The Rampage MC #3: Atlas and Joy

Chapter 19 (Joy): Pay The Price

"You tricked me and drew me in, skin on skin, no urge to resist. Why did you make your kiss so sweet?" ~ Lilan's Lullaby, Ryder

After laying down my bike, riding was a little scarier, but I refused to let that fear control me. I'd told Stian on my birthday that I was going to start the next year of my life as I meant to go on. Trying new things. Being bold. Flinging my arms out wide and not being afraid any longer to enjoy and live.

I'm done waiting on men to give me something that they're not capable of giving me. I'm done waiting on someone to love me and make my dreams come true. I'm going to make my own dreams come true, no more waiting.

Today, Chain had told me I was going to learn to ride in traffic on the track. Since I was between semesters, I'd had more time to practice with Chain, sometimes with Genny watching, sometimes with both Genny and Kit watching. Having Kit standing at the side of the track, his eyes trained on me, was the strangest feeling because he made me both more nervous and more calm at the same time. His presence reassured me, but it also ramped me up. I wasn't even sure that was possible, but there it was.

So this afternoon after some last minute reminders from Chain, I pulled out onto the track and did a few warm up laps, breathing out great puffs of air to stay calm. Then on my fourth lap, I saw the brothers at the edge of the track, bikes rumbling, waiting for Chain's go ahead. He waved out Kit first, then Max, and they flanked me, one on either side, as we did a lap together. 

Not going to lie, riding with other bikers for the first time was exciting, feeling the deep rumble of all of those powerful bikes surround me, feeling the reverberations deep in my chest. I sped up a little, and they easily matched my speed on their bigger, faster bikes.

I looked over at Kit and he was looking at me, a big smile on his face. Because it was too loud to say anything, he simply winked at me then looked ahead as the three of us took the turn.

As we passed the other bikers, Chain waved more of them onto the track. Some of them passed us, some stayed behind, some shifted positions, but Kit was my constant. Stuck like glue to my side.

A prospect walked out onto the track well ahead of us and held up a red traffic light painted on a poster board, so we all braked and stopped, engines idling as we waited for him to walk off the track to signal a light changing to green. Max had moved ahead, but Kit was still next to me.

Maybe someday you'll let me ride beside you, Joy, maybe not. I know I'd love to be riding on a nice fall day and look over at you riding beside me. I'd like that a lot.

It wasn't fall, but he was riding beside me. Smiling at me, happy as I'd ever seen him. Kit, why? Why did you reel me in if you were just going to throw me back? His kisses had drugged me, making me unable to resist him until I realized I'd been utterly fooled by his tenderness. By then, however, it was too late. I'd fallen in love with a man who didn't love me and worse, didn't value me.

Shaking my head, I put my attention back on the track, on the riders around me. Then Beard appeared on the track, and I knew what that meant. We were going to start riding in formation, jockeying for position until we were all in place. From what Chain had told me, this is how the club would ride if they were going somewhere together. There was a certain pecking order and we'd be moving around while riding to achieve that. I would be in the second-to-last row from the end, with Chain and Angel as the club's enforcers riding in the last row. I expected Kit, as the Sergeant At Arms, to move up to ride with the other officers, but he stayed right with me as most everyone else passed us. Then we did a couple of laps, two by two, and I felt absolutely giddy at my accomplishment. After we finished the laps, Beard left the track and everyone else followed and we made our way to the parking lot. Everyone parked, except Kit. He watched me back into my space, then nodded at me and took off.

At one time, I would have known where he was heading. At one time, he would have told me ahead of time and then kissed me before he left me. Hugged me. Maybe more. Whispered promises in my ear about how much he'd miss me.

Realizing I was daydreaming about those sweet moments with Kit more and more often, I knew I needed him out of my kitchen, so I got off my motorcycle and followed Beard to his office.

"Good job," he said to me when I appeared in his doorway. "You want something?"

"Yeah. I just wanted to let you know that I'm over torturing Atlas in the kitchen. You can assign someone else to help me."

He'd eased back in his chair and just watched me for a minute. "You sure about that?"

"Um, yes?"

"You asking me or telling me?"

If Beard had been a lawyer, he would have made everyone testifying on the stand cry, even if they were his own witnesses. The man was that formidable.

"Telling you?"

He poked a finger in my direction. "Still a question, Joy."

Geez, this man. "OK, then I'm telling you. I don't need to boss Atlas around in the kitchen anymore. I've given him all the nasty, tedious jobs I can think of so, well...he can be done. He's all done."

And I really had given him horrible jobs to do, but he hadn't complained once. He'd just nod and get on with whatever awful task I'd assigned to him. Now, I was releasing him from being my kitchen bitch because I was getting a little too comfortable with him working alongside me. I liked it, and I hated myself for liking it.

"I don't think you're done torturing him," he said.

"Um."

"Don't give me that um bullshit. You may pretend you're tucked away in the kitchen and don't hear shit, but you do. And I know you hear the brothers teasing the hell outta Atlas."

"Am I supposed to feel sorry for him? After the months of teasing I had to listen to about myself?"

"Calm down and listen, Joy. You're missing my point. Him being laughed at by the brothers is totally different than your circumstances. Not at all the same. They're ragging on him because they know he's fucking gone on you and you're ignoring his ass. In their way, they're rattling his cage, poking at him. Just something brothers do to each other, guy humor. He doesn't give a fuck, just ignores them. Normally, a brother gets teased that long, he'd reach his limit and take care of it. Atlas hasn't."

"Is there a point in all of this, Beard?" I asked impatiently.

"Yeah. The point is, it's just noise to him and he doesn't give a fuck. He's one of the brothers most ready to throw down with that temper of his, and he doesn't. He just grins, shakes his head, flips 'em off and goes on back to the kitchen." Those eyes of Beard's pierced me. "He doesn't care what they say because he gets to go back to the kitchen. To you."

"Beard, he proved to me he didn't care for me at all."

"No, Joy, he proved he's a fucking idiot. A careless idiot. He messed up and he knows it. He went where he shouldn't have, let Trixie call the shots so you wouldn't get in trouble with me, and you ended up hurt because of his stupid-ass choices. That's a huge pile of fuckup to climb but he's trying."

It was. It was too much to overcome. "There's too much hurt and too much we left unsaid."

"Well, then maybe you should fucking talk to him about it, Joy. Everyone has at least one rewind moment in their life. The one moment you wish you could do over but can't so you have to try to work your way around it, make her see that if you could, you'd have handled things differently."

Like asking the mother of your baby to give you a blow job in return for medical expenses, Beard?

"Talk to him. Don't talk to him. But you're not getting him out of your kitchen."

"Well, thanks for having my back, Beard," I sniped at him.

"I do have your back, Joy. Told Atlas three weeks ago he'd paid his dues and didn't have to work in the kitchen anymore. Said I was pulling him from kitchen detail."

I shook my head, not understanding. Beard rolled his eyes at me.

"Joy, he refused to give up kitchen detail and because he was willing to pay the price for refusing me, I let him stay."