Chapter 59
Grease
Callie was sending photos of her belly every day, and I swore I could see a difference in each of them. I was f*cking done with having her so far away from me. She was already halfway through her pregnancy, and I was still dragging my ass to Sacramento each chance I got. It was insane—how long we’d waited to finally be in one place together.
As far as I was concerned, Farrah could deal with her own shit. She was still partying and doing f*ck all to help herself, and I didn’t see an end in sight. I hated it that Callie was down there taking care of her shit when she should be worrying about herself and our kid. She was tired all the f*cking time because she was having a hard time sleeping, and I knew that having Farrah stumble in drunk as shit in the middle of the night wasn’t helping.
The bullshit needed to stop.
I was packing up my bike to hit the road that morning when Tommy Gun came lumbering out of the clubhouse calling my name. I was standing right in front of him, and I shook my head when he bellowed my name again.
“What?” I snapped, anxious to get on the road.
“Slider wants to see you,” he mumbled, raising his hands with his palms out.
“You know what it’s about?” I questioned, stuffing the rest of my clothes into the saddle bags.
“Nope. I’m just the messenger!” he called almost a minute later as I was walking back inside.
Slider was sitting at the bar when I got inside, and he raised his chin at me as I headed toward him. He had a packet wrapped in brown paper on the bar in front of him, and he palmed it as I reached him.
“You heading south?” he asked, rapping his knuckles on the countertop.
“Yup. Callie’s got a doctor’s appointment that I’m gonna miss if I don’t leave now,” I answered impatiently.
His brows lowered in response to my tone, and I automatically took a step back.
“Not gonna hold you up. Just need you to drop a package in Sacramento when you get there,” he replied quietly, sliding the package to me across the countertop.
“That it?”
“That’s it. I’ll see you when you get back,” he responded, standing from his stool. “Check on my girl for me, would ya?”
“Yep. I’m outta here.” I turned and strode toward the door, raising my chin at Dragon who’d been passed out on one of the couches and was looking blearily at me over the head of some blonde chick.
The first hour of the ride was uneventful. I’d taken the trip so many times I could probably sleep through it, and I had gotten complacent about watching for speed traps and highway patrol. I was thinking about the ultrasound, excited as f*ck to see my kid again.
I know most people say some stupid shit about not caring if their kid was a boy or a girl as long as it was healthy, but I didn’t think about it that way. Of course I wanted a healthy kid, which went without saying, but I wanted a f*cking boy. I wanted a boy so badly it was like a weight in my gut, something I thought about constantly, no matter what I was doing. I figured Callie probably wanted a little girl that she could dress in frilly shit, but the thought of a little girl made me anxious as hell.
I wanted a boy that I could teach to throw a football and take apart a motorcycle. I wouldn’t know what the hell to do with a girl.
I was flying down the highway, thinking about Callie’s appointment and how the hell I was gonna talk her into moving and leaving that f*cking weight around her neck, so I didn’t see the police car under an overpass with a radar gun waiting for stupid f*ckers like me.
When I noticed the lights in my mirror, I was annoyed as f*ck that they were going to hold me up. It was getting later and later and Callie would have my balls if I didn’t meet her at the doctor’s office that afternoon.
I pulled over to the side of the road and shut off my bike, putting the kickstand down and taking off my helmet as I waited.
“You know why I pulled you over?” the cop asked as he walked up beside me.
“Speeding,” I answered, running my hand over my beard. Damn, I needed to trim that shit so I didn’t look like a f*cking mountain man the first time I met my kid.
The cop looked at my beard and then down to my cut, his mouth lifting into a sneer.
“I’m going to have to ask you to step off your bike,” he told me condescendingly, taking a step back and dropping his hand to the gun at his waist.
F*cking prick. He was going to mess with me and there was not a goddamn thing I could do about it. I climbed off my bike and stood with my arms at my sides as he spoke into the walkie-talkie on his shoulder before raising his eyes to mine.
“License and registration.”
As I reached for my wallet inside the pocket of my sweatshirt, he pulled his motherf*cking gun.
“Hands where I can see them!” he bellowed, pissing me right the f*ck off.
“My wallet’s in the front pocket of my sweatshirt,” I told him, hands raised in the air. “Thought you wanted my license and shit?”
“One hand stays in the air, grab your wallet nice and slow,” he ordered, watching me closely.
I followed his orders, slowly using both hands to give him the shit he needed. I didn’t want some rookie cop shooting me in the chest because his balls hadn’t dropped yet.
“Stay off your motorcycle, I’ll be right back,” he grumbled, taking my shit as he walked toward his car.
He took a long-ass time running my shit, and I seriously considered hopping on my bike and leaving his ass behind. If he hadn’t had my paperwork, I would have taken off.
“You have anything on your bike that I should know about?” he asked, as he reached where I was standing.
“Nope,” I told him with a smirk.
“I believe you might be under the influence. I’m going to need to search you and your bike.”
“What the f*ck?” I sputtered, completely f*cking confused.
“Hands on the hood of the car.”
“F*ck you.”
“Are you resisting, Mr. Hawthorne?” he asked menacingly, one eyebrow raised. The f*cker was just dying to get me on something.
I leaned over the car, pissed as hell but still relatively unconcerned as he searched me. I didn’t carry a weapon when I was making the trip to Callie because I was on probation from shit that had happened years ago. I had a piece at her house that I carried when I was in town, but if I wasn’t on a run I didn’t bother to carry. It was more hassle than it was worth if I got pulled over.
“Keep your hands on the vehicle,” he ordered as he headed toward my bike. F*ck, the guy was taking forever and I was counting the minutes that I stood there, wondering how the hell I’d make up the time so I wasn’t late.
He was shining a light under my bike even though the sun was coming up, and huffed when he didn’t find anything. Then he searched through my bags, pulling out mostly boxers because I’d bought ugly-ass new ones to wear around Callie so she wasn’t so f*cking worried about her bras.
He finished with the first saddle bag, finding nothing, but when he started pulling shit out of the second, he paused. He reached into the bottom of the bag and my stomach f*cking dropped when he pulled out the package Slider had given me that morning. He glanced up at me, probably to make sure I hadn’t moved, and then used both hands to unseal the package and open it up.
“Jesus F*ckin’ Christ,” I murmured, dropping my head in defeat when I saw what he’d sent.
I didn’t watch the cop anymore; I just stared at the hood of his car as my heart raced. I was going to miss the goddamn appointment and who the f*ck knew what else.
As the cop walked up behind me and pulled my hands behind my back, I knew before he started reading me my rights that I was going to jail.