Camden (The Henchmen MC 18)

Sure, technology was making not speaking to order groceries, takeaway, etcetera easier - thank fuck for brilliant apps - but it was nice to be able to have a bit of human connection, to be familiar to people. My mornings would be darker and duller were it not for the girls at She's Bean Around being so unabashedly themselves, so wholly unconcerned about productivity. I liked that Abby's made it possible to get meals that felt home-cooked - potato au gratin, baked mac and cheese, soup - even when you didn't have any great cooking skills yourself, or have someone around to cook for you.

I also liked being close to nature - the beach, all the parks - but also near all the creature comforts I had grown to love about living in big cities.Annie - Is being in an MC like it looks on TV?- Yes and no. Bikes and brotherhood and church and club parties. That is all real. But real life, day-to-day, being a biker isn't like the action-packed shit on TV.Though, to be fair, this group of men - and women - had known more than their fair share of adventures. Bombs and kidnappings and street wars and family feuds. It was the shit of legends. But things had calmed down, become stable. Navesink Bank was a place of mostly well-established organizations. There weren't many wars to be had anymore. At least not in this generation, I guess. I imagined as the empires settled into new hands - ones attached to young men hungry to prove themselves, to stake their own claim, to move out from under their fathers' shadows - things would get wobbly a bit again for a while. But for us, for now, things were calm. And no one had any reason to suspect that would change.

Of course, there was always a chance. It seemed not a single Henchman could find a relationship without some kind of drama attached to it. And we still had some single guys left. Who knew what life had in store for them?

It was nice, to be honest. To know that my entire life wasn't going to get upended at any moment, that bullets weren't going to slice through the air without any notice. My life had been full of more action than most men would ever know. Calm was good. It was welcome even.Annie - I'm actually happy to hear that. I think it's fun to get caught up in the fantasy of action. You know... for an hour every week for three months out of the year. But the idea of people having to live with that every single day sounds overwhelming and a little depressing. Did you always want to be a biker? I mean... you don't have to answer that. This is probably not something you're, you know, supposed to talk about, I guess. For obvious reasons. Not that you have anything to, like, fear from me or anything. I don't have anyone to talk to even if I wanted to talk about anything.Which sort of explained why she was so keen to talk to me. In general, women didn't strike up conversations with men they barely knew. Not anymore. Not when any man you met could have you on the next episode of a show about disappearing women while all the townsfolk claimed Things like this never happen here when anyone with a half a second attention span and access to a reputable news station knew that it did, in fact, happen there. And everywhere else.

Women were so often raised to be kind, to be accommodating. It allowed them to become easy prey to men with ugly intentions. Any woman these days was aware of that, acted accordingly, took precautions around strange men. Especially strange men they knew for a fact were criminals.

But Annie had reached out. Then kept reaching out.

Because she was alone in the world. She was feeling the effects of that, needed an out from that loneliness.

It was something I understood more than she could ever imagine. I had spent so much of my life alone, disconnected, unable to form any kind of lasting bonds. I wasn't so strong that loneliness didn't sneak in during quiet moments. It did. So much so that the loneliness became a part of me; a scratchy, uncomfortable thread stitched into the very fabric of my being.

Liv and Astrid came along, wiping a lot - most - of that away.

Until, of course, they went on with their lives.

I had to admit it was back again, something familiar enough that I hadn't even fully realized it until Annie made me consider it.

It made sense, though.

Why I found myself wondering while I went about my day what she might write on the board, what references she might make to somewhat obscure eighties and nineties TV shows and movies. Why I had been so willing to give her my number. Why I was sitting and waiting for her text.