ONE
NOAH
I jumped on my dirt bike in a hurry, wasting no time to pull back the clutch and kick-start the engine. My hand jerked the throttle as the motor revved to life, rumbling beneath me. The smell of exhaust immediately filled the humid summer air while the bike idled in neutral.
I’d been riding since I could walk. It was part of being a Jameson, and my old man wouldn’t have it any other way. He’d shit a brick if he ever saw any of his three sons on anything other than two wheels with wicked horsepower. Reminding us all too often that we were Jameson men and real men only ride Harleys and women, rough and hard. So until the day my older brother Luke and I were old enough to have our own Harleys, like our oldest brother Creed, dirt bikes would have to do.
I leaned forward, gunning the engine a few more times before holding down the accelerator and front brake to do one hell of a burnout. Finally releasing it and hauling ass off of school grounds. Making sure to leave a nice little trail of dirt and rubber in my wake as I saw Principal Salisbury running out of the building in my mirror.
“Noah, you get back here right now! You hear me?!” he shouted in the distance.
I lifted my middle finger in the air, giving him a friendly gesture in response. There was nothing I loved more than to stir up trouble at school. I hated being there, especially now because it was summer school. It was just another place I was being told what I could and couldn’t do, and I already had no say in my life to begin with. I learned early on that if I raised hell at school, I’d get suspended or expelled, and I wouldn’t be allowed to step foot on school grounds, period. Which was exactly what I wanted.
You see, I was born into a world where no matter what, violence solved everything. It was the answer to every question, the solution to every problem, the consequence to every action delivered by none other than my father. I sure as hell blame him for the man I would eventually become.
I was born into this s
o-called family.
I was born to the devil’s son.
The President of the mother chapter of Devil’s Rejects Motorcycle Club in Southport, North Carolina. I’d be twelve-years-old in a few weeks, and I was already such a little shit with a sharp tongue and wise-ass attitude. Feeling and looking much older than I actually was. I may have only been a kid, but you sure as shit couldn’t tell me that. Bred to not take shit from anyone, it was beaten into us and the only way of life in my father’s eyes. The only way to survive. There were no other options. Surrounded by a family, a brotherhood of ruthless men whose only enemy was the law. Wearing their 1% patches proudly like I would have to wear one day.
Whether I wanted to or not.
My last name, Jameson, made sure of it.
Raising hell while we ride or die was our only code growing up and living in the MC life.
I sped through the grass, busting a sharp right onto one of my favorite trails. Ducking and dodging trees, listening to the motor accelerate up and down, faster and faster, around and around. Tracking from one side to another in nothing but mud and debris from the recent storm we had. I could see the sun up ahead through the tree clearing, showing me I was almost to the old, broken-down bridge that crossed over the Cape Fear River near my school. It was known for its heavy and strong ass current, and if you swam out far enough, it could haul even the biggest man under, which was how the river got its name in the first place. It was deceiving, but that didn’t stop people from swimming and hanging out in the murky water without a care in the world.
I rode up to the edge of the bridge to judge the distance across the vast space and to look around for any cops that may have been hiding on the ridge. I shut off the engine when all of a sudden I overheard a voice singing, “The sun’ll come out tomorrow, bet all those dollars that tomorrow. There’ll be sun shining bright and happiness. Just thinkin’ about tomorrow,” coming from the river surrounding the bridge.
My eyes instantly shifted to the girl floating on her back in the water, wearing one of those two-piece bathing suits all the girls wore on the beach. Hers was hot pink. I don’t know how long I stared at her, but it was the calm look on her face as she belted out the lyrics, “Just thinkin’ about tomorrow. Clears away the sadness, the rain, and the emptiness. Till it’s not there,” that had me narrowing my eyes. Getting lost in her peacefulness and her raspy, distinctive voice, it was an expression and sound I’d never experienced before.
The low pitch in her tone soared its way through my core, the same way the motor of my bike rumbled beneath me. It wasn’t until she started singing, “So just hang on ‘til tomorrow and work through the pain. Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I love ya all of the days and nights of tomorrow! You’re almost there! And only a day away!” that her soothing, crystal blue eyes suddenly found mine, as though she felt me too. The intensity of her stare made me quickly jerk back, and I roared up my bike again. Instantly proceeding with why I was at the bridge in the first place.
I pulled back the clutch, shifting into first gear, revving up the engine for a few seconds before slowly letting the clutch out. Once it caught up with the RPMs, my front wheel purposely rose when I shifted my weight back on the seat. Hanging on while controlling the wheel so I wouldn’t get tossed off, keeping the balance of my wheelie as I drove over the bridge. I didn’t usually take this way home, but I wanted to see how long I could ride out a wheelie over this bridge.
Being an adrenaline junkie, I lived for the moments when nothing else mattered but the thrill of the rush surging through my veins. It didn’t matter what it was, if I could get hurt doing it, then I pushed every boundary just to prove that I could conquer it. Coming home bloody, bruised, cut up—you name it, I’d probably broken it. My momma had my ass every time, ruining more clothes than I cared to count.
After thirty-five seconds of riding out my wheelie, I smiled. It was my new record I’d been trying for weeks to beat. Right when I was about to revel in my latest stunt and let off the gas to set my bike back down, I glanced over at her again and she was still staring right at me.
