by Hazel Parker
“OK, there might be an exception to every rule, and Krispy would be it. But the point is, Jane, you are someone whom I am very interested in. You have the beauty that goes beyond any of these girls—yes, I think you’re hot, and I think very many thoughts of you, but I think you have a beauty to you that is more elegant. You—”
“Oh, shut up,” I said, having heard enough.
I pulled him in close for a kiss, more than willing to do this now. I pressed my lips against his, rising out of my stool and somewhat straddling his legs. I wasn’t sitting in his lap, but I could definitely have moved in if I wanted to. I threw my arms around him, pushing his mouth into mine, the heat in me rising.
I was getting to that dangerous point where my emotions and my lust would soon overpower my decision making. If I didn’t watch myself, I could easily wind up in the bedroom with Tracy. Which… oh my God, just thinking about that…
But then, he did something that got me to pull back.
He slapped my ass and squeezed.
That woke me up just enough that I pushed back, annoyed at the gesture—it felt designed to say, “I’m in charge and you’re going to do what I want.” Though I returned to a smile and a finger wag, I felt quite sure that he had noticed my displeasure with what he had done.
“I’m not about to become another mama in your club,” I said. “I know what you want, but you can’t just fuck me with clothes on here.”
“Jane—”
“Nope,” I said, holding a finger up. I had to admit, if I didn’t care about my self-respect, I would have let my hormones and my lust push myself right back on him, copping my own kind of feel. There wasn’t any backing out now, though. “You want me? You have to earn me. Convince me to be your old lady, not one of your whores.”
“Hey now—”
“Nope,” I said, getting a kind of thrill out of having this much control and assertion of Tracy at the moment. “You have to earn me, Tracy. Show me that you actually like me and that I wasn’t just one of your booty calls.”
Tracy wore a huge smirk on his face as if he found this all to be one big giant game. I did too—I just had a longer timeline for the “game” than he did. That, and I really did want him to prove that he wasn’t just in it for the quick hit and the bragging rights.
“And how would I do that, Jane?”
“I don’t know,” I said with an innocent shrug. “You’re a smart guy, Tracy. You know how to run this club. Surely, you know how to show a lady a good time, take her out, show her around town. You know, gentlemanly things?”
He folded his arms, tilted his head to the side, almost spoke, and then snorted.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” he said, but the smile never faded.
“Do you see me grabbing you by the dick and leading your naked self to a room?”
He got a laugh out of that. I wanted to laugh with him but had to keep on the “serious” face I had on right then.
“OK,” he said, nodding his head. “OK. I’ll show you that I care about you. I will think about it tonight, get plans to you, and then we can go out.”
“A real date,” I said. “Like our meeting at Rick’s, but more drawn out. None of this ‘get her drunk and get laid’ bullshit.”
“I know,” he said defensively.
I hated that his willingness to go along with this only increased my attraction to him. I hated that it made me want to jump him even more right now, to the point that I knew when I got home and in bed, I’d be thinking about him next to me as I ran my hand over myself.
I hated that I had to hold out for the sake of getting what I wanted.
“Glad you got it,” I said, placing two hands on his shoulders. “In that case, I’ll forgive you for inviting me over for a drink.”
There was nothing to forgive. I found the whole debaucherous scene at the clubhouse more entertaining than offensive.
I just liked having this mind control over Tracy.
“You text me.”
And then, as if to emphasize the point, I pulled him in close and started to give him another erotic kiss. My hands went onto his chest and down his stomach, and God… how much I wanted to reach down to his jeans and rip that belt off. How badly I wanted to grab him by the hand, take him to the nearest private space, and tell him to fuck me!
I pushed myself away, literally pressing against his chest, before I could let myself give into temptation.
“Don’t make me regret that kiss.”
Before he could respond, I blew him one more and walked back down the hallway, wondering what in the actual hell I’d just gotten myself into.
That was so very unlike me to lose myself to the lust I had. Most of the guys who charmed me did it in kind of a slow burn fashion. The men whom I’d dated before had been more played out, a kiss like that not happening until the fifth or sixth date.
But Goddammit, Tracy Cole was not an ordinary man.
He was rugged, hot, and a real stud. He didn’t give a fuck what the rest of the town thought, and yet he cared for it as his own. He was his own man, but he respected and idolized what my father had built and done.
Who else in my life had ever done something like that?
Almost every other guy I had ever slept with or dated had more money or would have more money by the time we were all forty compared to Tracy. But none of them had the brass balls, the willingness to fight for what they believed in, and the brotherhood of support that Tracy had. It made him fucking sexy as hell.
And it was goddamn terrifying for me.
Remember when the plan was to come here for two and a half years and to maintain some distance? Keep it only professional? Pay them off and then get the hell out of town?
Remember that being the plan? Because you may want to stick by that.
