With the pandemic going and everything shut down, we don’t have much club business to attend to. But it’s important that we all stay connected—or so I thought. It turns out, getting a multigenerational MC onto a Zoom call is like herding kittens, if the kittens were all wearing leather and itching to go for a ride that doesn’t require staying six feet apart.
“Zoom This”
A River Reapers MC Short Story
Author’s Note: Have you been wondering how the River Reapers would handle social distancing? I have! So I wrote a few very short stories, just for fun, just for you and me. The following is unedited, so please excuse any typos or errors. Please also be aware that it may contain spoilers for the series.
Olivia
Ravage’s chin appears on the screen of my phone, a closeup constellation of black and silver stubble that I definitely didn’t need to see. On instinct, I pull my phone away from my face, but his chin remains.
“Hello?” He dips his chin, skin folding at the creases of his neck. “You all there?”
“It’s just you and me so far, Pres,” I tell him, casting a glance at Cliff beside me. I nudge him with my elbow, but he remains still as a statue on the couch. He sits with his phone damn near pressed to his forehead, dark eyes blinking slowly at it, as if it were a bomb. “You on?” I ask.
“I’m here,” Ravage says. “Olivia? I can’t see you.”
“Move the screen away from your chin,” I suggest.
“Screen?”
“Cliff?” I ask, turning toward him. “You good?”
“Yeah,” he says, but he glares at his phone.
My phone pings as another River Reaper enters the Zoom call.
“Yo,” Vaughn says. “Can you guys hear and see me? I’ve got Ravage’s chin, Olivia’s boobs, and Cliff’s a black screen.”
I yank my phone back up to face level. “Asshole.”
He holds up his hands. “Not my fault.”
“I don’t know how to move the screen,” Ravage says.
I close my eyes. My President, who rides a motorcycle with the ease of a stuntman, runs a sort of straight MC with an iron fist, and has dental work done without novocaine, can’t figure out how to hold his phone away from his face.
I’ve never been so embarrassed.
“Do you want me to tell him, or do you want to do it?” I ask Vaughn.
“I’m kind of enjoying this,” he says. “I finished Netflix a week ago.”
“I’m a black screen?” Cliff asks. His eyebrows scrunch together. Confused is my favorite look on him. It isn’t often that I get to see him unsure of himself. It’s endearing.
He mumbles a string of curses, and I bite my lip to keep from climbing into his lap and kissing his lips while laughing at him.
Social media and anything technology are so not his things.
“Here,” I say, holding out my hand.
He leans away from me. “I’ve got it.”
“Sure you do.” I turn back to my phone. As if it can sense my attention, it pings multiple times.
Beer Can, Donny, and Abraham’s faces appear in the neat row at the top of the screen. I peer at them, soaking in every detail of their home lives. It isn’t often, if ever, that I get to see any of them in their natural habitats.
Through his grainy connection, Beer Can sits in a broken-in corduroy recliner, wearing his usual Black Sabbath T-shirt under his cut. His salt and pepper hair sticks out in tufts at the sides. “You there?”
I swallow a snort. I could turn this into a drinking game; every time someone asks if we can see or hear them, take a shot. “We’re here.”
Donny stares dubiously back at us.
“You okay, man?”
He shakes his head once. “Women,” he mutters. “Why did I never realize how many women I live with?”
Punctuating his point, a shriek pierces the background.
I turn my volume down.
Pings chime as the rest of the club filters in. Both Mercy and Mark have black screens but sound, Skid has sound but his camera is pointed at the ceiling, and Abraham just looks wasted.
The little boxes of River Reapers rotate, cycling through some algorithm or other. Vaughn slides to the main strip, and for the first time I realize he’s sitting in a bedroom, with windows, A Perfect Circle playing softly in the background.
“Holy shit,” I say, nudging Cliff.
“I got this,” he insists.
“Yeah, yeah. Look at Vaughn.”
He squints at his phone. “I can’t see anybody.”
“You could just let me help you, you know.”
“Everybody here?” Ravage’s chin asks.
“I think we’re waiting for Stixx,” Mark says.
“Come on, kids. I figured this out. Surely you can, too,” my President says.
I chuckle. “Yeah, your chin’s doing great.”
Vaughn laughs through a hit of a joint, smoke pouring from his nose.
“What do you mean?” Ravage asks, but the two of us can’t stop.
“What is so fucking funny?” Cliff grumbles.
“They’re laughing at the old people,” Beer Can says.
Tears spill from my eyes, mascara bleeding into them. My eyes sting but I can’t stop laughing.
“Ravage,” Vaughn struggles to say, “just hold your phone away from your face!”
Suddenly the rest of my President’s face comes into view, his glacial eyes unamused. “Are you done?”
“Not my fault,” I gasp.
A final ping goes off as Stixx joins the call. “‘Sup,” he says as apology, his pale complexion even more washed out than usual. Dark circles underline his eyes.
“Why can’t we just go to the club house?” Cliff growls, dropping his phone into his lap.
“Because then we wouldn’t be social distancing,” I remind him.
“Fuck social distancing. Fuck Zoom.”
I swallow another laughing fit. “Can you just let me help you?”
“Let’s get started,” Ravage says.
“Give us a minute.” Setting my phone down, I turn to my ex-con, one of the few men who respects me, one of the few I trust. He’s more than earned it.
“I got it,” he insists.
Lucy sighs from her end of the couch. “You so don’t ‘got it,'” she chides. “Just let Olivia help you.”
“I’m not old,” he says.
“No one said you were, you big baby.” Lucy tosses him a wink.
A growl rumbles low in his throat.
“Can we get started?” Ravage begs. “My phone is dying.”
“That’s because it’s a dinosaur,” Vaughn says, “just like all you old fuckers.”
Ravage rubs his temples. “Why?” he mutters. “Why did I let you talk me into this?” He glares at the screen, and I don’t even have to ask who he’s sending it to.
It’s me, and Vaughn.
This was our idea.
With the pandemic going and everything shut down, we don’t have much club business to attend to. But it’s important that we all stay connected—or so I thought. It turns out, getting a multigenerational MC onto a Zoom call is like herding kittens, if the kittens were all wearing leather and itching to go for a ride that doesn’t require staying six feet apart.
I turn to Cliff again. Suddenly it dawns on me while he’s so frustrated by this Zoom call. It isn’t the tech. It’s the quarantine—it reminds him of prison.
Gently I take the phone from his hands. “Hey,” I say softly.
“Yeah.” His dark eyes meet mine, and in them I see decades of solitude and pain.
“You’re not alone,” I whisper. “Not anymore. And never again.” Pressing a few buttons, I get his camera working. Then I lean into him, sweeping my lips across his. “I’m right here.”
His warm lips open to me, softening under my touch. We meld, ignite, burn, each slow kiss easing the pain.
“All right, lovebirds,” Ravage says. “Are we all ready now?”
Pulling away, I grin at Cliff. He smiles back, the storm clearing from his eyes.
“Yes,” I say, cuddling into his lap. “We’re ready.”
THE END
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Elizabeth Barone 