“Shit!” I shouted, accidentally accelerating the throttle, causing my bike to come out from under me. Losing control of my wheelie. Immediately tossing me to the ground as if I weighed nothing at all. My body skidded and rolled across the wooden planks, along with my bike tumbling beside me. With one last hard thud, we finally came to a complete stop, crashing together. “Ugh,” I groaned, instantly feeling the sting everywhere, and it wasn’t from eating shit on the bridge.
I don’t think I could’ve been any more embarrassed than I was from getting caught staring at the girl, and then making a fool out of myself right in front of her. Before I could even try to save face, I heard loud laughing from behind and above me, and I knew things were about to get much worse than just my pride taking a hit.
“Well, lookie here, boys! If it isn’t big, bad Noah Jameson! Last time I checked your ass should be on the seat, not the pavement, dumbass!” Billy hollered over at me.
“Aww, poor baby, did you hit your head?” Chad added, standing beside him. “Doesn’t matter... he’s already dumb as shit.”
“Get up, you pussy!” Mark added in front of them.
My hands balled into fists, and my nostrils flared. All three of these dipshits went to my school and were notorious for being assholes. The times I actually went to class and didn’t ditch, I mostly kept to myself. I guess you could say I was somewhat of a loner, avoiding dickwads like these guys. Not because I couldn’t defend myself, but I wanted to avoid more problems than the ones I already had. Trust me… I’d seen my fair share of Pops slapping Ma around, Pops slapping my brothers, Creed and Luke, around. Shit, even Pops slapping me around.
Although, I wasn’t at the receiving end of his fists quite as much as they were, in their eyes I was the baby boy in the Jameson household. Not that it mattered to my father, he was a ripe ol’ bastard through and through. But that didn’t stop my momma and brothers from trying to shield and protect me as best as they could. Especially from the violence surrounding us on a day to day basis in our shithole we called home and, more importantly, at the MC clubhouse where I spent most of my time. Witnessing men being put to ground was a thing of the norm. We learned how to fight, or we got our asses kicked by our old man until we fought back or was spitting blood.
Usually both.
“He can’t even ride his dirt bike! Your daddy must be so proud. Head of an MC and his boy can’t even ride. Jameson, you’re such a waste of space! Boys”—he nodded to me—“don’t breathe, you’ll catch his stupidity. I heard it’s contagious, which is true judging by his stupid ass brothers. Especially the one covered in ink. Have you heard that bitch talk? He can’t even form a proper sentence!” Billy continued baiting me, and I clenched my jaw and gritted my teeth, trying to move my bike off of me to get up.
“Come on, you pussy! Can’t even defend your family?” Chad taunted, kicking my hands out from underneath me. Making me fall back down again.
“The only good thing in your family is your mama!” Billy taunted, snapping my searing glare to his sly grin as he hovered above me. “Yeah, lost boy, you heard me… your mama has the best pair of tits I’ve ever seen.”
Before he got the last word out, I pushed off the ground, throwing the bike to the side, and his eyes widened. Using all my strength, I gripped onto Billy’s head and started kneeing him repeatedly in the face. Forcefully pushing and pulling his skull toward my knee, crudely connecting them at the same time, and smiling as I did. It didn’t take long until his boys were on me, frantically trying to pull us apart, but I wouldn’t let go. If anything, I nailed him harder, proving to them once and for all I wasn’t one of their victims they could bully around.
The loud, familiar rumble of a dirt bike, followed by “Noah!” broke my focus for just a second, and it was enough to get myself punched in the face by one of the guys. Abruptly tearing me apart from Billy’s skull.
I stumbled back, trying
to regain my footing, but yet another fist landed right into my stomach, and I heaved forward from the wind being knocked out of me.
“That’s right, you bitch!” I heard one of them say as I gasped for air. My vision instantly clouded, making it hard to see.
For some reason, in that moment, when I should’ve been thinking about getting my shit together and beating some ass, I wasn’t. I thought about the girl in the hot pink bathing suit who was swimming in the river, hoping like hell she wasn’t watching me get my ass handed to me. All because my brother Luke wouldn’t mind his own business and involved himself by showing up and hollering out my name.
I couldn’t tell you why it bothered me, it just did.
Impressing her mattered more than it should have, and I didn’t even know her name.
More shouting.
Kick.
Punch.
Ground.
I spit up blood, still wheezing for my next breath.
“You’re gonna pay for that, you motherfuckers!” Luke roared. “No one fucks with my brother and gets away with it!” The next thing I heard was him cocking back his BB gun and sounding off, lacing them with pellets. One right after another with no end in sight. He’d been carrying that BB gun in the back of his jeans since our old man gave it to him almost four years ago for his eleventh birthday. Finding any reason to use it. “That’s right, you pussy ass bitches! Run! Run your coward asses home! Right to your mama! Try my brotha’ again and next time it’ll be real bullets goin’ through your bodies, you pieces of shit!”
I sat up groaning with my hand over my stomach, wiping away the blood on my busted lip with the back of my hand. Without even thinking, my eyes darted toward the river, looking for the girl, but she was nowhere to be found. Pissing me off even more. Luke’s hand suddenly dangling in front of my eyes brought my attention back to him. I scoffed, roughly shoving it out of the way, and stood up by my damn self.
“What the hell?” he coaxed with a sincere expression on his face I wanted to knock off.