The sobriety that somewhat came from that message hit me full force when I got back to my car and saw the envelope of two grand in cash inside. Seeing it now and thinking about what Tracy had said… how this was a gift to me, not a loan; that I wasn’t expected to pay back the Saints, and that wasn’t just some vague, empty threat…
But I had calmed myself down enough, and I had stepped away from the intense, erotic atmosphere long enough to realize that while I might be able to share a kiss or something more with Tracy, I still had the rest of the club to keep in mind. They could use the money.
Before I could change my mind again, I hurriedly grabbed the envelope, stepped inside, saw Tracy finishing his drink, and dropped the envelope on a shelf just outside the main lobby before rushing back outside. I got in my car, took a deep breath, and shook my head.
Girl, you better know what you’re getting yourself into.
Because whatever path you commit to going down, at this rate, I don’t think there’s any going back.
Chapter 11: Trace
“Owwww, fuck.”
When I awoke, a beam of light had pierced through my room, but it felt more like a dagger of a beam than a rising, awakening force. I didn’t want to wake up and tackle the day—I wanted to remain among the dead in my bed, the effects of too much whiskey, tequila, and God knows what else still coursing through my body.
At least I wasn’t as bad as Splitter, whom I heard vomiting his guts out one room down. I heard one of the twins saying something about the whole thing being gross, which made me wonder if they had ever come to a Savage Saints party before. The morning after was always the worst—it was the time when we least wanted any work, whether legit on the surface or with the DMs.
I lay with my arm over my head, trying to think about all that had transpired the night before. I was that close to having Jane in bed… that close.
Of course, I wanted her for more than that, but at the moment, with my dick as hard as a boulder and as horny as Hugh Hefner after a month without pussy; I couldn’t contain myself. I felt sure by the way she had positioned herself that she wanted to fuck me, but I’d just pulled the trigger a little too fast.
At least sh
e still wanted to see me. At least… at least I might still really make her my old lady if I wanted to.
Seems awfully fast.
Then again, you’re alone. You remember everything from last night. And you did not sleep with anyone. That’s gotta be a first.
I let out a sigh and started to get up but feeling the whiskey and tequila act like I had just hit turbulence, I laid back down.
I was in this miserable position for what felt like an hour, trying hard to fight the physical urge to vomit with the mental will not to start a day like this in such shit. Every so often, I heard someone puking outside or trudging out of the clubhouse. We would have a hell of a cleanup job to do, and though most wanted our prospects to do it, I had a simple rule—if we puked it, we picked it.
Granted, not everyone followed this rule—BK was known to force prospects to do it behind my back—but it at least laid the foundation for everyone taking ownership of their shit decisions.
Finally, eventually, when I felt sure that I would only throw up if I ran or jumped, not merely moved my body up or walked, I got out of bed. I put on my boxers and jeans and my boots but left my shirt off, simply feeling way too goddamn fatigued and hungover to want anything over my chest. I looked for a glass of water, sipped it, and stopped as I felt the water mixing with the bile in a not-so-friendly combination.
By pausing where I stood, I managed to not puke, but just like in bed, it felt like everything in my day would take twenty times as long as it normally did. I shuddered to think about what that meant for when I left my room.
Nevertheless, I summoned the “courage” to walk out, wondering how these sights would compare to previous parties.
It did not disappoint.
On the couch, once again, was Krispy and the girl, both of them still naked. I just had to wonder if Krispy had a thing for public sex that I hadn’t yet discovered, but I wasn’t exactly interested in investigative journalism for the sake of finding out if Krispy was into that. One of the twins had stumbled out and was sleeping on a love seat, leaving her sister to deal with Splitter’s puke.
BK was passed out on a pool table with a dick drawn on his face, which I knew would go over so well when he woke up and looked in a mirror. I could only wish I knew who had had the balls to do that because they probably weren’t going to have their balls for much longer.
I peeked outside, just to make sure no one had wrecked their bikes in a drunk driving accident within the lot. Thankfully, none had, although Sensei and Mafia were both outside and already sunburned. It was going to be a lot of fun to give them some pats on the shoulder and slaps on the arms as friendly reminders to not be so stupid at future parties.
“Fuck,” I grumbled as I shielded my eyes from the sun, realizing it must have been at least a few hours since sunrise, making it probably closer to noon than to the morning. At least the shop was closed today. At least the DMs, I felt pretty confident, weren’t going to go out and attack us this quickly. Oh, retaliation was coming so long as Diablo lived, but they’d have to gather their supplies together first.
I started to head back inside when I felt my left foot step in something gooey.
“Aww, fuck, do I even wanna know,” I said, knowing already what I had done.
A moaning Saint, a member named Mason, one of our newest patched-in members, lay about five feet to the side from his vomit—vomit which I had had the pleasure of becoming friends with.
“Clean this up,” I said as he looked at me with a half-awake, half-dead expression.
