King of Hearts

I was sure that Alicia and Trey, were a definite couple now, and I was also sure that they wouldn't be going home with us. This was their home now. I was also sure that Digger was in love with Sally. Only yesterday Marcus had told me that Digger had been looking at RV brochures and was talking about settling down and traveling on the weekends. I guess that Ray would get what he'd wanted. Marcus would have to lead the club now.

Sally is a wonderful woman, she's treated me more than like a friend, she's treated me like I was her little sister ever since I got here. I really hoped that she and Digger would be happy. And the shittiest thing that I realized above everything else was that I liked Angela. That little bitch had looked out for me ever since I'd gotten here. Every time I got into trouble, even when I didn't know it, she'd been there. What really shocked me was that she did things for me on more levels than I could even see. She'd known about my back problems so she'd known that as much s I wanted to be a plumber's assistant, it would have killed me. So she gave me a job that...

Before I could even finish my thought, I thought I heard her voice. "It was all just a misunderstanding. Beth isn't even pressing charges. Christina's undergoing some deep emotional upheavals right now, so she doesn't need a criminal record. I'd hate to get angry at you and not write that check to your...uhm softball program. You guys almost won the state championship last year didn't ya?" Even as she spoke the door was opening and Angela marched in being followed by a couple of officers.

"Honey, get up," she told me. "Tell the nice men that you're sorry and NOTHING like THIS will EVER happen again." Even as she spoke the younger officer started to open my cell door.

"What the hell are you doing?" asked the officer in charge.

"Aren't we letting her go?" asked the younger man.

"I guess so," said the chief. "But if I ever see you again..." he glared at me.

"You won't," I promised.

As soon as I got into Angela's car I started thanking her.

"Christina, you don't ever have to thank me," she said. "That's what friends are for."

"Why are you so sure that we're friends?" I asked.

"You may not see it that way," she said. "But I do. Christina, we all go through difficult stages in life. And sometimes those difficulties cause us to lose things that are very precious to us. While you were going through one of those, you lost something and I picked it up. Now you may not have considered it as a gift to me, but I got him just the same. So I'll always be grateful for that. And right now you're at another one of those difficult times in your life. I kind of see you being around here for a very long time. So we may as well get used to each other."

On the second day, as Angela had predicted, I was ready to go back to work. I felt awkward about it though. I really had no ideas what I'd say to anyone anymore. I felt kind of the way things were with the biker club after a big fight. You went around to all of your buddies and thanked them for supporting you and apologized to anyone who got hurt on your behalf.

But strangely enough, it didn't go that way. As soon as I walked into the office, Sally blurted out, "It's your turn to make the coffee." She had her sunglasses on again and was rubbing her butt. I smiled at her. I got the impression that no apologies or ass kissing was necessary. This was more like family. They loved you no matter what you did. And they were always ready to forgive you, no matter what.

"Christina, there's a girl coming in here sometime this morning to start working with us. You need to show her how you do everything. We'll try out a couple of them, so by the time spring runs around and the bikers go back, there'll still be two people here full time. It's Angela's idea," she said.

I guess Angela wanted to hedge her bets. She'd told me that she saw me staying here for a long time but she wanted to make sure that things ran well anyway, just in case.

I spent the afternoon trying to explain our filing system to the girl. I couldn't even call her a woman. She seemed like she was still a kid.

"Believe it or not, that dingbat, just graduated from college," giggled Sally as the girl left. "It's going to take her a while to fill your shoes?" I felt sick to my stomach as Sally said that.

I didn't understand why though. I mean I'm a biker not an office manager. Alicia came and she and I went out to lunch. As we walked out I saw Digger get out of someone's truck with two big bags from a local restaurant.

"Hey Digger," I said. He passed right by me. "Digger," I yelled.

"Oh, Hey Christina," he smiled.

"No one calls him Digger anymore," giggled Alicia. "He's just Dennis, now."

I shook my head. After ten minutes of watching Alicia push her lunch around her plate while staring at it, I grabbed her hand.

"Okay, talk," I said. "What's bothering you?"

"Christina I'm so sorry," she said. I looked at her and she was crying her eyes out.

"Alicia what's wrong?" I asked.

