Angel Girl (S.H.E. Book 1)

by Christine Michelle

  A high-pitched whistle echoed through our gym pulling my attention toward the door where three men stood watching us spar. JoJo took advantage of my distraction and landed a solid punch to my jaw. My reaction was purely instinctual as I swept my foot around and took her down to the mat, falling on top of her. I grabbed her face and placed a giant, smacking kiss on her nose as she pushed at me to get off.

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Spike called out. “Cat fight that ends in girl kisses. Yes! Thank you baby Jesus! We showed up just in time!” The jerk literally gave a fist pump of approval. I just shook my head.

  “Men!” Legs accused as she rolled her eyes then turned her focus back on us. “Great come back after allowing yourself to be distracted, Angel. I’m not sure the kiss-attack is one I’d go with in future though.” JoJo and I both laughed as I gave her a hand up off the mats. I turned, as I pulled my gloves off to see Sweet, Spike, and Quickshot standing ringside.

  “Shit, I thought you were joking the day you told me to come watch you guys spar,” Quickshot laughed at me. Then pointed to my jaw. “Might want to get some ice on that.” I touched my face, and rolled my eyes.

  “Thanks for that,” I tossed to Spike who managed a sheepish grin.

  “I’d apologize, but that hit set you up for the mini make-out session on the mat, and well, I can’t be sorry for seeing that.”

  I laughed full out then, as did JoJo who had come up beside me. “She’s afraid to hit me because I’m so tiny,” JoJo admitted. “It’s embarrassing.”

  “Looks like she got you good enough, at least once.” Sweet nodded to her eye that was purpling up on JoJo’s face. She just grinned with pride.

  “Good, now maybe I won’t catch as much shit from the guys at the shop about being too soft and girly to work on their babies.”

  “What shop?” Quickshot asked.

  “Mason’s Garage and Auto Body.” She was busy unwrapping her hands as she explained. “It was my dad’s pride and joy. Mine now, and I’ve been apprenticing and working there since I was 12. I was running the dirt bike circuit back then, and dad said if I was racing ‘em I had to know how to fix ‘em.”

  “No shit?” Quickshot answered back, obviously impressed and surprised.

  “No shit!” JoJo answered with a “you’re a dumbass” tone to her voice.

  “You girls are full of all kinds of surprises today,” Sweet announced.

  “Speaking of surprises….” I glared at him. “To what do we owe the honor of this visit?”

  “We have some club business to hash out with you and your VP, or whoever else needs to be there.” Sweet was no nonsense, down to business now.

  “You know, there’s this device. They call it a phone. It does incredible feats of science shit, like linking two people together to speak to one another so they can make plans ahead of time. If you get really fancy, you can actually type the messages so that you don’t even have to hear the other person’s annoying voice.” The sarcasm dripped from my words as Legs and JoJo both laughed. “My VP isn’t around today, and I won’t be calling her in, because she and my third are out of town on business right now. Something you would have known if you had called first.”

  Sweet looked annoyed while both Spike and Quickshot tried to contain their snickering behind his back. “You three will be fine. Shall we go to the office we met in before?”

  “Is that so?” I narrowed my eyes at him then. “Your patch says President of the local Aces High Chapter, not my club. Sorry, bud, you don’t get to make those decisions for me or mine. Make an appointment, come back at an acceptable time.”

  “Listen,” he started.

  “No, you listen! You wouldn’t be pulling this shit with any other club. You know, the clubs run by men. So, don’t walk up in here like you own the place and try to tell us where to be, with whom, and when. It’s the epitome of disrespect, and you damn well know it. Moreover, I’m not bowing down to it.”

  “Fucking Christ, can’t anything be easy with you, Jamie?”

  “Sure it can. Treat us like you would any other damn club, and it will be easy as hell.”

  “I was hoping you’d be friendlier than any other club, you know, more than an ally since your family runs Aces High.”