I shook my foot off before going inside and made my way to the bar. Behind the bar, just as there had been last night, were a couple of club members and about five girls. Whatever they had done back there looked quite fun, but it was just blocking me from what I wanted to do right now.
Read.
Eventually, though, with some deft footwork, I moved around them and grabbed Paul’s journals. I kind of did want to kick a couple of members out of the way, which in turn would get them to move the girls, but I decided to have an ounce of empathy for them this morning, no matter how stupid that might have seemed.
I took the journals back to my room just in time to hear Splitter trying to beg for more.
“Baby, I’m better now,” he said, his voice so scratchy it sounded like he’d smoked two hundred packs the night before. “Trust me; let me show you why they call me Splitter again.”
“I don’t wanna have your vomit-crusted mouth on my pussy,” the girl said. “Go find my sister if you want some of that.”
“Who said anything about—”
But then Splitter let out a surprise yell as I realized that the girl had thrown up, quite possibly on his bed. Perks of running in an MC and getting to have a threesome with twins, I thought with a smirk as I left Splitter to handle his cleanup and mop up duties.
I shut the door to my room, lying back down on the bed. I let my stomach settle for a few minutes before I picked up Paul’s journals. Admittedly, this hungover, I didn’t think I’d have the energy to get through more than a few entries, maybe not even more than one or two, but there wasn’t going to be a better time to get peace and quiet to work with.
I flipped to where I had left off at least a decade into his founding of the club. I had started with the intent to learn as much as I could from Paul’s leadership, but by now, I was doing that and simply getting absorbed into his life story. To say that Paul Peters had an interesting journey was like saying motorcycles were louder than electric cars. It was a “no shit, Sherlock” kind of moment.
The first line all but jammed me out of my hangover.
“The past week has been the worst week of my life.”
The hell?
“One week ago today, my wife died giving childbirth. As I write this, tears are streaming down my face. I have to write in one hand and hold a tissue in the other so that the pages do not become stained with tears.”
Oh, Jesus… this moment.
“I loved Theresa with all of my soul. I still love her. I think about her every waking moment. The fact that she is gone from my life is something that I cannot process, nor do I have words for. When I wake up to hear my newborn daughter crying in the middle of the night, I instinctively roll over and ask Margaret if she wants a turn at her.
I never get a response.”
I took a deep breath in, trying not to let the emotional weight of the scene get to me too much.
“When I put Jane down to sleep, I have no one to come back to in my bed. When I wake up and extend my arm out, there is no one there. That is, assuming I get any sleep, which has been severely lacking in the past week. I imagine I have only slept because I would die without it. Which…”
He didn’t write anything after that, but the implication was left there for even my hungover ass to see. With the loss of his wife, what more is there to do?
I turned the page and came to an entry dated about two months later.
“Theresa’s death is still affecting me, and it’s becoming a problem,” Paul wrote. “My SoA, MG, has warned me that if I do not get my shit together, there may be a vote.”
Who is MG?
“Part of me is disappointed at this, but not at MG or anyone else in the hall. I’m disappointed in myself that I let my family life and my club life influence one another. I have always told my men that they could do whatever they wanted with women as long as they respected the woman’s wishes and as long as they handled their club business as they needed to. I am failing in that regard miserably because I cannot disentangle the two.”
Guess even Paul was human, huh. Wow…
“MG is right. I need to get it together. All I can think right now, though, is that I will never love anyone again except Jane. Jane is like my wife reborn; she has her same spirit of hardiness and toughness. Jane will make for a great woman someday, and she will not take shit from anybody.”
I had to laugh at that, even as I coughed along with the hangover. Pops knows best, indeed.
I closed the journals, put them to the side, and put both arms over my head.
In reading everything that Paul had just written, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was as if Paul was speaking to me beyond the grave. “We are all living on borrowed time if we are in the MC.”
What did that mean for Jane? She’d already lost her father to club violence. What would happen if she lost me to club violence? Or if she wound up losing one of the Saints in an emergency room? What if that Saint was me?
I suddenly began to understand why someone who had the ability to get away from Green Hills, as Jane had, would want to. I rationally and logically had understood such a desire before, but it had never quite hit so emotionally until reading this text. I could probably increase my life expectancy by a much greater degree by quitting the MC and moving someplace secluded than I ever would giving up smoking. At least smoking was a slow death, one that wouldn’t come for another twenty, thirty years or so.
I could die today if the DMs launched a retaliation and I put myself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Did I really want to put Jane back in that world? Did I really want her to have to live with a second person she had grown up with dying staring down the barrel of a Merc’s gun? Did I really want to have to have Jane go through that level of guilt again?
And unlike with Paul, where at least we could live up to his memory by giving Jane tuition money for school and medical school, there was nothing we could do for her if I perished. I wasn’t about to say I was even close to the same emotional response as Paul, but grief was grief. Whether one felt it for the rest of their life or for a few days, it was unbearable and a harsh emotion to have to deal with.