"Trey and I aren't going back," she gushed. "Ray is sending him to school for industrial safety and security. We're buying a house and we're getting married. Our house isn't huge but it's beautiful, Christina. I love my house and..."

"That's great," I said. "I'm happy for you."

"Christina, we bought furniture," she cried. "And we bought a bed..." she started crying even harder.

"I...I..thought about what I'd done to you, when I woke up this morning. I always thought a bed was just a dumb piece of furniture, but if someone had sex in our bed I'd want to kill them..."

I just wiped her tears away. "It's over Alicia. It's forgotten," I said.

"Christina, I have to tell you something else," she said.

"Let me guess," I laughed. "You guys had sex on my couch too?" She looked horrified.

"Your couch always had stains from all of the guys Beth fucked on it," she said. "No cooties for me." I laughed.

"Christina, I work in the warehouse," she said.

"Yep, I knew that," I said.

"Well there's this awful little woman over there. When I say little, I don't mean like Angela little..." we both smiled. "But anyway she's been sniffing around Marcus a lot and...uhm talking about him and asking a lot of questions about him and..."

"Okay," I said as my stomach started doing flip flops. "Why are you telling that to me? Marcus is a grown man and he's..."

"Christina, Marcus loves you and I just thought that..."

"What?" I screamed. Every head in the restaurant turned towards us.

"Christina, I think everyone who knows you two knows it," she said. "I don't know how you feel about him, but if you like him, you'd probably better stake some kind of claim or give him a sign. These southern bitches have a way of getting under a man's skin."

Over the next couple of days I had a lot to think about. One day Angela showed up with her daughter and came over to my part of the office. She reached up and hugged me and surprisingly I hugged her back.

"Christina where's Sally?" she asked.

"Uhm, she took a late lunch with Digger...Dennis and they're..." I said.

"Shit," she said. Then she turned back to me and smiled. She held her daughter up. "Christina, meet your Aunt Christina."

I looked into those adorable innocent eyes as she reached for me. When I hugged that little girl, everything in my life just fell into place.

"Christina, I know you're busy," said Angela. "But could you watch Christina for a little while. I came to get my husband. We're uhm..."

"Late lunch?" I asked. She nodded. "No problem," I said.

Through everything that had gone on I'd completely lost track of the days. That Friday night I was dressed in a dress that Peggy had loaned me with some of her jewelry on as well. I was herded at the last moment to Hallos. Both companies had a huge Christmas blow out together every year.

Not that we celebrated Christmas in any elaborate way, but Marcus always seemed to get me a little gift of some sort. But this year he'd gone all out. I'd actually bought him a present too. I'd gotten him a set of socket wrenches and drivers because he was always losing his. They were the best ones available and I'd spent a lot on them. He'd gotten me a beautiful pair of earrings. I immediately took Peggy's off and handed them to her. She smiled and opened her purse. She brought out the box her earrings came in and placed them back inside it. That told me that she'd known what he was getting me.

I felt bad because so many other people had bought me presents as well and I hadn't given anyone else a thing.

As people started to dance, I looked around and saw Angela dancing with Ray. I don't think they knew anyone else was in the room. They moved over towards our table and Angela smiled at me and handed me a slim box as they moved past.

I put it with my other gifts. Peggy whispered in my ear, "It's the necklace that matches your earrings. You're going to shit when you see it. I won't mind if you loan it to me sometimes."

I smiled and nodded at her as I sat down next to Marcus.

"Are you happy," he asked. I nodded.

"Christina, I don't want to ruin the evening," he said slowly. "I looked into his eyes and they were sad. His chocolate brown skin went really well with the suit he was poured into. At that moment, all I could see was love beaming out of his eyes. But I was sure then that I'd missed the boat again. Why was I always misreading the men in my life?

Just as I'd released any residual affection for King and let him go, I'd realized that I really had feelings for Marcus too. Marcus had taken care of me for nearly four years and had never asked for anything other than to be around me. I knew what his next words were going to be and I tried to prepare myself to take them with grace. He was about to tell me that he'd found someone else. And I knew that he deserved his happiness too. Shit, if Alicia was right the poor guy had been carrying a torch for me forever and all I'd done was to take his kindness, while I pined away for a man that I'd already lost.

"Christina, I'm..." he said so softly I could barely hear him. It was kind of funny. A guy who could break most men in half was afraid of me.

