“I think more than just William thinks I’m with you,” I ventured, thinking about those noses pressed to the glass while we had our parking lot altercation.
It occurred to me that a lot of life changing events happened to me in parking lots.
Zeus shrugged his mighty shoulders. “What do I care if people think I got myself some hot teacher ass?”
“King’s, um, okay with that insinuation?”
“For now.”
I swallowed painfully but didn’t question his vague and terrifying response.
I stood up and moved away from the bike because even though I was reeling, it was clear he had said his piece and was going to leave. The Prez of the club had more important things to do than help a lady in her garden, but I deeply appreciated, in a strange way, his taking the time to comfort me, to give me his take on the situation. It also disturbed me to know I essentially had his parental consent to fuck his son.
It was later, after an entire morning and afternoon spent working in my mess of a garden side by side men who were, convicted or not, criminals. Still, I’d found myself charmed by one after another as we toiled away in the soil. I wondered if it had to do with bonding over something as elemental as the earth and a hard day’s work, if it was because I felt beholden to them for their charity and they were curious enough about my relationship to King to be attentive or if it was because King had rallied the most charismatic of his troops in an effort to woo me to the dark side, to convince me that at least one of the obstacles in the way of our relationship—his criminal family—was inconsequential.
It was after I’d made them all my famous pulled pork, which I’d fortunately had already marinating in the fridge and popped into the slow cooker before helping the guys in the yard. They’d inhaled the pork, slaw and brioche bun sandwiches I’d made them, decimating the food that I’d planned to use in my meal plan for the next few weeks in under half an hour. I’d never seen a group of grown men eat and it was both a terrifying and heady thing to be the one to feed them. They’d all grown silent as they devoured the food and chips I’d laid out, most even ate a bit of the simple green salad I’d made, and then complimented me with grunts, belly pats and sincere smiles. It was more satisfying than any gourmet meal I’d made William during our marriage.
So, when Nova continued to hit on me despite King’s growls, Buck belched so loudly it literally shook the table, a crazy biker named Lab Rat got drunk as a skunk on some mysterious liquid he kept in a jeweled skull encrusted flash at his hip and started speaking in really bizarre riddles, I only laughed. I laughed because it felt like living, and I loved it.
King watched me the entire dinner, his anger banked or forgotten, his eyes star bright as he showed me a slice of his family. They seemed to beckon me closer, enticing me to adopt his family as my own. He would, I knew, give everything in his life to me, unashamed, totally generous. Just as I knew that he wouldn’t expect blind obedience in return, dinners on the table at six p.m. sharp, laundry done and folded back in its drawers as if it had never been dirtied. King wanted me to live and he just wanted the opportunity to help me do it.
The men hadn’t lingered after dinner, only to respectfully leave their dishes by the side of the sink (they weren’t heathens but they were bikers so they weren’t going to do the dishes for me). I closed my eyes where I sat at the dinner table, listening to King murmur quietly to Mute while the roar of bikes started up outside. I was tired after the long day and the socializing, physically exhausted but also mentally, it was hard work struggling through a lifetime of preconceived notions to see the men who dedicated their Saturday to helping me on the other side.
So, I knew I was prepared to face King, to have the conversation I needed to have with him about boundaries, about me being the teacher and him the student. I didn’t have it in me to lie to him.
The truth was, I’d fallen in love with him in the parking lot of Mac’s Grocer five months ago and since then, I’d only sunk further. He was it for me, and it could have been the book geek in me, the eternal romantic suffering from a lifelong lack of romance, but I really believed that. King was everything I’d dreamed a man should be; a real man built of loyalty, tenacity and verve, who laughed like the world was made just to entertain him and loved like crazy. I could never have known that the other things, his youth and its resulting vigor, his lack of morality and the liberation it gave him and, by extension me, would be my kryptonite.