"I'm to say I'll say it anyway. Today's another day to find you. Shying away. I'll be coming for your love, okay?"-A-ha, Take On Me

Home Economics.

At least, I think that was the class I was sitting in right before the end of the day. All I knew was that if the teacher with the teased blonde locks and the oversized 1970s eyeglasses had instructed us to bake a cake for the President of the United States, well, God help him, because I had no clue.

All I could think about was pine trees. Their soft green needles that morphed into darkening greens the longer the light touched them. The scent of leather, that up until today, had done absolutely nothing by way of emotional responses where I was concerned. I had grown up around outlaws. Outlaws didn't affect me in the slightest... Except, the boy in the leather vest today had.

A tapping on my shoulder snapped me from my rather pleasant daydream and my head casually tilted toward Cecelia's direction. A low hum escaped my lips and I was sure that I had stars in my eyes at that very moment.

"Someone's in love," she casually commented with a smirk, as she stuffed her binder into her backpack and adjusted the bow in her hair, fluffing her curly locks a few times.

I shook my head in objection. I wasn't in love. Love didn't happen instantaneously, that was only a concept that card companies sold you on Valentine's Day. Maybe, it was infatuation, or better yet, maybe it was a chemical response to an early-onset brain tumor of some sort. Maybe, it was a parasite that had lodged itself in my brain stem and was forcing me to act stupid where a certain hot boy was concerned. Maybe, just maybe, I was watching too many Science Fiction films in my spare time; which I had an awful lot of lately.

"He's cute, don't get me wrong, but I doubt it's love. I don't know anything about him," I admitted sheepishly. Sadly, I wanted to know everything about him, and that was mildly troubling.

He wasn't the plan. The plans were simple enough that even a third grader could navigate them. Graduate. Move to New York. Do hair. Be happy! I had substituted being happy for marrying Lex Slater a few months ago and the choice to cross the blonde disaster of a Road Captain off my list of "Rachel's Guide to Being The Best Rachel," had been one of the easiest decisions I had ever made.

For the briefest moment though, I thought the world was ending. Chalking it up to heartbreak, fast forward a few months and the smoke had cleared in my own life slightly, and I could recognize that it was more disappointment than heartbreak or residual pain. I think at the time, with the stress from the federal government swooping in and essentially gutting my father's club, it masked my disappointment as heartbreak, because it was one more thing in my life that had gone wrong.

I remember the Feds busting down the doors to our quaint little green house with the faded white trim and shutters. The door splintering had jarred me awake and men filtered into my room with guns drawn. I didn't scream though. Screaming would have been pointless and my father had taught me from a young age, that while I was just a woman in a man's world, I didn't need to be a weak woman.

It also helped that my father was ex-Irish Republican Army and I had been groomed from birth to be a militarized woman, just like my own mother had been. Strength was fundamental to my foundation, and someday, it would be essential to my own children's upbringing.

Instead of screaming, I put on my best innocent face, casually concealing the small pistol I kept under my pink pillow, tucking it further forward and out of sight. The men scoured our home., before they lined my father's members out in rows on the grass, with their hands behind their heads. One by one, they were loaded up into large trucks for a trip to the local police station. I didn't think the club had anything to worry about, until the Feds stumbled upon the large crates of high powered weaponry, hidden in a locked shed on my Uncle Finnegan's property. At least they didn't get the big shipments from the Irish that came in a few weeks later, after my father was able to dodge the charges against him. The other members hadn't been as lucky, and a few even took the fall for my father as a way of attempting to preserve what they could of the honorable Knights of Tyr MC, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

"What do you want to know about Kai?" Cecelia asked, pulling me out of my thoughts about that dreaded day and the events that had not only gutted our beloved club, but had changed my father vastly.

"I don't know," I admitted, not sure if I even should know anything about the mysterious boy who held me captivated. "How well do you know him?" I cautiously asked, fearful that she would spill provocative dirt about him that would crush me a little inside.

