Elliott did not, would not. He didn’t even glance at other women when we were out.

For Elliott, it was only me, and if I’d had him for the lifetime I was meant to have him, I would have lived that lifetime knowing, without a doubt, it would always only be me.

“Okay, baby girl,” Mom slurred, bringing my thoughts back to her. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

She didn’t sound disappointed, she sounded crushed. She was hurting. She was lonely. She was wondering, as she had been for decades, where she’d gone wrong.

So, of course, I felt daughterly guilt. I should be there for her.

I just couldn’t help. I’d tried. I’d failed. Taking these phone calls. Having gentle discussions trying to bring her around to talking about what she was drowning in booze, discussions she always firmly veered in another direction. Sensitive talks about how she might want to lay off the wine a bit, more talks she firmly took in another direction.

Years of it.

I had nothing left to give.

Still, I tried again, “We’ll have a long chat, Mom. Promise.”

“Okay, baby,” she whispered.

“Love you, Mom, to the moon and stars and beyond,” I whispered back what I’d whispered to her since I could remember, since I was little and she tucked me in my pink bed with my pink sheets and pink, filmy canopy, my stuffed unicorns all around.

“Love you, Lanie, to the moon and the stars and beyond,” she replied quietly the words she’d taught me to say.

“ ’Bye, Mom.”

“ ’Bye, baby girl.”

I sighed, hit the off button. Then, with my fingers curled around my phone, I put my forehead to my knees.

My life stunk.

Every bit of it.

Therefore, I started crying and did it like I did just about everything. I let it all hang out and thus, got lost in it.

This meant, when a hand curled warm and tight around the back of my neck and I heard Hop mutter, “Jesus, baby, what the fuck?” I jumped a foot, screamed a little bit as my head flew up.

He was crouched in front of me, staring at me with his usual intensity but there was more, a lot more, and all of that was about concern.

When my head came up, his hand didn’t move. It tightened.

Warm.

Warm and sweet.

Do… not… process, Lanie!

I stared at him.

Then I blurted, “What are you doing here?”

“Wallet fell out of my jeans,” he muttered, his eyes holding mine in a way that, even if I had it in me to try, which I didn’t, I couldn’t break contact. “Now, what the fuck?” he asked.

“What the fuck, what?” I asked back, trying for innocence. And failing.

His eyes narrowed. It was a little bit scary. Then they dropped to the phone in my hand and came back to mine.

“You’re crying.” He pointed out the obvious.

“Uh… I do that, like, for no reason. You know, like Holly Hunter in Broadcast News? I just cry but, unlike her, I don’t do it at my desk at work. I do it at night, um… alone.”

He stared at me.

He didn’t believe me. This was wise since I was lying.

“It’s just a release.” I kept lying.

“You gotta wrap your hand around a phone when you do it?” he semi-called me on my lie.

“Wrong number,” I lied again, and his eyes stayed narrowed but this time his hand tightened a bit on my neck.

“At midnight,” he stated, not hiding he didn’t believe me.

“Someone at a party,” I told him (lying). “They asked for Cheese Whiz.” More lying. “It’s the munchies hour.” This wasn’t a lie, exactly. It was the munchies hour if you were doing what one should do on a Saturday night, which was having fun. It was just that no one had accidentally called me erroneously to ask me to bring the Cheese Whiz.

Hop held my gaze.

I tried not to squirm.

Hop continued to hold my gaze.

I continued to try not to squirm.

Hop’s mouth got tight.

I switched to trying not to think that was really sexy, then I switched to trying not to think how weird it was that I thought him looking annoyed was sexy.

He gave up waiting for me to admit I wasn’t being honest and slid his hand from my neck while asking, “You done releasing whatever you gotta release at midnight, alone in your room?”

That sounded insane. Mostly because it was.

Oh dear. I was being an idiot.

“Yeah. All good,” I lied again.

He didn’t believe me and didn’t hide that either.

“So, you goin’ to bed?” he asked.

“Yeppers!” I answered fake-chirpily. His brows snapped together and his mouth got tight again.

Yeppers?

Yes. I was being an idiot.“Yeppers?” he asked and that word coming from his beautiful lips surrounded by his badass ’tache made me want to start giggling.

It also made me want to kiss him.

And last, it made me want to snap at him because, really, couldn’t he just let it go?