  “So, if I rolled up to your place, demanded a meeting that your VP and enforcer couldn’t be there for, and then pointed out two of your other members and said, ‘they’ll do,’ you’d be perfectly okay with that happening?”

  His jaw was ticking. He didn’t have to say the words for me to know that would most definitely not be okay.

  “I thought you called ahead,” Quickshot finally added.

  “I don’t have her number, asshole.”

  “You have the number of just about every bitch in this joint. You could have asked any of them for it. Hell, you could have asked me for it.” Quickshot returned. I glanced at Legs when that was said, and she tipped her head in acknowledgment that she’d heard. We had some digging to do with the girls. It looked like we were about to clean house.

  “Enough!” Sweet growled out. “Are we doing this or not? We have things to disclose, if you don’t want to hear them, that’s on you, but we made the attempt at transparency.”

  I looked down at my sweaty, unkempt appearance, and shrugged my shoulders. “Fine, whatever, I’ll see if I can get the girls on Facetime.”

  “You have an Android phone this time,” Legs reminded me.

  JoJo snickered. “What happened to iPhone 4,325?”

  Legs laughed too before answering for me. “It took a swim.”

  JoJo rolled her eyes. “Lord,” she turned back to me then. “Were you reading again?”

  I could feel the heat of the blush that had crept up into my cheeks. “It fell, the case cracked on a boulder, and then it slid into the fucking creek. That shit was cold too, and Keys couldn’t save a damn thing on it.” I pouted. The girls laughed while the guys just stood there staring at me. “Legs, you can try to Facetime them with yours.” She nodded, and I walked off without another word. Whoever needed to be in the meeting could follow me to the conference room.

  As I meandered through the bar area I noticed there were definitely more girls here now than when we’d gone in for sparring. “All of you need to sit tight. When we’re done with this meeting, the rest of us are going to have a little ‘come to Jesus’ talk of our very own.” I noticed a few girls cringe. They knew exactly what I’d be talking to them about. Just as the words left my mouth, Jesamine hurried in the front door with her blond cokehead friend in tow. She was the very same skank that Sweet had left with the other night.

  “Oh, they were right, he is here,” she cooed.

  “Legs, see the guys to the conference room, try to get Tash and Keys on the line. I’ll be there in just a minute.”

  JoJo came to a stop beside me “I’m sticking by you. Don’t bother trying to send me away. I know what’s about to go down.”

  I pointed my finger at Jesamine and the whore friend of hers. “You two, get the fuck out of my club, and don’t let me see you around any of my properties again!”

  “W-what?” Jesa cried. I ignored her.

  “Who texted Jesa that we had a guest in the clubhouse?”

  Ashley, one of our newer probationary members stood up. “I did. I didn’t think…”

  I cut her off. “No, you didn’t think. You can grab your shit and hit the road with them.” JoJo was standing by my side, arms crossed over her chest that was only covered by the sports bra she’d been sparring against me in. Hell, I was wearing the blue version of her black and red get up. The only thing either of us had on that made us not look like hookers fresh from working the corner was the Under Armor Capri workout pants.

  “You can’t be serious?” I couldn’t tell if it was a statement or a question, but I addressed it anyway.

  “You were all warned weeks ago about the men in that room and the rest of their MC. There was to be no fraternization unless, or until, we h
ad solid footing with them. At no point have we given any of you the go ahead to push forward in those regards.” I looked around the room and saw quite a few guilty faces in the crowd.

  “But the party last week…”

  “Was a test, which some of you failed miserably.” JoJo beat me to the punch on that one. Then she turned on the coke-whore and Jesamine. “I do believe Angel Girl already told the two of you to get the hell out.”

  “But, I didn’t do anything.” Jesa was pouting now.

  “Not only have you monumentally fucked up with security issues, more than once, since Aces High first came by our clubhouse; but you just walked into our clubhouse, on a non-event day, with an outsider because someone texted you about a visitor who is here on club business.” My eyes were narrowed, but I managed to keep my voice calm.

