Guilt already. “Yeah, sorry about that. I’ve been busy.”
“You’re never too busy to call your mother, but if you’ve been busy with a girlfriend, all will be forgiven.”
Throwing my head back, I stared at the ceiling and shook my head. How many times had we had this discussion? Fifty? A hundred? And she still wondered why I didn’t like to call home. “Nope. Still single. Focusing on my career. Being a responsible adult and all that.”
“Andrew, you’re thirty now. You need to find a nice, sweet girl to settle down with so the two of you can move back home and give me grandchildren. That reminds me, Leslie Wright’s daughter is single again. Didn’t you go to prom with her?”
“Yep.” Maryann Wright was a sexy blonde with big tits and a nice ass, and I’d only asked her to the senior prom because she’d just found out Brandon Michaels was cheating on her and was working her way through the rest of the football team as retaliation. She was a guaranteed score, and I was a horny little bastard. The next day, she’d tried to stake her claim on me like we were going steady or some shit, but even back then I knew better than to do repeats. Especially with clingers.
“I don’t know what happened with her and that man she was dating, but Leslie said he was no good. Maryann’s been asking after you, wanting to know when you’ll be returning.”
Never. Especially not for that thirsty broad. I kept in touch with enough of my old high school buddies to know that although Maryann was no longer out for revenge, she was still a guaranteed score.
“Maryann Wright is not the type of woman you’d want grandchildren from, Mom. With the way that girl gets around, I couldn’t promise they’d be mine.”
“Andrew! That’s a horrible thing to say.”
“Just callin’ it as I see it.”
Another deep sigh. “You’re not here to see it, so how could you call it? People around here talk. Always have, always will. Only about half of what they say is true, so you can’t believe every rumor you hear. I see that girl at mass every Sunday, so she can’t be all that bad.”
“She’s there confessing something. Besides, you already have grandchildren. Lots of them.” All four of my brothers had done their duty. Each had between two and three kids, at least one dog, a house, and lived within miles of our parents. I was the only disappointment.
“Never enough. Grandchildren are like jewels in my crown. Don’t deny me my jewels.”
“Your crown’s getting heavy. That can’t be good for you.”
“I have a strong neck. I’ll be fine. This is about more than grandchildren, though, I’d love to see you happily married.”
“I don’t need a ring on my finger to be happy, Mom. I have my shop and the club, and—”
“The club? You mean that motorcycle gang?”
Another conversation we’d had a hundred times or so. “It’s not a gang, it’s a club, like the Lyons or the Elks, only we ride bikes. We also do a lot of good for the community and help military vets.”
“Well, Martha Welch said she watched a documentary on motorcycle gangs and they treat women awful, passing them around like some sort of sex cult or orgy. Sharing diseases and god only knows what.”
No way in hell was I about to discuss club whores with my mother. “Please don’t ever say orgy again, Mom. And I can’t believe you’ll give Maryann Wright the benefit of the doubt, but not the Dead Presidents.”
“Don’t be like that, Andrew. I worry about you. If you were a little closer to home, I’d worry less.”
If I was closer to home, I’d probably have to put a gun to my temple and end it all. “I gotta go. The sun’s out, so we’re backed up at work right now.”
Another deep sigh. “Okay. But please don’t wait until the next holiday to call. Oh, and don’t forget that your father and I will be in Seattle on the twenty-second through the twenty-forth. Make sure you carve some time out of that busy schedule to have dinner with us. Maybe you’ll even have a girlfriend by then to introduce us to.”
Not likely, but I had to hand it to her, the woman never stopped trying. Shaking my head, I said goodbye. I put my coffee cup in the sink and headed to the bathroom to shower.
By the time I was dressed and ready for work, I had a missed call and a text from Link, the text asking me to swing by the club as soon as I could. I texted him back to let him know I was on the way and hurried into the garage.
The rest of my inheritance from Gramps had been spent between a blue 2005 Jeep Wrangler and a black 2010 Harley Street Glide. I’d done a decent job fixing up and customizing the Street Glide, but every time I started it up, I felt like I was cheating on Bertha. She was waiting in Gramps’s garage, collecting rust as I tried to work up the desire to go get her. A bike like that wasn’t meant to be garaged somewhere, she was meant to be ridden. Daily. I needed to bring her home to Seattle, but until I went back to Minnesota, my Street Glide would have to do.
Since the weather was nice, I’d normally take her to work, but I needed to go grocery shopping and pick up some weed-n-feed and more rocks for my back yard, so I climbed into the Jeep instead.
The Sunday morning traffic was light, and I made it to the renovated fire station that served as the Dead Presidents headquarters in no time. Link met me in the parking lot with a cup of coffee in hand, looking worried as a mother hen. Concerned about the newlywed, I hurried to get out of the Jeep and join him.
“Hey brother, what’s up?” I asked.
“There’s a man here asking for you by your real name. Says he knows you from the service.”
