It was cute. But also maybe a little bit sad and rundown.
Nothing screamed ‘biker clubhouse’ to me as I passed by.
As I got to the stop sign at the end of the main street, though, my gaze was immediately pulled up. Toward the mountains.
There it was.
A giant concrete building with a ton of lights. And all of it surrounded by razor wire-topped fences.
A prison.
No wonder the area was kind of abandoned.
This was a prison town.
I mean, sure, actual prison escapes were few and far between these days. But people were paranoid. Especially women and young families.
There appeared to be a single street full of grand houses, each different from the next, but all tall, imposing, expensive.
Not exactly an area that screamed ‘bikers.’
Seeing no traffic around, I went ahead and drove slowly through that ritzy area, the suburbs, past an apartment building and then a mobile home park.
Finally, I found myself facing a gas station and convenience store. And across the street? A motel.
“Perfect,” I said, feeling a bit of the tension leaving my shoulders.
That was one thing figured out.
I made my way in that direction, cutting the engine, and climbing out.
My legs nearly wept at being able to move around.
Sugar seemed similarly relieved, actually tugging me so she could go for a little walk.
I needed to secure a room, but I owed her some fun after being so good in the car for all that time.
Once she tired herself out and had a little water, we made our way back toward the motel.
It was an eyesore.
A long, low building with canary-yellow brick, and nothing about the place looked like it had seen an update since the seventies.
I didn’t have high hopes for the rooms.
If it was bedbug free, that was about all I could hope for.
I walked toward the office, finding a cramped space. The claustrophobia was made worse by the filing cabinets that lined one whole wall, paperwork spilling out of drawers and stacked in toppling piles on top.
The desk in the center was no better—covered in papers, newspapers, books, and five abandoned coffee cups.
The only item worth anything in the whole damn space was the desktop computer on the chipped faux wood vinyl desk.
And at that desk?
A man with shaggy brown hair, blue eyes, and facial hair that was more than scruff but less than a beard. He had on a gray tee under a blue and white flannel. He was handsome in a way that suggested he didn’t care if he was or not.
“Huh,” he said when he spotted me.
