Breaking the Rules (Pushing the Limits 1.50)

Without trying to be obvious, I glance beyond the lace curtains and assess the road leading to our trailer. I’m also worried, but it’s my job to alleviate her concern.

I force a tease into my voice. “I bet you can’t wait until Chevy graduates next year. Then there will be two more of us protecting the old men.”

Mom coughs out a laugh and takes a drink to control the choking. “I can’t begin to imagine the two of you riding in the pack when the image in my mind is of both of you as toddlers, covered in mud from head to toe.”

“Not hard to remember. That was last week’s front yard football game,” I joke.

She smiles. Long enough to chase away the gravity of tonight’s situation, but then reality catches up. If humor won’t work, I’ll go for serious. “Chevy would like to GED out.”

“Nina would skin him alive. Each of you promised Olivia you’d finish high school.”

Because it broke Olivia’s heart when Eli, her son, opted out of finishing high school and instead tested to gain his GED years ago. Eli’s parents, Olivia and Cyrus, aren’t blood to me, but they gave my mom and dad a safe place to lay low years ago when their own parents went self-destructive. Olivia and I aren’t related, but she’s the closest I have to a grandmother.

“Chevy wanting to take his GED.” Mom tsks. “It’s bad enough you won’t consider college.”

The muscles in my neck tighten, and I ignore her jab. She and Olivia are ticked I won’t engage them in conversation about college. I know my future, and it’s not four more years of books and rules. I want the club. As it is, a patch-in—membership into the club—isn’t a guarantee. I still have to prove myself before they’ll let me join.

My dad belongs to the Reign of Terror. They’re a motorcycle club that formed a security business when I was eleven. Their main business comes from escorting semi loads of high-priced goods through highly pirated areas.

Imagine a couple thousand dollars of fine Kentucky bourbon in the back of a Mac truck and, at some point, the driver has to take a piss. My dad and the rest of the club—they make sure the driver can eat his Big Mac in peace and return to the parking lot to find his rig intact and his merchandise still safely inside.

What they do can be dangerous, but I’ll be proud to stand alongside my father and the only other people I consider family.

Mom rubs her hands up and down her arms. She’s edgy when the club is out on a protection run, but this time, Mom’s dangling from a cliff, and she’s not the only one. The entire club has been acting like they’re preparing to jump without parachutes.

“You’re acting as if they’re the ones that could be caught doing something illegal.”

Mom’s eyes shoot straight to mine like my comment was serious. “You know better than that.”

I do. It’s what the club prides themselves on. All that TV bull about anyone who rides a bike is a felon—they don’t understand what the club stands for. The club is a brotherhood, a family. It means belonging to something bigger than myself.

Still, Olivia has mounting medical bills and between me, Chevy, my parents, Eli, Cyrus and other guys from the club giving all we have, we still don’t have enough to make a dent in what we owe. “I hear that 1 club a couple of hours north of here makes bank.”

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“Oz.”

As if keeping watch will help Dad return faster, I move the curtain to get a better view of the road that leads away from our house and into the woods. “Yeah?”

“This club is legit.”

And 1 clubs are not legit. They don’t mind doing the illegal to make cash or get their way. “Okay.”

“I’m serious. This club is legit.”

I drop the curtain. “What? You don’t want gangsta in the family?”

Mom slaps her hand on the counter. “I don’t want to hear you talk like this!”

My head snaps in her direction. Mom’s not a yeller. Even when she’s stressed, she maintains her cool. “I was messing with you.”

“This club is legit, and it will stay legit. You are legit. Do you understand?”

“I got it. I’m clean. The club’s clean. We’re so jacked up on suds that we squeak when we walk. I know this, so would you care to explain why you’re freaking out?”

A motorcycle growls in the distance, cutting off our conversation. Mom releases a long breath, as if she’s been given the news that a loved one survived surgery. “He’s home.”

She charges the front door and throws it open. The elation slips from her face, and my stomach cramps. “What is it?”