“That doesn’t make you seem innocent.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says calmly. “This could be my only chance to have a child. It wasn’t my choice either, so we’re in the same boat.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?”
I don’t think before I speak because all my reactivity swells to the surface at once. My heart pumps like crazy and I instantly want to throw hands in his direction. I know Magnum could throw me against the bar and beat my ass like it was nothing. Talking to him like this might be enough to drive him crazy. I don’t know him enough for… any of this.
“No,” Magnum says. “I’m completely sane. I’m a financially stable man with no children, more money than I know what to do with, and absolutely no interest in a serious relationship with a woman of any kind. I had given up on having a child, but I’ve found luck in the most surprising places.”
“And I guess your luck led you straight to an incubator.”
The smug smirk on Magnum’s face pisses me off almost more than his cavalier attitude towards the situation.
“What?” he asks. “Any woman would be lucky to carry my child, especially one like you.”
Fire burns beneath my skin. His statement could mean anything, but considering the current climate in America and the world for the past several hundred years, my assumption is that Magnum thinks it’s some gift to my womb because I’m black. He senses the shift in my emotions, and instead of some kind of remorse, Magnum appears entertained.
“What the fuck do you mean by that?”
His smug ass attitude causes the words to fly out of my mouth. I get ready to flinch or run, depending on his reaction to that statement, but he continues to be unmoved by my backchat. He seems happy I asked, actually.
“You are a black woman in the middle of Oklahoma and entirely defenseless, or you wouldn’t have ended up drugged and impregnated by a strange man. Clearly, you have nobody looking after you, and since you haven’t mentioned work once, I’m guessing you don’t have a job either.”
“If I had a gun right now, I would point it right at your arrogant ass head.”
“Sorry for denying you the pleasure,” Magnum says, obviously not sorry about a damned thing. I’m physically powerless and getting read for filth by a white man doesn’t make this situation any better.
“I got away from one crazy white boy before. I’ll do it again.”
“I’m guessing that one wasn’t smart enough to get you pregnant and indebted to him.”
“How the hell am I indebted to you?”
“You will be,” he says. “When I find the person who drugged us and kill them for you. But first, Wyatt has a job… forus.”
“Great,” I tell him. “My bike is out front.”
He scoffs. “While I’m impressed that you can handle your way around a hog, you’re riding on the back of my bike. Not up for debate.”
“If you’re this much of a control freak, I can see why you’re single.”
“It’s much safer for you to ride with me,” he says sternly. “If I need to shoot, I’ll need you to step in and steer.”
I have several questions about the logistics here.
“You could always let me hold the gun,” I suggest innocently.
“Get your ass outside,” Magnum replies. “I need a Monster energy and a gas station beer to get me started.”
When we walk outside together under the blazing, desert sun, my past in Utah feels like a heavy weight around my neck. The heat reminds me of all the bad things that happened out in the desert. I got twisted up by a bad Mormon boy who promised me all the money in the world but ended up a fucked up sicko. I had to change everything about myself to escape him, and if it weren’t for Gideon Blackwood, I might have had to come back and kill him myself.
Life has a funny way of working out, so even if I’m terrified by not heading straight towards the Plan B, I tell myself that life worked out before and it’ll work out again, even if I’m putting my fate in the hands of an insane redneck biker in an outlaw gang, who might have drugged me to get me pregnant.
On paper, he doesn’t sound great. But in person, I feel a strange sense of safety with Magnum, underneath the uncertainty that follows women who have been in bad relationships for the rest of their lives.
Magnum’s breakfast choices feel like a bigger risk than the drug situation by the time we ride to a gas station and he “fuels up”. I have a half-ripe gas station banana and a protein bar – something that at least borders on food. Magnum waits patiently for me to finish eating, but he doesn’t make conversation with me and he also doesn’t allow me to even linger near the pharmacy aisle.
No Plan B. And the more that I wake up, the more concerned I get about the future and the practical implications of allowing Magnum Sinclair to drag me on a journey across America. I’m not unemployed though, I am on a very well defined break fromrunning my daycare, which is much different. Even if I don’t really want to go back to changing diapers and dealing with anxious moms all day, there’s still a difference.