I decided speaking was not going well for me so I stopped doing it.

Hop again held my gaze.

Then he looked to the floor while straightening to tower over me, and he did this muttering, “I don’t get this from her. Complicated.”

He didn’t get this from me and I didn’t get it from him, either.

Had I mentioned my life stunk?

I held my breath and tipped my head back to look at him. He continued to stare down at me before he shook his head a couple of times, and I watched as he moved to the mess of my clothes he’d thrown on the floor a few hours earlier after he’d peeled them off me. He kicked some aside with his black motorcycle boot, unearthing his wallet. He bent, nabbed it, shoved it in his back pocket and came back to me.

His hand again wrapped around the back of my neck and then his face was in mine.

“Sleep, lady,” he ordered, sounding disgruntled, but still it came out gentle.

It sounded nice, even the disgruntled part.

Damn.

“Okay,” I replied but didn’t move.

Hop stood there, hand at my neck, and he didn’t move either.

Then he prompted, “Like, now, Lanie.”

I stared at him a second, nodded, my teeth coming out to graze my bottom lip, something his eyes dropped to watch, that something making me want to kiss him again but I didn’t.

I broke from his hold, stretched out and he flipped the covers over me.

Then, God, God, I used everything I had left not to process him tucking them tight all around me.

So sweet.

Too sweet.

Damn.

He bent low, kissed the side of my head and said against my hair, “See you tomorrow night, babe.”

Tomorrow night. Thank God.

I tried not to process that I thought that and mumbled, “Okay, Hop.”

I got another kiss and my eyes watched him move to the light. He turned it off, plunging the room into darkness.

I didn’t watch, didn’t hear his boots on the carpet, but I still felt him leave.

I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath.

I opened my eyes as I let the breath go.

“Complicated,” my lips mouthed without sound.

After a few more seconds, I heard a Harley roar.

I listened and I did it hard until I could hear the roar no more.

Only then did I close my eyes.

But I did not sleep.

* * *

Hop

“Repeat it,” Dog clipped, and Hop watched as the junkie Dog had pinned against the brick wall with his hand in his chest and the barrel of Dog’s gun to the flesh under his chin, swallowed.

Then the junkie stammered, “I… I won’t… won’t ever make a buy on… on Chaos again.”

“Right now, I’m a little put out,” Dog informed the junkie, shoving the gun deeper into his flesh, making him squeak in terror. “I see you on Chaos doin’ anything but helpin’ an old lady cross the street, I’ll be unhappy. Heads up, you don’t want to make me unhappy.”

The junkie, eyes enormous, gulped and nodded.

Dog let him go, saying, “Outta my sight.”

The junkie took off.

Hop looked to the dealer he had shoved face-first to the wall with his forearm against the man’s shoulders. Hop had disarmed him and currently had the dealer’s as well as his own firearm shoved in the back waistband of his jeans under his cut.

Hop’s turn.

“Empty your pockets,” Hop growled.

“Fuck, man,” the dealer whined, and Hop pressed him deeper into the wall, making his face scrape against the rough brick.

“Empty your goddamned pockets,” Hop bit out.

With difficulty, the dealer put his hands in his pockets, pulling out small packets of ice and dropping them to the ground. As he did this, Dog moved them aside with the toe of his boot, then he brought the heel down, crushing the methamphetamine into dust as the dealer whimpered.

After this, Dog moved to their bikes and Hop moved closer to the dealer.

“You know, five miles,” he reminded the dealer. “Five miles around Ride is Chaos. You don’t sell here. What the fuck?”

“Benito’s claimin’ this block,” the dealer told him.

“Benito doesn’t get to claim this block. He knows it, you know it. So again, what the fuck?” Hop asked.

“I go where Benito says,” the dealer replied.

Dog was back with a bottle of water, pouring it over the meth dust on the sidewalk and the dealer groaned.

Hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars washed away.

Benito would be pissed and not just at the dealer.

Hop didn’t care.

“You stay off this block. You do not come back. Benito sends you back, you find a way to explain to him; you’re here, his product is in the sewer. You got this one warning. Chaos doesn’t have patience with this shit. You see me, you’re fucked, and I don’t mean you goin’ back empty-handed to that dickhead. I mean, you’ll find it difficult to go anywhere ’cause you’ll find it difficult to move. You get me?” Hop asked.