"I know enough," she started, with a sly smirk. As she eyed up my increasingly worried expression, she burst into laughter. "You should see your face! Not like that, Rachel."

"Oh."

She hoisted her backpack onto her shoulder and wrapped her arm around me, pulling me into her comforting embrace. "He's not like most of the club guys that I've met. His family moved here from Hawaii a few years ago. His dad was stationed on the base over in Coral Cove and when he was discharged, they stayed. He's quiet, in that disastrously tall, dark, and handsome way."

"He is really tall."

"Oh boy, honey. If I was unattached, I'd climb that tall drink of water like he was a tree." She giggled, pressing her delicate hand over her mouth to suppress the snort that followed.

My grin widened to my eyes and I burst out in laughter, my own unattractive snort escaping on the heels of the joy that Cecelia Downey from Downey Street brought into my short time in Northridge, North Carolina.

"Ok, so, his family owns the local repair shop and if you walk slowly past it after school, you will definitely catch a glimpse of him working there. All greasy and sweaty. Yum! Anyways, he's eighteen and word has it that his daddy let him prospect their club when he turned fifteen. He's been his daddy's Treasurer since he was patched in, cause he's really good at math and he helped me last year when I was really struggling." Cecelia scratched the back of her neck for a moment, as she tilted her head in a slight incline, thinking. "Oh, I'm rambling. I do that sometimes. I heard through Barrett that Kai's club is grooming him to be his daddy's Veep. That is when he gets home from his duty."

"His duty?" I asked.

"Yeah, he enlisted when he turned eighteen. He ships off to boot camp like a week after his graduates." Her face fell suddenly when it met my saddening expression. "Oh..."

"And that's a good reason to not get invested in him," I sadly admitted, as she pushed open the front door to the school.

Leaning up against a custom grey 1950 Harley Flathead, with polished ape hangers, a carved chrome backrest of a winking devil, and a really wicked increased rake angle, was a young man with dark brown hair that fluttered in the winter breeze. Cecelia's eyes lit up when she eyed him up and there was a distinct bounce in her step. He warmly smiled as we approached, wrapping his arms around her waist and drawing her into his embrace for a kiss.

"Hey, baby," he said with a distinct Irish accent that settled on my ears with fondness. My father had the same accent.

"Barrett James, this is Rachel. Rachel, this is my boyfriend, Barrett." She tilted his head so he would acknowledge me and I nodded my head once in respect.

"Nice to meet you, Rachel. I have a lot of respect for your father," he stated with an air of coldness to him that I couldn't quite place. From how Cecelia had painted him, I had expected a warm outlaw, with a beaming smile. Yet, this man had a hard shell exterior that was hard to judge. Before I could say anything in return, he turned to Cecelia and said, "You ready to go, darlin'?"

She nodded enthusiastically, turning to me to sweep me up in a tight hug. "I'll see you Monday, Rachel!" Leaning close to my ear, she then whispered, "Take a walk down the strip in town. Maybe something will catch your eye."

Pulling away, she coyly shrugged her shoulders before her boyfriend hoisted her onto the back of his bike. He carefully tucked her long hair in her thick jacket and helped her secure her helmet strap. Standing on the sidewalk, in front of the school, I just watched as they took off down the road, until they were nothing more than a speck in the distance.

Tilting my face to the sky, as a few small snowflakes danced downwards and settled on my chilled cheeks, I contemplated the rest of my day. Part of me wanted to search out the boy who made my heart skip a beat. The other, more rational part of me was frantically waving her hands in front of my face, warning me of an inevitable dose of real, true heartbreak, if I did.

There wasn't a future for me and Kai Heyman, and the military, along with my desire for New York City, would make sure of that.

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A/N: Hey!

I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Don't forget to vote, comment, etc.

Someone is learning what daydreaming is all about!

What do we think about the info that CeCe gave us about Kai? He's leaving after graduation.

<3 Amina