Page 4
THREE
DREW
Living on the edge … more than a line
I watch her fingers wrap around the water glass, nails painted a soft pink, trembling just a little. She doesn’t notice me watching, not yet. She’s studying the menu like it’s written in a foreign language, but I don’t think it’s the pasta that’s got her nervous.
It’s me and this date, if one can call it that. With a glance at the hotel records, I managed to get her full name and her mother’s. Cambria Christine Tracy is indeed eighteen years old. While I knew she was young by her looks, but not freshly legal young. Granted the information Hawk dug up on her and her mother, she’s lived a hard life. I’m sure that ages someone. What I learned on paper about her: she’s a survivor through and through.
I can’t blame her for her cautiousness.
The place isn’t fancy—just a quiet Italian joint tucked between a pawn shop and a tire store on the edge of town—but it’s a far cry from the smoky clubhouse and the roar of Harley-Davidsons or a dive bar I’m used to. That world clings to me like motor oil, no matter how many clean shirts I own, I am and always will be a Hellion, a biker, an outlaw through and through. And she—Cambria—she smells like fresh air, looks like innocence and a life I probably have no business stepping into.
Yet, I’m here. There is something about her that calls to me. I’ve never been one for a hero complex, but watching her pick up change in a busted hotel parking lot piqued my interest. The way she moves, always on alert, but still somewhere far away in her mind, it all makes me want to know what goes on inside her head.
She looks up finally, catching me staring. A shy smile curls on her lips, and my chest tightens like I’ve just taken a punch I didn’t see coming.
“You have a favorite?” she asks, nodding at the menu.
“Lasagna,” I say without thinking. “Burned my mouth on it last time. Didn’t stop me.”
“You come here often?”
I shake my head, “not really, but had to come to Collins a few times and found this place. It’s a good spot and I like to support local.”
She nods, “including super-hot food?”
“Worth it.” I joke back.
She laughs, and it’s soft, uncertain, like she’s still trying to figure me out. “You like pain, huh?”
I raise a brow. “Occupational hazard.”
She tilts her head, golden hair spilling over her shoulder. “How so? Does driving a big rig hurt you regularly?”
“Some loads can.” I reply vaguely.
I nod, leaning back in my chair. I’m not in colors tonight—didn’t seem right. But the tattoos on my arms peek out from under my rolled sleeves, and I know she sees them.
“I don’t mind questions,” I say. “Long as you’re ready for honest answers.”
“I want honest.” Her eyes lock onto mine, more steady than before. “I don’t like games.”
She says it like she’s had her fill already. Eighteen years old and already wary of being lied to. That does something to me. Not pity, not exactly. Just…caution. She has this look, the kind that tells me she’s lived a lifetime of pain and instability.
“You always this serious on a first date?” I ask, trying to lighten the air between us.
She blushes. “I’ve never been on one. Not sure if I’m supposed to be serious.”
That stops me. I blink. “Never?”
She shakes her head, eyes falling to the napkin she’s folding and unfolding in her lap. “Don’t have the best situation at home to be paying attention to boys.”
I run my thumb along the edge of the table. “And me?”
She looks up again, straight at me. “You showed up randomly. Figured fate wants me to see what you’re about. Plus, you’re safe.”
I give a half smirk, “safe? You do realize I’m a biker, right? How can you find that to be safe?”
“Bikers don’t scare me. And you, well, you saw a girl picking up change in a parking lot and decided to show up and lie that I lost a dollar. You and I both know I didn’t lose a dollar. You saw me, saw a situation, and decided to wade in. You aren’t here to hurt me. I’m not sure what your motives are or what the end goal is, but you aren’t out to hurt me.”
I chuckle. “That’s a polite way of saying you don’t trust me.”
“Should I?”
I don’t answer right away. A waitress swings by, asks for our orders, and we both go with the lasagna. Cambria glances at me with a little smirk, like she’s trying it out just to see what is underneath me.
When we’re alone again, I lean in a little. “You don’t have to trust me yet. But I won’t lie to you. Not my style.”
She nods slowly, considering. “Why me?” she asks.
Simple question. Loaded answer. I think about the night I saw her—really saw her—for the first time. It was two trips ago. Same hotel. She was trying to get in the hotel room door. When she realized it was locked, she slid down the door and sat there alone for over an hour. The door finally opened and a man walks out, a dirty man. The kind of man that never needs to be near a woman like her. Only after he gives her a sneer, a once over, does he walk away and she’s able to retreat into the room.
Whoever was inside the room, never emerges.
The second time we came to Arkansas, same hotel, I find her picking up change in the parking lot as if her next meal depended on it.
