“Yeah. I hear he is, and he wants in.”
Hull was the first man Rebecca had ever loved. His name was Christopher Hullard, but everyone just called him Hull. He had been in the Hammers since he was sixteen, and he had been fast-tracked to become leader. His own father had been the leader, but he’d been nearing retirement age, and Hull had been his last kid out of five, and his only son. Hull and Rebecca had fallen in love, and when it ended the way it had, he decided to join the Navy. He became a SEAL, and Rebecca had been sure she would never see him again. Two years after he left, his father died, and he didn’t even come back for the funeral.
“You going to let him in?”
“He wants my job, so fuck him,” Jason said. “Just telling you, because he probably still hates you for what you did to him. I was coming to protect you.”
“He wouldn’t do anything to me,” Rebecca said softly, her voice fading into the dark night air.
“War changes people,” Jason said with a shrug.
“I’m going to bed,” Rebecca said suddenly, wanting the man to leave.
“All right. Weasel is bringing his bike over tomorrow, told him you’d take a look at his gearshift. It’s sticking.”
“All right,” Rebecca said, and she shut the door.
She went and filled her tub with water so hot that steam rose from it in her cool bathroom. She disrobed and sank into the water. She was tired, but her mind was racing. She couldn’t stop thinking about Hull. She wondered if it was true, him being back in Oklahoma City. And if it was, she wondered if she would see him. She had been the one to end their relationship, after a pregnancy scare. She had been young, hadn’t wanted to go down that road, but he had seemed so ready to do so. He had been twenty, two years older. He was going to be the president of the largest motorcycle club in Oklahoma. He wanted to marry her, to be a father. It had all scared her. She had cut him off, and he had become so heartbroken that he ran to the military, risking his life every day just to be three thousand miles from her.
Rebecca sat in the bath until the water was lukewarm, and then she stayed a bit longer until it was downright chilly. Finally, she climbed from the tub and dried off before heading to bed. As she drifted off to sleep, she thought about Hull, and she wondered if she would see him.
2
Rebecca didn’t have to wonder if she would see the first man she had ever loved for long. The next day she was working on Weasel’s bike. Weasel was a Hammer, a big bear of a man with a wiry white beard and long hair he kept in a simply ponytail. He was in his sixties, and he looked the part of grizzled biker. But he was a friendly guy, with a booming laugh and a warm smile, and he was one of the few Hammers who hadn’t given Rebecca shit since breaking things off with Jason.
The big man had brought his bike over in the back of a beat up pickup truck in the morning, and then he’d spent an hour or so bullshitting with Rebecca in the garage before he left. She had promised him his bike would be ready by six, and then she had gotten to work.
Just after noon, she realized she would need a couple of parts she didn’t have on hand, so she went inside to wash up and then headed to a local motorcycle shop. As she stood by the counter in the shop, waiting for Dave, the man who ran the place, to grab the parts she needed from the back, her stomach rumbled. She would need to grab lunch on the way home.
Embarrassingly, her stomach was so loud that someone behind her heard it.
“Hungry?” a male voice asked, and Rebecca turned around. Her mouth fell open. There, standing behind her, was Hull. He looked the same, but entirely different somehow too. His head was practically shaved, just had small dark dots to show he wasn’t really bald. He had always been muscular, but now he gave Jason a run for his money. He was tall, and he wore a gray T-shirt that was stretched tight across his muscular chest.
“Hull,” Rebecca said, feeling foolish. Even as his girlfriend she had never called him anything else. No one called him anything else.
“I should have known I’d find you here.”
“You were looking for me?”
Hull smiled, an easy thing, kind but sarcastic. “No. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Oh,” Rebecca said, feeling a burst of heat on her cheeks as she blushed. “I heard you were back.”
“I wanted to see everyone. I think I’m going to stick around.”
“You going to join back up?”
“With the Hammers?”
“Yeah,” Rebecca said, leaning back against the counter.
“I think so,” Hull said, and he nodded. “It’s good to see you.”
Rebecca nodded.
“So you’re hungry. We could grab a bite to eat if you have the time.”
“All right,” Rebecca said. “I’m working on a bike, though, so it will have to be fast.”
“Did you ride here?”