Page 8 of The Biker and the Loner
And because two new customers get in line behind him, I do my job and ring him up.
As I’m handing over his change and receipt, he spots the ring on my finger and glares down at it. “The fuck’s that?”
“Oh, um…” I nervously twist the ring around my finger as I scan the customers in line, verifying that none are male before I say, “It’s fake. I—”
“Damn well better be,” he cuts me off again, then picks up his cup and stalks right out of the shop.
Through the plexiglass windows, I can see the loitering members of his biker club surrounding him, clapping him on the back. They’re happy to see him. Happy he’s made it home alive.
I’m not.
He’s supposed to be dead. Buried. But stupid, stupid me gave him my father’s protection chain, and now he’s back. He survived a freaking helicopter plummeting out of the sky.
And now he's back.
With my secret.
~
At the end of my shift, I change out of my Tipsy Scoop uniform, check for missed calls fromher, then speed home.
I’m worried. For myself, and for her. Because Scratchis back, and he knows.
On his dying breath, my father asked me to be there for her, and that’s what I’ve been doing, even at the cost of my sanity.
Beating the traffic to Cherry Hills Village,I drum my fingers to the house music pouring from the radio as I wait for the monstrous, electric, wrought-iron gates to open, slowly giving way to the sprawling mansion that sits on 3.5 acres.
Katherine de Glücksbeigch-Oliveros isn’t rich. She’swealthy. She’s from a royal family in a European country with a name I can’t pronounce, and thus can never remember. After her “betrothal pairing,” a custom for her royal family, her groom, the duke of Whereeverland died in a freakish horse-riding accident one week before they were to be wed. She believed it to be a sign, a divine intervention, and consequently abandoned her royal duties in favor of moving here to find love that was real, not arranged.
And that she did. With my father, Juan Oliveros.
I don’t remember my mother—she died when I was two. A midnight burglary break-in gone bad. Papà was working the night shift when it happened. He came home to her bleeding out on the kitchen floor, with two-year-old me sitting in her blood, bawling for her to wake up. She, too, had moved here from Venezuela for love and a better life.
I remember none of this.
What I do remember is my Mexicanpadreraising me all by himself and being my favorite person in the entire world.
One night, when I was seven, he brought home Katherine. She was kind and sweet, with a white smile and a pretty accent. We both fell in love with her. In no time, they were married and our family of two became a family of three.
Three years later, Papà was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer. It was aggressive, brutal. In six months, he was gone.
That’s when everything changed.
When I open the front door and hear Selena’sDreamingspilling from the surround system at a soft volume, I breathe a heavy sigh. I can always tell by the song what kind of mood she’s in. For this song, it’s melancholic with a splash of righteous indignation.
“Leyana, is that you?” she calls from somewhere in the living room, hope in her voice. Her thick accent has somewhat loosened over the years of her being here, but it’s still a bit strong, so whenever she says my name, it comes out asLough-hanna.
“Yeah. It’s me.”
Who else would it be? No one ever comes to visit except her sister—once or twice a year—and her lawyer. Her pot dealer never gets past the front gate.
As for me, aside from an uncle who resides in Mexico, I know of no other family on Papà’s side. My mother has two sisters in Venezuela, but I don’t have a relationship with them. Whenever they do call, it’s to ask for something—usually money.
In a sense, Kathy is all I’ve got. And I’m all she’s got, since she’s an even bigger loner than I am now. She no longer socializes, chased off all her friends, and seldom leaves the house.
I pad to the living room and find her lounging on a white chaise, a large glass of wine clutched in her fingers. This is what she does all day long. Pop antidepressants and booze up, wallowing in her thirteen-year-long grief.
Kathy is tall and lithe, with long, blonde hair and unique facial features. She has alookabout her.Alook that tells you she’s from a different place, a place you didn’t even know existed. Papà had loved her so much.So much.