Now, this trip, we were here for a couple of days to blend in and make sure we have our route down pat. When taking on a new client, Rex likes for us to spend a few trips getting familiar. In two weeks, I’ll come back with the transport for the Saint’s Outlaws MC. Granted, she doesn’t know this isn’t the first trip or the first time I’ve seen her.
“You looked like you were dreaming with your eyes open,” I say. “And I wanted to know what you saw.”
She blinks. Her lips part just slightly. “Wow. That’s…”
“Too much?”
“No.” She smiles again, fuller this time. “Just—unexpected.”
“Yeah,” I mutter. “That makes two of us.”
The food comes. It smells amazing, and for a few minutes we fall into a comfortable silence. I watch her steal a bite too soon, watch her eyes widen as the heat hits her tongue. “Hot,” she gasps, fanning her mouth.
“Told you.” I pass her water without thinking. She takes it, drinks, and her fingers graze mine.
That little touch hits harder than it should. I flex my hand under the table.
She sets the glass down and looks at me differently now. “You’re not what I thought.”
“What’d you think?”
She shrugs. “Loud. Rough. Dangerous.”
I smirk. “Two out of three ain’t bad.”
She laughs again, and this time there’s nothing shy about it. It fills the space between us like music.
For the rest of the meal, we talk about nothing and everything—her plans for college, my shop, the way she likes her coffee (more creamer than coffee), the stray cat she feeds even though her mom says it’s bad luck. She tells me about her sketchbook, and I ask if she ever draws people. She looks away and says only the ones she’s scared to forget.
I don’t ask if I’ll end up in there one day. I don’t want to know.
When the plates are empty and the waitress brings the check, I reach for it. She opens her mouth to protest, but I shake my head.
“I asked you. That means I pay.”
She studies me for a second. Then she nods. “Thank you.” I see the relief in her face knowing if she tried to pay for this meal, it would hurt her pockets deep.
Outside, the night’s cooled down. The air smells like summer flowers. My bike’s parked under the streetlamp, gleaming like a promise or a warning. She walks beside me, close but not quite touching.
I open my mouth a couple of times. To say what, I’m not even sure. This whole thing’s got me off-balance. I’ve been on plenty of dates, but none that felt like this. Like we’re both on the edge of something we don’t have words for yet.
We stop beside my bike. She looks up at me, and the moment stretches thin and tight between us.
“I had a really good time,” she says, voice barely above a whisper.
“Me too.”
The silence after that is thick with possibility. She’s standing right there, lips parted, eyes soft. I could kiss her. She’s waiting for it. But I don’t move. Because she’s eighteen. Because I’m not. Because no matter how good this feels, she deserves more than impulse and heat and the taste of danger.
“I should get you home,” I say instead, pulling my helmet from the seat and handing it to her.
Her face flickers—something like disappointment—but she takes the helmet anyway. “Okay.”
I get on, and she climbs on behind me. Her arms wrap around my waist, and it’s a kind of intimacy I’m not ready for, but also never want to let go of. The ride back is quiet, the engine roaring under us, her warmth pressed against my back like a secret. When I pull up to her hotel, I almost ask her to my room, but I don’t. This is not where things need to go right now.
“Thanks for tonight,” she says.
“You’re welcome.”
Another pause. Her eyes search mine, like she’s looking for a reason, an answer, something.
“You gonna call me sometime?” she asks.
I smile. “Yeah. I’m gonna call you.”
She nods, like she believes me. Like maybe, just maybe, she trusts me a little now. And then she turns and walks to the door. She lifts her head like she’s praying to the Heavens the door will open. Once she steps inside, she doesn’t look back. If she did, she would see I am staring in wonder.
I commit the entire night to memory. Her voice, soft and brave. Her smile, full of questions. Her arms around me, just for a little while.
And the kiss I didn’t take.
* * *
We are supposed to be laying low. It’s been a week since our last trip here. A week of getting to know Cambria and wondering if this time I can have a simple taste of her lips before I have to go back home.
Easy transport. No heat, no risk. Just ride into Arkansas, drop the cargo, crash for the night, and head back to Catawba before the sun finished rising. Easy money.
Only thing is, nothing about this trip feels easy.
Toon and I cross the Arkansas state line around dusk, the air thick with bugs and humidity, our tires humming across cracked pavement. The trailer we’re hauling ain’t much—just the body and chassis of a custom car and some parts. Technically legal, nothing flashy. Unless they pick the car apart. In the state it’s in, the modifications are visible and it doesn’t take a genius to know what the compartments are meant for.
