Chapter 7

I woke up feeling very warm and I snuggled up to Reggie's back. Draping an arm over her, I held onto a handful of breast only it didn't feel right. I heard the shower running, also.

My eyes opened wide in surprise when I saw Shelly's white blonde hair and realized the breast I had in my hand didn't belong to Reggie. I slowly moved my hand off and rolled over, hoping nothing would be noticed. I had just gotten situated when I felt Shelly spoon against my back and I listened to her breathing as it returned to normal. I slipped out of bed and went to the bathroom. Reggie had just stepped out of the shower when I asked what the heck happened last night.

"Well Shelly was still a little upset with all the activity last night and once you drifted off to sleep I told her to come in a lay down for a while. We drifted off to sleep shortly afterwards so no harm no foul. Now I have to get to work so let me finish and I'll see you tonight when I come home."

Reggie went into our room and started changing clothes. I finished in the bathroom and stepped out just in time to get my morning toe-curler and she was off.

I went into the kitchen, grabbed a cup of coffee and went into the office to fire up the computer and check e-mail. The first thing I noticed was the e-mail from last night that one of the guys had initiated about the ride today. I trashed the Viagra and Cialis rip offs and was in the process of emptying the trash when I saw the reflection of Shelly in the monitor. She was so afraid of coming in after last night. I don't know what happened, probably/hopefully nothing.

I turned around and held out my arms. Shelly ran into them and asked me to forgive her for last night.

"Nothing happened that I know of. You just fell asleep with us so don't worry about it, ok?"

"Oh, Dom, thank you."

"Let's eat."

Shelly jumped up and started a pan of water. She went into the 'fridge and took out a cottage ham. After looking in the 'fridge for another two minutes, she came out with a handful of ingredients.

"Where's the blender?"

I just pointed at the cupboard and she retrieved that then started mixing ingredients into a sauce pan. Setting the saucepan on low, she started to cook the cottage ham and toasted English muffins. Taking her sauce off the stove to cool, she put four eggs into a poacher and covered them. The English muffins popped up, the cottage ham was done and then Shelly poured the sauce in the blender. Hitting the go button, she let it run for 30 seconds. She then served up the poached eggs over cottage ham resting on English muffins and topped with Hollandaise sauce. She accomplished all this in less than 10 minutes. Yes, I'd keep her around just for breakfast.

We sat at the table enjoying our breakfast when she asked, "Where are we going to end up today?"

"Well if everything works out right, we'll end up here. I don't know where we'll be in between, although I have a feeling we'll eat lunch at Pala and maybe come back via the Ortega or one of the other roads that are biker-friendly."

We washed the dishes and went to the mud room to get Shelly outfitted in armor. Once she had her chaps on and a mesh jacket with armor, we went on out and hooked up. I started the bike and let it warm a little and adjusted the volume. We hit the garage door opener and backed out.

We didn't get far. There was a SDPD car sitting in the driveway. Apparently, the incident last night was not going away. I shut down and got off to speak with the officer. He introduced himself and said that JJ had asked for him to swing by and let us know that they, the cops, would be making patrols through the neighborhood a little more often than usual.

When I asked why, he answered, "It seems as if the guy you took down was connected. When they went to tow his motorcycle, his tank bag was open and he had a gun and some white powder in a bag larger than personal use would allow. So we are taking no chances."

"Great, this is all I need. I'll have to contact the detectives and the DA in charge of the case to ensure we don't get pulled into any BS."

I asked the cop if there was any restriction on us for the day. He said, "No just enjoy and be careful."

I got back on the bike and since Shelly hadn't taken her helmet off during this exchange, I don't think the cop had a clue as to who was on the back. We pulled out and just for fun went by Shelly's place. Sure enough, there was a SDPD car sitting in her parking spot. Instead of stopping and answering a bunch of questions, we went on to meet the rest of the guys.

On the way up, I started to ask a few questions. "Shelly," I started, "did Mr. Crotch Rocket ever do any drugs around you?"

"No, not that I know of. In fact, he acted like marijuana was the same as heroin. I mentioned that some folks had lit up on the back porch of a party we were at and he had me out of there faster than I could say good-bye. I thought it was a little strange but he said he had a security clearance with the Navy and couldn't afford to be around anyone that could get busted for dope.

"I didn't think anything about it since I do have a lot of friends in the military and they are just about the same way, in varying degrees. So I just wrote it off as a personal quirk. Since I don't do anything other than beer I really don't worry about it. If someone wants to do that, let them do it elsewhere; I don't run away from it but I also don't preach against it or hang out with them. I don't like it and I don't hang out where it's being done a lot. Almost any party with a large group of people my age is going to have some type of drug. So I just stay away from the ones that use it. Why do you ask?"

"Well," I knew I needed to choose my words carefully. "It seems as if your buddy had a substantial amount of white powder on his bike along with a gun. When we get back, plan on having a longer talk with the local cops and if you are as clean as you say, ask for a blood test for drugs to establish your truthfulness. I don't know if your buddy was high last night or not, but I don't think he was. He wouldn't have been as easy to take out if he was flying on something."

We cruised out and got on the I-5 north and then onto 163 north. It was a pleasant ride through the park and traffic was light. We went through Mission Valley and up the hill by Montgomery Field. Cruise control was set on 65 and we were in the number 3 lane. Let everyone else pass, we were not in a hurry and it was so much less stressful to coast in the number 3 lane. We were watching people and the road going north; thank goodness most of the traffic was going south.

We merged into I-15 north and it got a little interesting as we were working our way over. We watched as folks sped up to keep everyone out of the space in front of them, either out of stupidity or just being a jerk. I moved over to the number 5 lane because I knew the 1 and 2 lanes were going to go away in a mile. That left me in the number 3 lane and only one more lane to move to in order to make our exit.

Mercy Road/Scripps Poway Parkway was coming up so we moved to the off ramp and hit a lucky green at the bottom. Turning left, we crossed under the Interstate and pulled into the caffeinated version of McDonalds, STARBUCKS.

As we pulled into the parking lot I noticed a couple of bikes already there. JJ's bike was parked next to Rob and Sybil's. Dave was there with his "Chrome Yellow" and we still had a half hour before we left out.

We climbed off and went into the Starbucks and got our caffeine fix. We were sitting with Sybil and Rob when three more bikes showed up and went in to get their coffee.

As we all sat around, the discussion of where we were going was brought up. Rob and I decided we'd lead out since it was our idea and wanted to head up to Pala Casino for lunch. While we were having our impromptu meeting, letting folks know the route we were going to take, two more riders came in.

I don't think they were with our group. We don't get many sport bikes, so we nodded politely to them and went on with our meeting. Everyone had finished and made their way to the restrooms. We were getting lined up when the sport bikes took off.

We went out onto Mercy Road and headed toward Poway. I took the lead, Rob was back door. We normally don't run 7 bikes in a group but we were going to be strung out on a lot of two-lane and the only ones we'd be holding up would be sport bikes and we generally just wave them by in the same lane that we are traveling in.

Going through Poway and the industrial park area was fun; a nice wide four lane road with minimum traffic lights. We got to Highway 67 and went north. The CB's were quiet with Shelly calling out road kill to the ones behind us. I announced our first "comfort" stop as Dudley's and we pulled in so folks could hit the restrooms and anyone who wanted could also get bread.

"Hey, Dom, isn't this where you found Shelly? Are you going to leave her here?" Sybil joked as she got off of their bike.

"Naw, I'll hang onto her for a while, she makes a killer breakfast!" I replied.