Gravel (MC Biker Romance) (14 page)

“You doing okay?” I asked him as I
noticed his concerned look. “You look like you’re thinking about something.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, although
I didn’t quite believe him. I took a good, hard look at the man standing in
front of me. He stood in his tight blue jeans, cut off t-shirt, and leather
cut.

“Are you going to keep your cut,
Raze?” I asked him as I ran my finger down his vest. The vest was covered with
the gang’s colors, Kelley green and royal blue, and his name was embroidered on
the inside. The gang’s logo was on the back.

Raze shuddered for a second as I
remembered women were not allowed to touch their cuts. They were sacred, like a
piece of protective armor.

“I’m sorry,” I said as I backed
away. I must have looked afraid.

Raze looked irritated for half of a
second before a calm look washed over his face. “It’s okay, Mia.”

He grabbed his cut and slipped it
off his shoulders, one by one, never breaking eye contact with me. He walked
over to a nearby
trash can
and threw it in. It was
gone forever. A day from now it would be sitting, rotting in a landfill
somewhere.

“Wow,” I said as I watched him toss
it. “That’s a big step, Raze.”

He stepped back over to me and slipped
his hands around my narrow waist, pulling me in closer to him.

“It’s all for you,” he said. “I
just want to be with you. I refuse to put you in danger again. You didn’t
deserve what you were about to go through. You’re a good girl, Mia.”

“It certainly wasn’t something I
was looking forward to,” I lamented. “But if it was going to be the only way we
could be together…”

I glanced up into his steel blue
eyes and saw a pained face. I realized that I was quickly falling harder and
harder for a man I hardly knew. We were both taking a huge leap of faith by
doing what we were doing. Maybe it was crazy. Maybe it was idiotic. Maybe we
were a couple of fools, but it felt right. We found in each other what we’d
both been looking for all along.

“Do you think we should change our
looks?” I asked him. “Are people going to be looking for us?”

Raze pursed his lips as he thought
about it for a while. “Probably wouldn’t hurt. Nothing drastic. Just change our
clothes for now.”

We headed inside the big box store
and bee lined for the clothing section. We pulled armfuls of clothes off the
racks, and we grabbed anything that was going to make us blend in with regular
people. Raze traded his tight blue jeans in for chinos and his cut off t-shirts
for
polos
. I grabbed some khaki shorts and button
down shirts. We laughed at how ridiculously normal we looked, but we knew it
was for the best. We also grabbed a pair of clippers and scissors before we
checked out.
Raze’s
wavy, longish dark hair was going
to soon turn into a buzz cut much to my dismay, but it had to be done. My long,
blonde
hair which I’d spent years growing down to the middle
of
my back, was going to soon be above my shoulders. It was okay though,
it was just hair. It’d grow back eventually.

We climbed back on his bike, our
old clothes in the trash and our new ones on our backs and zipped up in
saddle bags
, and rode off. We had been headed west the
entire time, but I knew Raze new that part of the country a little better. We’d
met in Oklahoma, but his gang was based out of Southern California. I figured
we’d end up somewhere in between. Neither of us were east coasters.

We rode a few more hours and
stopped in another town just on the edge of the Colorado border. I climbed off,
followed by Raze, who seemed annoyed. He pulled his phone out of his pocket.

“This thing has been going off
nonstop all day,” he said.

“They’re probably wondering where
the hell we are,” I said. “Probably more you than me.”

Raze shook his head as he scrolled
through text after text and missed call after missed call.

“What are you going to do?” I
asked.

Without any kind of warning, he
threw his phone on the ground. It immediately broke off into several pieces and
the screen shattered. He took the heel of his boot and finished cracking it
into a million more pieces until it was nothing but tiny little bits scattered
all over the pavement.

I took a step back. I’d never seen
him do anything like that before.

“Whoa,” I said as I covered my
mouth. “You sure that was the right thing to do?”

“Give me your phone,” he commanded
as he outstretched his hand towards me.

I didn’t question him. I reached
into my purse slowly, pulled out my phone, and placed it in his big, strong
hand. Within seconds it, too, was smashed into smithereens.

“Okay, so what are we going to do
about phones now?” I asked, trying hard not to sound like I didn’t trust his
decisions.

“We’re getting
Trac
Fones
,” he said. “That way they can’t reach us and
they can’t track us. We’ll be virtually untraceable.”

I breathed a deep sigh of relief as
it all made sense now. He had a good point. They could easily pin point our
exact location using our cell phones.

“I can’t believe it took me this
long to even think about that,” he said.

The sun was beginning to set over
the horizon. It felt like just minutes ago that we were riding off into the
sunset and now our first day of freedom was coming to a close.

“Should we settle in?” I asked him
as I glanced around. We were in some truck stop parking lot, and I didn’t even
know which town it was. All I knew was that I was hungry and tired.

“Yeah,” he said as he honed in on a
motel across the street. It was just as seedy as the one I used to work in, but
all I wanted was a place to rest my tired bones.

We checked into the motel and
dropped off our bags in our room. To my surprise, the rooms had been recently
remodeled despite the horrible exterior of the hotel. The peeling yellow paint,
rotting shingles, and falling awnings were a far cry from how the interior
rooms looked. For that I was grateful.

