stop to get you
coffee.”

Gwen sighed dramatically.  “Fine.  I’m going to go
make some then.”  She slid back off the bed and padded across the room in
her bare feet.  “Want a cup?”

“Yeah.  Can we drink it in the bed?”  Gabbi patted
at the fluffy covers around her body with open palms.  “This thing is like
a flipping cloud.”

 Gwen shot her sister a look and held up one
finger.  “We can drink it in bed, but you have to swear you’ll be
careful.”

Gabbi held her hand up like she was taking some sort of
oath.  “Swear.”  She dropped her hand and leaned back, snuggling into
the pile of pillows.  “But if something were to happen and the bed was
ruined, I’d be happy to find it a new home for you.”

“Gabbi, I swear if you spill coffee in my bed I’ll cut you.”

“Yeah, whatever.  I don’t have a dick.  You don’t
scare me.”  She pointed out the door.  “That coffee’s not
gonna
make itself.”

Gwen turned and headed down the hall to the staircase
calling back over her shoulder loud enough for Gabbi to hear. 

“Just for that I’m going to leave the bed to Heath in my
will with the stipulation that you can never sleep in it.”  She could hear
her sister's laughter all the way down the stairs.

Gwen opened the K-Cup holder mounted to the underside of the
cabinet above the
Keurig
and pulled out a dark roast
and popped it in the machine, letting the aroma of freshly brewed coffee
stimulate her still groggy brain.  Just knowing caffeine was in the works
was enough to get the gears grinding.  She switched out her cup and got
her sister’s milder brew going as she opened the fridge, splashing a little
half and half in hers.

After hitting her sister's with some cream and sugar, she
carefully headed back up the stairs to find her sister had moved under the
covers and organized the pillows so she was vertical enough to drink her coffee
without choking, or more importantly, spilling. 

Gwen passed her a steaming mug and climbed in beside
her.  “Heath got the kids?”

Gabbi took a long sip of her coffee, keeping her eyes
closed, clearly relishing the experience.  “You know I never get to enjoy
my coffee?  I never get to savor that first taste.”  She took another
long drink.  “I’m always running around fighting with the girls while they
cry and throw shit and take their clothes off two seconds before we have to
walk out the door.”

“Those girls are angels.  You’ll never convince me
otherwise.”  Gwen’s nieces might be her two favorite people, with her
sister and Heath close on their heels.  They were beautiful and smart and
funny. 

And hell on wheels.

“You’re their Auntie.  It’s your job to think they’re
perfect.  I’m their mom.  It’s my job to feed them and bathe them and
wait till they’re in bed to talk about what assholes they’ve been to me all
day.”  Gabbi pulled the duvet up higher and savored another gulp of
coffee.

The women sat quietly, watching some cooking show Gabbi
picked out, drinking their coffee.  Gwen polished hers off and set the
empty cup on the table trading it out for her phone.  She was scrolling
through e-mails when she remembered why Gabbi was here in the first
place. 

“What were you calling me for this morning?”

“Oh, yeah.  I’m making dinner for Heath’s birthday
Wednesday.  I figured you’d have to work but I wanted to let you know.”

Gwen’s ears perked up against her will and before she had a
chance to stop her mouth, she heard herself saying, “I’ll be there.”