Page 1 of Thug

1

Gray

Weaknesses. We all have them. Something or someone we’re incapable of saying no to. For some, the dependency is as simple as a morning cup of coffee. For others, it may be shopping. Alcohol. Fast cars. Sex. You name it and someone, somewhere, is powerless over it.

My addiction? A confident man. Not every self-assured male had the capacity to quench my desires. Confidence had to squish from the soles of his shoes when he walked. I preferred a man who marched to the beat of his own drummer, thumbing his nose at society’s rules and regulations along the way. Tattoos were a plus, but not a must. They stood as a constant reminder that he had no desire to be accepted by the masses.

Such men’s machismo beliefs and bravado attitudes gave me a sense of comfort. I knew when I stood at their side that no harm would come my way.

Nice guys didn’t provide that unspoken reassurance.

I’d been in relationships with a handful of such men, each of which satisfied me in a different way. I’d never, however, been completely fulfilled by anyone. Based on the reputation of the man who just walked into my bar, I doubted that would change anytime soon.

His name was Edwin McNealy, but no one called him by his given name. Not if they wanted to live to see the light of day. The name he adopted somewhere along the way was “Price”, and it was all anyone called him. He was alleged to be a ticking time bomb, and he just sauntered into my empty bar like I owed him rent money.

He was a legend. Everyone in Marana either knew him or knew of him. I was one of the latter group of people.

Living alone amidst the desert’s rattlesnakes and saguaro at the base of Tucson, Arizona’s Tortolita Mountains, he rode his tattered old-school Harley along the sagebrush speckled sandy trail that led to his ranch the same way he rode it through the paved roads that cross-hatched the small town he refused to called home.

Like he was running from the law.

He was the President of the Hard Eights motorcycle club. If one chose to believe the stories that followed him like a shadow, he’d been an outlaw since he was old enough to tie his own shoes.

According to Arizona folklore, his parents died in a shootout with police while he was sitting in the backseat of their weathered ’68 Impala, which was parked outside the bank they had just robbed in Oro Valley. As the hail of bullets riddled the steel doors and shattered the car’s windows, the then eight-year-old Edwin sat silently, waiting for the commotion to end.

When the shooting stopped, he calmly stepped from the car and raised his bloody hands in surrender. Authorities would later find two bullets lodged in his torso, but not because he complained about being shot. His parents, at least according to legend, warned him at a very early age of the perils of speaking to the police.

It wouldn’t be the last time he was in police custody, but he swore it would be the only time he’d ever surrender to them.

He scanned me from head to toe. After raking the hair away from his face with fingers tanned by the Arizona sun, he dragged his eyes up my frame until they came to rest at my tits. He studied them for a moment as if he was admiring a priceless piece of misunderstood artwork that he, somehow, understood.

I flushed a little.

He lowered himself into a seat at one of the many empty tables. “Lose your bearings?” he asked without bothering to look in my direction.

His voice was much thicker than I expected. Low and commanding, it strongly suggested that those within earshot pay attention to what he was saying.

Not knowing exactly what he was referring to, I gave him a confused look. “Excuse me?”

“You seem kinda lost,” he said.

I wasn’t lost. Shocked was more accurate. “I was thinking the same thing about you,” I said matter-of-factly.

He wasn’t a modern-day wannabe biker who wore colorful Harley-Davidson shirts that he’d collected at various motorcycle dealerships from across the nation. He was a biker through and through who always donned his sun-bleached leather vest, which was likely a requirement of the motorcycle club he was in.

He hiked his leather boot onto the knee of his faded blue jeans and brushed the dust from it with the palm of his hand before lowering it right back to where it was.

Intrigued by my comment, he lifted his chin a little. “What do you know about me?”

I’d seen him in passing more times than I could count, but this was the first time I’d been close enough to him to count the creases of his laugh lines. The fact that he’d never been in my bar didn’t prevent me from knowing his MC and the MC that frequently patronized my bar weren’t friendly with one another. While he looked me over with eyes of uncertainty, I considered how I wanted to respond. Dancing around the subject as delicately as I could without downplaying the issue entirely was the clear answer.

I wiped my sweaty palms against my denim shorts and cleared my throat. “This is a Rebel hang-out,” I explained. “You can fit what I know about your motorcycle club in a thimble, but I know this: The Rebels and the Hard Eights don’t get along. So, although I may look lost, I’m not. I’m just…” I gave him a quick once-over. “Shocked. I guess you could say I’m shocked. To see you, that is. In here, anyway.”

He raked his fingers through his thick black locks and glanced over each shoulder. His hair was peppered with much more than an occasional strand of gray. He wore it long enough to fall into his face, but not so long that it looked awful or unkempt.

I decided it fit him well.

“Rebel hang-out, huh?” He chuckled a dry laugh. His eyes darted from table to table before meeting mine. “Looks like an empty bar to me. Hell, I guess they could be in here, and I just can’t see ‘em. They run, what, about two deep?” He glanced beneath the adjoining table, as if someone could be hidden beneath it. “Maybe three?”