“I’m hungry,” I moaned to Raze as I
rubbed my gurgling stomach.

“I know, babe,” he said. “Me too.
Let’s go grab a bite to eat.”

We climbed back on his bike and
rode up and down Main Street looking for a restaurant of some sort, but all we
found were bars.

“Is bar food going to be okay?” he
yelled back over the roar of the engine.

I nodded into his side mirror, and
he pulled into a spot in front of one of the bars. We climbed inside and my
mouth salivated at the thought downing some fried pickles and
a tenderloin
and washing it down with a tall, ice cold beer.
I could taste the sweet and savory goodness already.

We stepped into the dark, smoke
filled bar and took a seat in the corner booth. Raze always liked to face the
doorway, so I let him pick which side he wanted. He was always on the lookout,
and I thought it was pretty sexy of him to be so protective.

A waitress with bright red hair,
pink lipstick, and a mouthful of bubble gum came up to take our orders.

“You’re not from around here are
ya
?” she asked.

“Nope,” I smiled, trying to act
casual.

“Where
ya’ll
from?” she asked. According to her accent, she wasn’t from Colorado either.

“Um,” I said. I glanced over at
Raze who was giving me a piercing look. “We’re from Florida.”

I totally lied. It was the first
place I could think of even though I’d never been there in my entire life. Raze
smiled.

“Well you’re a long ways from
home,” she stated the obvious. “Where you headed?”

“We’re just on a road trip,” Raze
said. He was clearly annoyed at all her questions. I just wanted to be friendly
so they didn’t spit in our food. “Can we place our order? I think we know what
we want.”

The waitress reached into her
pocket and pulled out a pad and pen. “Go ahead.”

We ordered our food and beers and
sat back. My stomach growled uncontrollably. We hadn’t stopped for lunch that
day and the last food I ate was that breakfast at the diner. I probably
could’ve ordered the entire menu if we had the time and money.

Our food came quickly, and we
immediately got to town. I downed my tenderloin in less than five minutes and
chugged the cool, bitter, amber beer that was presented to me so perfectly in a
frosty mug. Beer had never tasted so amazing to me before as it did that day.

We sat back, full bellies, and
smiles on our faces. Everything changed, though, as soon as we heard a familiar
rumbling in the distance. Raze stood up and glanced out one of the windows and
saw a bunch of bikers pulling up outside and parking. He walked back to the
table with a solemn look on his face.

“Is it the Black Ice?” I asked. My
heart wanted to crawl into my stomach and suddenly the food that just a second
ago had felt so good in my belly now felt like it was about to come up.

Raze shook his head “no” and sat
back down.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“I’m not for sure, but I think it’s
the Marquis Devils,” he said. “They’re pretty prominent out here. We’re pretty
much on their turf.”

“Oh,” I said. “Do we have anything
to worry about?”

Raze shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Maybe
?!
”

“Just act casual. Follow my lead.
We should be okay,” he said, but I didn’t believe him. “We might have to sneak
out of here. It depends on what chapter this is.”

“Is there some bad blood between
you guys or something?” I asked, half joking.

“I won’t lie to you,” he said.
“They may or may not have a hit on me.”

“What
?!
”

“Mia, they are a rival gang,” he
said. The seriousness in his voice was something I’d never heard from him
before. “When we abandoned our gang, we lost their protection. We’re on our own
now.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said.

“We have to be careful. That’s
all,” he said. I think he could see the worry spreading over my face. He
reached across the table and took my tiny hand in his. It didn’t make me feel
any less concerned about the situation though.

The bells chimed on the door as the
bikers piled in one after another. The bar that was previously filled with a
few patrons and the sound of the jukebox in the corner was now filled with the
raucous roar of rowdy bikers and boots stomping in on the sticky, hardwood
floors.

“If this waitress would ever hurry
up with our fucking check,” Raze huffed. “We could get the hell out of here
before they see us.”

“Hey,” I said trying to calm him
down. “It’s okay. We’ll be fine.”

I glanced over at the waitress who
was busy tending to the bikers who’d just shown up, and I knew it was going to
be a while. Within seconds, I noticed a couple of the guys looking towards Raze
and me. They were saying something to each other and giving us menacing stares,
and it sent a chill down my spine.

“What do those guys want?” I said
to Raze as I nudged my head towards them. “They’ve been staring.”

“Shit,” Raze muttered under his
breath. “Don’t make eye contact. Look away, Mia.”

My heart fluttered in my chest and
not in a good way. I could feel my face flush and my palms grow sweaty. I
watched as Raze casually reached down and pulled a $20 bill from his wallet and
slapped it on the table.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he
said as he slowly turned around looking for a back exit.

I heard the shuffling of boots on
hardwood behind us, and the sound was growing louder and louder. I turned my
head to see those two bikers standing at the edge of our table.

“Can I help you?” Raze asked as he
puffed out his chest like the true alpha male I knew he was.

“Say, you don’t happen to be Raze
Northcutt, are
ya
?” The blonde, skinhead-looking
biker asked with a smirk on his face. “Black Ice, right?”

“Nope, you must be confused,” Raze
lied.