Determined to ignore the butterfly sensation in my belly, I took a breath. "So when did you join an MC?"
"When I was three."
That was perhaps the only thing that could make me shift from the oddly comforting, safe feeling of being cuddled to his chest, pushing up, and looking down on his stupidly good-looking face.
"What?"
"Yeah," he said, smiling at my surprise.
"You're going to have to explain that to me."
And then, to my surprise - and maybe delight - he actually did.TENSugarNot many people's memories stretch back to the time before they first went to school. And even if they did, it wasn't usually vividly.
But for me, that day was in bright, Technicolor detail.
I remembered the smell of my ma's cigarettes - both offensive and comforting because of its familiarity - from her place in the front seat of the car, window cracked for the smoke to sift out, but it didn't work. It never worked. I was in a booster in the back, the material torn and stained, most of the damage done before my ma had gotten it secondhand at the thrift shop.
I remembered the look of her hair, dark and piled on the top of her head, dancing in the wind as we drove. And drove. And drove. I fell asleep in daytime and woke up at night, being thrust a McDonald's box over the front seat. And for the next however long, I was kept half-occupied by the allure of half-warm French fries and deep-fried nuggets.
I remembered the silence. The complete and utter silence on the drive. Which wasn't normal. My ma was always talking - to me or on the phone, the long cord half-wrapping around every surface in our apartment as she did so while she cleaned or cooked or simply paced around. The only time she was ever quiet was when she was sleeping.
I felt it then. In my belly. A swirling, uncomfortable sensation that had me pulling my pillow out of the bag piled beside me, and cuddling it to my chest, breathing in the smell of our house.
The bags were another thing.
There were several of them, all full almost to bursting.
With my clothes.
Shoes.
Toys.
Blankets.
Snacks.
We finally stopped what felt like days later, my ma sitting there with the engine cut for a long time before I started whining about my butt hurting from sitting so long.
Looking back, she had been debating it, her decision.
And the sound of a three-year-old me doing what three-year-olds do best - whine - seemed to be what she needed to make her climb out, move around the car, and finally pull me out of my seat, putting me down on the grown where feeling slowly came back to my butt and legs as she reached inside, grabbing all the bags, hauling them onto her small shoulders, grabbing my hand, then leading me a short walk down the street.
Then into a building.
There were smells here too that were familiar. More cigarettes. The ones like my ma smoked in the car. Then there were those funny cigarettes too. The ones that made my nose curl up when my ma would have her friend over at night and smoke in the living room, laughing and wrestling. And then there were the drinks that my ma and her friends always liked. But it smelled stronger here. It made the air harder to breathe.
Everything else, though, was new.
Namely, the leather-clad men scattered all around, loud, laughing, yelling, snatching the women who were walking around with next to no clothes on.
"Well, well," a man said, stopping in front of my mother. "It's Candy. Where you been, sweet stuff? I missed that eager mouth of yours."
"I'm here to see Phil."
"Oh, fuck Phil. Phil has whiskey dick tonight. Take me on instead."
"I'm here to see Phil," she reiterated, dragging me forward. The movement caught the man's attention, his gaze going down to me, then shooting back up to my mother.
"Right. Right. Well, fucking glad I ain't Phil tonight."
"Real nice, ya bastard," my mom called at his back as he left.
"Candy?" another voice called not a minute later, making my mom turn.
This time, the man noticed me right off.
And, in turn, I noticed him too.
Tall, wide-shouldered, long dark-haired, gray-eyed.
"No fucking way. I always wore a rubber," he said to my ma who shrugged her small shoulders.
"Shit happens, Phil."
"And I'm hearing this now because?"
"Because I'm done," she said simply as I looked up at the man, guessing he was why we came all this way as I clutched my Happy Meal toy in my hand.
"You're done."
"Yeah, I'm done. Three years. And all I'm doing is fucking up. And I can't turn shit around because I gotta be around for him all the time. I'm done. You're up."
"I'm up?" he asked, lips tipping up as his gaze went to me for a second. "You fuckin' serious? I look like daddy material to you?"