Time Out With The Biker: An Age Gap, Father’s Best Friend, Snowed-in MC Cozy Romance (Rebel Dragons MC) (Rebel Dragons Motorcycle Club Book 1)

An age gap, snowed in, daddy’s best friend, he falls first, Motorcycle club romance, but make it more Gilmore Girls than Sons of Anarchy.
Snowed in at the airport? Frustrating. But snowed in at the airport with a sexy, tattooed biker who is way too old for her? Worth the layover.
With no family as a safety net, for Vivian, finishing art school and publishing her first graphic novel is the difference between making a living with her work and working for a living. Vivian has no time to be distracted by a guy.
But maybe Liam isn’t just any guy.
Liam lives life exactly as he wants, balancing the motorcycle club, his business, friends, family, and uncomplicated relationships until he strikes up a conversation with a way too young for him, work-obsessed, comic book artist in an airport bar during a snowstorm.
Vivian is worth the complications. But could she be convinced? Especially when they have more in common than they ever realized.

***

Chapter 1

Vivian

Delayed

Canceled

Delayed

Delayed

Canceled

The screen did not have good news. 

There wasn’t a single flight going anywhere, anytime soon. I only wanted to get home, take a hot bath, and go to bed—maybe not in that order. 

When I booked the flight months ago, a conference on the West Coast in January seemed like a good idea, but now, stuck in North Carolina with weather alerts pinging my phone warning of an impending ice storm and the departing flight screens blinking red, things weren’t looking good. 

“Attention travelers waiting on the flight to Rock City,” the woman at the desk said into the microphone. That was me. I listened carefully. “We’ll try to get you out of here before the storm hits. We’re just waiting for the aircraft to arrive from Miami.” The official statement from the desk clerk did nothing to assure me or the many other people in our immediate area.

I looked around. All the seats in the waiting area at the gate were full of grumpy people. And it was loud. Children played video games, adults talked on their phones, and people turned up the volume on the television to hear the latest weather report. There was a spot against a pillar with empty floor space. It would have to do. 

I dropped onto the floor, pulled out my phone and headphones, then dug out my sketchbook. My headphones helped me block out the chaos of the crowded airport and focus on work. I flipped through photos on my phone until I found the image I wanted to work on - a view from the back seat of a cab in California. There was just the right amount of detail: the rear-view mirror, the side profile of the driver, and a palm tree through the windshield. A hint of where I’d been, an interesting point of view- a glimpse of my life without the full reveal.

“Attention, ladies and gentlemen.” I pulled off my headphones to hear the woman at the desk. “I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the plane from Miami has arrived. The bad news is that no one is leaving here for a while.”

I shrugged. This wasn’t a surprise, merely a confirmation of what the text alerts forewarned. My comfortable bed at home with a warm bath would have to wait. 

I dug my phone out of my bag.

Hey SiSi- Bad weather here in NC. The flight to Rock City is delayed.

SiSi and I hadn’t known each other forever, just since first-semester orientation, over four years ago, but she was my person. The day we’d met, we had an instant connection that grew into something for which the word ‘friendship’ did not seem adequate. She wasn’t just my best friend; she was my family. My platonic life companion. My co-worker. My studio-mate. My partner-in-crime when we could pull ourselves out of our heads. The person I texted when I was stuck down South in an airport that was about to ice over so someone would know I hadn’t completely disappeared from the world. She might be the only person in my life to file a missing person report if I didn’t show up to our studio on Monday. We checked in with each other, made sure the other person was alive, and every once in a while, we dragged each other out of the studio to ensure we didn’t lose touch with the outside world. We even created symbiotic nicknames for each other: SiSi for her Simone and ViVi for my Vivian. 

SiSi and I were together in the first-year seminar four years ago when one of those life-changing moments struck us simultaneously and focused our life’s path. We were both serious about our work and pushing ourselves to make an actual career from what we did. We weren’t here ‘to do art school’ like some of our cohort. The moment occurred when an esteemed female professor of ceramics and an internationally renowned craftsperson told the women in the room that if they wanted a serious career, they would have to think hard about having a family. She said it would be close to impossible to do both well. SiSi and I met each other’s eyes across the room, and we nodded at each other. We never specifically spoke of it, but it was something I know that SiSi and I kept in the back of our minds. If we wanted a successful career, we had to sacrifice and be serious about our actions. And we were serious. Very serious. Nothing was going to stop us from making a living with our work.

Keep me posted, ViVi. Love you. 