  “This bitch has had it out for me from day one, just because I’m prettier than her.” The bleach-blond, used up coke whore had the nerve to say.

  I laughed, as did JoJo. “Sweetheart, maybe you should sober up and take a good, hard, look in the mirror. You’re what 35?”

  She sucked in a horrified breath. “I’m 23.”

  “Oh shit, I was being kind, because I was about to say you look like you’re about 45. The drugs and lifestyle are aging you. I have zero reasons to be jealous of that.”

  “I walked out of here with a man everyone was claiming belonged to you the other night.” Her voice was smug, but her proclamation didn’t affect me one bit.

  “That was his misfortune, honey, not mine. As I was saying, I have zero tolerance for druggies. That was my problem with you from the jump.” I looked at Jesa, “and she’s the reason you never moved up to full member. You bring dead weight with you everywhere you go, it holds you back.”

  Jesa side-eyed her friend then, finally beginning to understand what we refused to clue her into sooner. If she couldn’t figure it out on her own, we didn’t need her around. Now, the three of you, get out of my clubhouse. MiMi, can you escort them off the property?” Ashley and Jesa had both only been members of the RC, so neither was a great loss to us.

  MiMi came around the bar and moved directly to them. “You heard her, out!”

  “You’re going to have to call the police to remove me,” the coke whore chimed in.

  I laughed hard then. “Oh, sweetheart, you’re too coked up to know better aren’t you? Bless your little heart,” I affected with an exaggerated southern accent to mimic hers. “We don’t call the cops for shit stains like you. We handle our own business. If you prefer something stronger than an escort out, I can definitely see to that for you. We’ll even call the cops and an ambulance once I’m done.” I winked at her then.

  “NO!” Jesa yelped. She’d been there when I told the story about what happened to my ex-boyfriend and the bitch he was cheating on me with. “Come on, Dee. She will fuck you up.”

  Dee was dumb enough to proclaim, “I’m not scared.” Jesa finally wised up and simply left with Ashley. Dee noticed she no longer had any backup and took off too while MiMi followed them out to make sure they didn’t fuck with anything on the way.

  “Now, as for the rest of you,” I started, as I turned to the rest of the women sitting wide-eyed in our bar. “Show of hands, how many of you gave out your numbers to anyone in the Aces High crew?” Four of the approximate ten women in the group slowly raised their hands. Again, none were full MC members, thankfully. The others didn’t bother, even though some of them looked guilty. “Keep ‘em raised until I say different. Now, how many of you have been with, in any capacity, an Aces High member outside of our club property?” Three more raised their hands while blushing furiously. I just nodded my head up and down twice and looked at JoJo for confirmation that what I was about to do was the right thing. She tipped her head, a quiet sign of agreement. “You guys can leave now. Do not come back. Don’t bother trying to reenter any club properties either.”

  “I work at Paramour though,” one of the girls said.

  I cocked my head her way. “Did you leave the clubhouse or Paramour with an Aces High member?” She was one who admitted to being with someone.

  “I left with him when I got off work.”

  “So, he was at Paramour as a customer before that?”

  “Yeah,” she smiled at me stupidly, wrongly thinking that tidbit of information would save her.

  “When you came to work for our club, you signed an employment contract. That contract stated that you were not, under any circumstance, allowed to date the customers. That clause is in the contracts to protect both the club and the girls who work for us. You’re fired for breach of contract. The great news is, you’re now free to date, fuck, and call any of the idiots over at Aces High that you want. Now, get off our property.” I told them as a parting gift.

  The rest of the women left the clubhouse without another word. “I’ll be willing to bet good money that a few of them end up as club whores for the guys now.”

  “No doubt about it,” I whispered to JoJo. “So, that was what? Nine girls total and one hanger-on we never liked anyway? Tash and Keys will be so happy that we cleaned house without them.” JoJo snickered before turning and her wide eyes let me know we had an audience I hadn’t intended to have.