Rex wants the alliance with Saint’s Outlaws to stay clean. Our club’s got too many eyes on it already, and the last thing we need is a messy handoff or a trigger-happy deal gone south. We normally don’t know what we are shipping. This is a rare occasion where we do. Salemburg Hellions, Stud did a custom car build for Saint’s. It’s got hidden compartments for transporting whatever they want. Most likely guns or drugs. Not my business what they do.
Stud owns a hot rod shop and the man seriously loves a custom build. This time was no different for him, but for us, if we get pulled and the cops see what we have going on, there could be questions.
Questions I don’t want to answer.
As the miles pass on in the cab of this truck, I feel restless. Ever since Cambria and I connected.
I haven’t stopped thinking about her. The sound of her voice. The way she said “I don’t know” like it was the first time she’d admitted weakness in years. The moment I saw her crouched on the asphalt, picking up nickels like they were gold coins. There was something there—something raw. Real.
It stuck with me and I can’t shake it.
We pull off at the dusty little motel on the edge of a nothing town. One gas station. One diner. A boarded-up church. And the kind of motel that’s seen more crime scenes than honeymoons. The motel that is her home.
Toon mutters, “meet is seven am, let’s shower, crash, and roll out as soon as we finish with the Saint’s. Or you gonna be tied up with the hot piece.”
I want to punch him, my best friend, for calling her a hot piece. “One night. Then we roll. What I do during that night isn’t your business.”
The lady at the front desk doesn’t even look up from her soap opera as she slides us a room key.
Room 6. Two beds. Smells like mildew and regret.
We toss our gear inside and step out to smoke. The air is cooler now, the kind of stillness that comes just before the sky splits open with summer rain. I light a cigarette and lean against the railing, watching the parking lot.
And that’s when I see her.
At first, I think I’m imagining things. I thought she would be at work. Instead she’s in front of me like an angel calling me to Heaven.
She’s bent over near the vending machines, picking something up off the pavement—change, maybe. Her hoodie’s too big, the sleeves swallowing her hands. Her jeans are torn at the knees. And even from a distance, I can tell she hasn’t eaten right in days.
It’s her.
Cambria.
I don’t know what the hell made me look out at that exact second. Maybe fate. Maybe dumb luck. But once I see her, I can’t look away.
“Yo,” Toon says, nudging me. “You can’t eat her up from this far away.”
I let out a half-hearted laugh.
He follows my gaze again. “You know her?”
“Kind of.”
He gives me a look. “That means either you screwed her, or you want to.”
I smirk. “Neither. Yet.”
He laughs and walks off, giving me the space.
I flick the cigarette, grab the room key, and head down the stairs. She doesn’t notice me until I’m right beside her.
“You always dig through parking lots, or is this just a Tuesday thing?” I ask.
She startles, straightens fast, her face pale under the motel’s yellow light.
“You,” she says. “You’re here.”
“Me. And I’m here.”
She glances around nervously then back at me. She looks like she wants to run. Or maybe cry. Or maybe both.
“You always show up when I’m at my worst?”
I tilt my head. “What if this is your best?”
She snorts, the sound bitter. “Then that’s real fucking sad.”
“Thought you had to work.”
She shakes her head, “Gary sent me home as soon as I got there. Said it was slow and he needed to cut the payroll.”
“Been on the road all damn day. Need to clean up.”
She gives me a soft smile and before we can talk more, a woman opens the door from her room and begins yelling her name.
The woman is clearly strung out and struggling.
“I’m sorry, Drew, I gotta go. I’ll call you later.”
Later that night, I can’t sleep. I don’t know if it’s anticipating her call, wanting her to call, or just generalized worry for her after seeing her mother’s state.
Toon’s out like a light, snoring on the bed closest to the door, one boot still on and a half-empty beer bottle on the nightstand. I lie flat on my back, staring at the water-stained ceiling, my mind stuck on one thing: Cambria.
There’s something about her I can’t shake. Not just the way she looks at me like I am a lifeline—but the way I see myself in her. Same grit. Same hunger. Same sense that the world has screwed her over more times than she could count, and she is still standing anyway.
I roll over and grab my phone. I scroll. Her number isn’t saved, but I know it’s there. Still sitting in my recent calls. I hit dial.
It rings three times before she picks up. Her voice is groggy. “Hello?”
“It’s me.”
There’s a pause. “Drew?”
“Yeah.”
Another pause. Then, “You always call people in the middle of the night?”
“Only the ones I’m thinking about.”
She snorts softly. “That’s a line.”
“Is it working?”
A beat of silence.
Then, quietly, she replies, “Maybe.”
We don’t talk long before her mom is crying out for her to help her again. This call is just enough for me to know she’s still up. Still breathing. Still hanging on.
When I hang up, I stare at the ceiling a little longer.
Something’s pulling me toward her.
And I’m starting to think I don’t want to fight it.