I pictured her in our shared studio space at school. Giant canvas, full of grids; the vintage enamel baking pan we found at a stoop sale, full of paints; reference photograph blown up and taped together like a paper quilt, pinned to the wall. SiSi developed an amazingly detailed, photorealistic style of painting. She liked the juxtaposition of a very controlled style with the complete chaos of the scenes she painted for her work. And she liked to paint naked or close to it. It wasn’t sexual, per se; she was just something of a nudist. She grew up with many people in her house, with no privacy, and after arriving at school, she seemed to relish being as she was. Being stripped down, she claimed, helped her creative process and mental focus. To SiSi, her lack of clothing was a uniform, much like the overalls and jumpsuits the sculpture-bros sported around the building. I didn’t mind SiSi’s nudity. I barely even noticed anymore.

SiSi and I would be the perfect couple if life worked that way. We were both content to be alone, focused solely on our work. When other students were busy acting like college students, going out to bars, parties, and drinking, we worked in the studio. The professors loved us. We were serious and dedicated, and when we graduated at the end of the semester, we each would have a remarkable body of work and the connections necessary to get us on the path to a serious career.

Even though our mediums were very different, we asked to share a space so that we wouldn’t have to deal with the other members of our year who were less earnest in their efforts. We were alone together. 

And the nudity thing freaked some people out or creepily titillated them. 

We collaborated on one creative piece as studio mates. SiSi did the background painting on the canvas, and I did the lettering. We created a rendition of Superman’s “Fortress of Solitude” that we hung from the studio door. It set our tone and warned others: don’t be surprised when we shut you out.

I watched the passengers get off the flight from Miami. I picked up my phone and took some photos. I experimented with cropping, focus, contrast, and color. It's how I worked. I documented where I was and what I was doing, then chose some scenes to translate into minimal lines. Sometimes I added color. Sometimes just black and white. Sometimes, I exaggerated, extrapolated, and messed with the scale for emphasis.

The frame of the camera on my phone found an arm. A muscular arm covered in tattoos and a dark blue shirt sleeve rolled up to an elbow. It drew my attention. I looked above my screen for a real-life view. Hmm. He was tall and broad, dark hair cut in a hip undercut style, shaved on the sides and longer on top, a dark lock flopped across his forehead, and a trimmed beard. Dark jeans hugged his hips, and a loosened tie decorated his front. He was older. I couldn’t immediately guess, but there was some gray at the sides of his head and in his beard. Maybe 30? 35? 40? Definitely older than my 22. I felt an instant awareness. There was a presence beyond his good looks, height, and tattoos, a bearing that implied confidence and strength. 

My gaze followed him as he went to the departure board and took in all the blinking red. I snapped a photo of him, his back turned to me, his hands on his hips, his messenger bag turned to his back, and his suit jacket folded over the bag. With a slight shake of his head, he headed to the left. I watched until the crowds swallowed him. I flipped through the pictures I took. Damn. I did not get a full body shot from the front, just the rearview and cropped views of his hands, messenger bag, thigh, and profile as the masses absorbed him. Not that the rear view wasn’t fine, but a good look at his face would have been nice. From the side, it looked like he had the square jaw of a comic book superhero.

I sighed and returned to the rear-view mirror, West Coast scene. I cozied up against the post and got to work. 

* * *

Liam

My eyes found her as soon as I sat down. I could have gone straight to the Elite Club lounge to get a drink, but the people-watching was better in the main airport area. And it looked like I would have plenty of time to work in the lounge with the other ‘business travelers’ since it didn’t seem like we would go anywhere, anytime soon. 

She was sitting against a post, sketchbook in her lap, brow furrowed in concentration, hand rapidly filling the page with marks I couldn't quite see from across the hall. Her focus in this sea of chaos was admirable. 

She had a thick braid of light brown hair over one shoulder. I flashed on what she might look like with it loose around her, wearing close to nothing; I’m guessing it would cover her breasts but not quite reach her waist. She was tall by the space she was taking up against the pillar. Tall women meant I had to stoop less. 

When she looked up and stretched her arms over her head, I felt it. Whatever ‘it’ was, I wasn’t sure. A hyper-awareness. A warmth. Attraction certainly. It made me wonder what it would be like to be distracting enough to make her stop work for a second, to own her focus even for a moment. A sense that came from somewhere deep inside my chest told me not to look away. That sense told me this was important; she could be important to me. I focused on her face, and I realized she was young. Too young, probably. Not criminally young, not underage, just younger than I generally messed with. But it was too late. She caught me staring.

I could drop my gaze, pick up my phone, and pretend I hadn’t spent the last 45 minutes watching every move she made like she was the subject of a documentary only I could see. Or I could talk to her. See what she was working on. Maybe engage in some in-person communication before I got home, and there wouldn’t be time to talk with anyone but my business partner/best friend, JP, and our very capable staff. The recording studio I just visited in Miami has issues that need to be resolved right away. I didn’t think I could even steal away for our weekly church meeting for officers at the clubhouse. Thor, our president, would be pissed, but JP, said best friend and business partner, was the co-head of tech for our motorcycle club. JP would bring everyone up to speed. 

I tipped my chin at her and motioned to the seat next to me.