  “They were all RC members too, so no big deal. Not that I thought any of our MC members would fuck up like that though.” JoJo added before I finally took in our audience.

  Sure enough Legs stood there glaring daggers at Quickshot, Spike, and Sweet who were all standing in the hallway watching everything go down. I raised my eyebrows at them in challenge. “Weren’t you three supposed to be getting ready for our fucking impromptu meeting?”

  “Damn,” Quickshot said under his breath while Sweet just smirked.

  “Girly, you are fucking scarier than most of the men I know.” Spike shook his head. “I’ve never seen something like that go down in a male MC, ever. You just handled your business.” I did not miss the serious amount of respect intoned with his statement.

  I scoffed at him, even as I appreciated the respect. “Of course I did.” Then I passed everyone and sauntered my ass into the conference room ahead of them.

  I waited, picking at my nails, as they all came in and took seats around the table. “Were you able to get a hold of Tash and Keys?”

  “We’re here,” I heard Tash’s voice pipe up. Then Legs swiveled her phone in my direction and I saw Tash’s face light up. “And we just watched you kick out everybody and their mom.”

  Keys chimed in, “Good job, because they were actually the majority of the girls I had flagged on my list to handle when I got back. I just sent a text to the boys at Redemption Inc. to put them on the no-go list.”

  I laughed. “Well, now you get a day off when you get back instead. We should all go out for drinks.”

  “Oh, better yet, we should call those guys we had in last month, and close the club for a male review,” JoJo spit out. All the ladies were in agreement when a throat down at the other end of the conference table was cleared. Loudly. Spike and Quickshot were both hiding their snickers behind their hands as Sweet stared incredulously at me.

  “Can we get down to business sometime today?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. You interrupted our day again, without an appointment, and you also expect that we’ll be on your time-table?” I clicked my teeth together unpleasantly. “Yeah, no, that’s not how shit works.” Then I snapped my fingers together. “I know, maybe I should call my daddy and ask him if that’s how he handles business.” I offered the suggestion flippantly. “You know, since I have no clue what I’m doing running an MC an all.” I looked down at my barely there sports bra. “Must be the tits!” I explained. “They just drain all the energy away from my poor little girly brain. Darn!” I batted my eyelashes as I looked back up and that was it.

  Spike and Quickshot lost it, as did Tash and Keys. Legs just rolled her eyes at me while JoJo doubled over with laughter. Of course, she would think it was the funniest, bec
ause she took so much shit from men at her day job too.

  “Marry me,” Spike spat out. “Seriously, I don’t think I can go another day knowing some other undeserving bastard might snatch you up.”

  I offered him an amused smile before sassing out, “You book the flight to Vegas, baby.” Then I gave him a playful wink before turning my attention back to the phone in Legs’ hand. I did not miss the scathing look Sweet threw my way before I turned though. “Okay ladies, Sweet has called us all here, on the spur of the moment, because he had some super secret important news to share with us that absolutely couldn’t wait until you got back.”

  “This is bullshit,” he seethed out between hard clenched teeth. “Handle this shit,” he said to Quickshot. “I’m done here.” Sweet stood to leave, but before he could go JoJo was at the door. “What are you doing?”

  “Either I’m your escort off the property or you’re waiting for your men to get done with this meeting. You don’t get to roam around here unattended.” I could have kissed her, for real this time.

  He turned, standing with his back to the wall beside the door, one ankle crossed over the other like he didn’t have a care in the world, but his jaw ticked away furiously. I wasn’t sure he’d have any molars left by the time we finished up here. For his dentist’s sake, I hoped Quickshot didn’t have a lot to say.

  “So, um, you may have noticed I’m still here.” We all nodded at my dumbass friend. “I’ve decided to stay on. Sweet took over the role as President for Peety, as you know, because Peety couldn’t find it in himself to be respectful to you ladies.” Quickshot smiled as did Spike, who was growing on me.