"I'm thinking about staying here," he said sadly. I was so happy I didn't know what to say.

"Of course, we're staying," I said.

"We're?" he asked. His face lit up the same way Ray's did when Angela was around. And it felt like my heart exploded at the same time. Then as if to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory a plump little hand appeared on his shoulder.

"Marcus, you aren't dancing," she said. She was a short woman, but she was well built. She had a huge butt and big tits to match it.

"Oh, Hi Amber," said Marcus. I noticed that most of the enthusiasm had gone out of his voice. I started to let him suffer, then I spoke.

"Hi Amber," I said. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Christina." I tried to sound as much like Angela as I could but without the southern accent. I knew from the way he looked at me that Marcus was mine. So I could afford to be gracious in the same way that Angela had been with me.

"Marcus is dying to dance with you," I said. "And I'm going to line up a bunch of the SINGLE guys to dance with you after that. But he's supposed to dance with his own woman first, okay?"

She looked a little bit hurt, but she bit her lip and smiled back at me. "How many of those Single guys are there?" she asked.

"At least eight," I said. "So you'd better get some rest. You probably won't get to sit down much."

"Can, I sit here, with you guys?" she asked. I just smiled and nodded as Marcus and I headed out to dance.

Neither of us knew how to dance, so we faked it. It felt amazing being in his strong arms for the first time. It was also very short lived. A tiny hand tapped me on the shoulder and the next thing I knew I was dancing with Ray.

Surprisingly enough, it felt awkward. It was like dancing with your old high school love while your husband watched. I even felt a strong tinge of jealousy watching Marcus with Angela. That woman was simply too pretty to be real.

"Christina, I'm..." he began.

"Ray, it's okay," I said. "We grew up. Not at the same time, but we're both fine. We're good." A sense of relief flooded him and we danced around the room just like what we were. We were just two old friends who were happy in their lives.

As we got close to Angela and Marcus, Angela tapped me on the shoulder again. Strangely enough when we changed partners, she moved into my arms and we left Marcus and Ray standing there in confusion. I heard a snatch of their conversation as Angela and I danced away from them.

"Hey, Ray, the Lion's are winning now," said Marcus.

"Uh, yeah. The Tigers went to the World Series too," answered Ray. No one expected them to dance with each other, but they were still feeling awkward.

"You did a great thing back there with Amber," said Angela. "I'm proud of you." I smiled at her. Somehow, hearing that from her made me feel good.

"How would you feel about training Amber, to help out in the office?" she asked. "You and Sally don't seem to like any of the women I found so far."

"Angela, if you don't mind," I said slowly. "I don't think we need anyone. I'd kind of like to keep my job, in the spring when..." She tilted her head back and that clear ringing laugh went all over the building. She smiled at me and said, "You can't."

I understood totally. If I was her, I wouldn't want an ex girlfriend hanging around my husband either. A short term thing was okay, but not long term. I nodded. I was so grateful for everything they'd already done that I was not about to make waves.

"Honey, I knew you weren't going anywhere," she said. "I even told you that. But Sally is retiring in the spring. She wants to work part time and travel with Dennis. You're going to have her job, but we're going to bring in some guys to teach you the basics of accounting too, so you can do part of my job. So you're going to need to pick at least two people to help you."

I was in shock. "But why won't you be there?" I asked. "I understand about Sally, but..."

"That bastard I'm married to," she laughed. "By spring I'll be as big as a fucking house. He got me pregnant again." She looked as if she was so happy that she was about to explode.

I hugged her as we danced around the floor and back to our men. I was actually happy for her. But as I looked at Marcus, I couldn't help but wonder what my kids would look like.

"What's wrong?" asked Marcus as we started to dance.

"Nothing," I said. "Angela and Ray, okay?"

"Yeah," he said. "They're great people."

"Not them, Dummy," I laughed. "I was thinking about naming our kids." He got the most shocked look on his face that I'd ever seen. I've seen him stand up to other biker gangs and cops but I've never seen a man that dark get that pale in so short a time. I decided to see if I could push it a little further.

"Marcus, are you ready to meet my mom and dad?" He got even more pale. I had to lead him around the dance floor. But as I squeezed his hand the look in his eyes told me everything was going to be fine.

I guess growing up really isn't that bad.

The end