Jett

by Blair Grey

  The bar was quiet when I arrived, and I was grateful for that. I felt a lot better after having another cup of coffee and something to eat, but I still had something of a headache after the drinks the night before, and I wasn’t ready for the noise of the bar to start hammering against my brain again. That would come soon enough, though being a Sunday, I knew it wasn’t going to be as rough as some nights.

  Several of my coworkers were getting the place ready for the night shift, and I cleared out the register and put my own name in place of the day shift bartender before tying on an apron and getting ready to face the rest of the day.

  I was determined to stay at the bar all night and act as normal as possible, no matter what. Being the last one to leave besides Tom, I was sure no one I worked with had seen me with Jett. Not that they would care if they knew we had hooked up, but I still didn’t want it to be the gossip of the place.

  It seemed everyone who worked there had hooked up with someone who came in often, and I didn’t want to be added to the list. There wasn’t a woman working at the place who hadn’t taken home one of the MC boys at some point, and I was sure they would be more than happy to take me into their club if they found out I had hooked up with the leader of the Steel Wings.

  After popping some pain reliever for my headache, I set to work, trying to focus on the bar itself and worry only about what my next step would be with Jett directly. It didn’t matter what anyone else said or did. I was focused on him, and that’s all that mattered here.

  Or, that’s what I would tell myself.

  My train of thought was brought back to the present, however, when the patrons who frequented the night started showing up. I didn’t know why I was so jumpy, but each time the door opened, my head would jerk in that direction to see who it was coming through the door.

  You’re going to have to settle down. You hooked up with Jett, and that’s what you wanted. Now, he’s probably going to ignore you. You were a conquest to him, and you gave him what he wanted.

  Now, get ready to have to pull out another trick if you’re going to get his attention again. Don’t be disappointed when he comes in and starts acting like you don’t exist. That’s normal for these kinds of people, and you knew that when you came into it.

  Besides, it’s not like last night meant anything, anyway. It’s not like either of you are going to catch feelings. And if you do, you’re going to want to get rid of them before they turn into something big. The last thing you need to deal with is heartbreak over the guy you’re going to hand over to the police.

  Trying to feel more confident in the situation, I ignored the fact my heart raced when Jett finally did show up. He was dressed much like he had been the night before, but the entire MC seemed to be preoccupied with something this evening.

  They weren’t as loud or raucous as they had been when their friend got out of prison, and it seemed Jet was meeting with some other men who appeared to be of some sort of rank within the MC.

  I had done a little research on the topic before I tried to execute this plan, which was why I felt they weren’t going to give me any more attention than someone who just served drinks in the first place, but I knew there were various ranks within the club, and I knew though Jett was the president, that didn’t make him exclusively in charge.

  I could only speculate who the other men were, and what it was they did within the club. I knew Jett wasn’t going to tell me if I tried to ask him, and he would likely want to know why I wanted to know in the first place. I had to be careful, since talking to him at all could give away my own position. And though I wanted to believe these men would treat women differently than they did a man who was trying to turn them over to the cops, I didn’t know enough about them to know for sure.

  Jett looked up, as though he could sense I was keeping an eye on him. My heart skipped a beat, but I forced a smile when we made eye contact. I didn’t think he would pay any more attention to me than that, but he surprised me by getting up and heading over to the bar.

  “How’s it going?” he asked.

  “Fine, can I get you a drink?”

  “The same from last night,” he said.

  “Coming right up,” I told him. I set it on the counter, but declined to let him pay. “I can give away one a night on the house without my boss getting pissed, so that’s the one.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “I’m going to tip you, anyway.”

  He set some money down, and I thought he was going to join the others back at the table, but he lingered for a moment. “I’m going to be meeting with a few of the other guys in the MC tonight, so I’m not going to make it over here to the bar much.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll keep an eye on the table and make sure you have plenty of beer.”

  “Thanks,” Jett replied. “But what I’m getting at is that I want to see you again. How about I come pick you up at your place tomorrow afternoon?”

  He voiced it as a suggestion, but I knew he wasn’t asking. Jett wasn’t the kind of guy who would sit back and suggest what we should do. He wanted to spend some time with me, and that’s what was going to happen. I tried to ignore the thrill that ran through me and played it off as cool as I could.

  “Sure, I’m not going to be doing anything. Why not come around two?”

  “That works,” he nodded, and before I had the chance to say anything else, he turned and headed back to the table where the other guys were waiting. I was glad they had a full pitcher of beer in front of them, and Jett just got a fresh drink. My heart was beating so hard in my chest, I wasn’t sure if I could talk to any of them with Jett around without blushing.

  This is good. This is just what you wanted. Now, you can work on learning more about the MC and getting that information you’re after.

  Why the Hell does he want to spend more time with you, though? Didn’t you think he was just going to want to hookup with you? What’s this about spending time together? Isn’t that a little weird?

  It can’t mean that he’s feeling something for you, can it?

  I tried not to let the thought creep into the back of my mind, but there was no denying it was. I never knew a guy who wanted to hang out with me without having feelings for me, but at the same time, I didn’t think it was possible for someone like Jett to even entertain such an idea.

  I hated to think that was the first thing my own mind went to. After all, I wanted to spend time with him, and that wasn’t something I thought would happen, either. I had been sure this would be a black and white plan that would end with him and as many of the other MC members as possible going to jail.

  Feelings weren’t part of the equation, because I didn’t think attraction would be, either.

  But what was I supposed to do with this new idea of hanging out with him? What was I supposed to do with the things I felt when I thought about spending the time with him? There were so many questions running through my mind, it was hard to think straight, at all.

  And, perhaps most importantly, what was I supposed to do next?

  Chapter 9

  Jett

  Blade, Roman, Trak, and Kage were all around the table when we started the meeting. They weren’t the only ranking men I had in my MC, but they were some of the most important, especially when it came to the discussion we were having tonight.

  We were getting ready to make another cocaine run, and there had been some noise about trouble on the streets. I didn’t pay much attention to that sort of talk ordinarily, but Ryu brought back some troubling information when he was in prison, and I felt it was worth talking about with the boys before we made a move.

  “You said you were ready?” Blade asked when we were able to talk about it alone.

  “I’m ready, but what I wanted to bring up was this rival we’ve been hearing so much about,” I said. “You heard what Ryu was talking about last night. He was in the thick of it for a while; I’m sure he’s heard some shit.”

  “That’s where my issue is,” Kage said. �
��The men in prison like to talk, but does that mean what they say on the inside can be taken seriously or apply to what we’re doing out here?”

  “All I know is that if they’re talking about a war, then I’m sure inside is where the threats are going to be made,” I replied. “You can’t say anything on the street about being part of another MC, let alone that you want to make a war with the Wings, and expect for it to go well. We’d throw you out of town faster than you’d be able to get on your bike and get out yourself.”

  “Not to mention, this is some pretty serious talk. Ryu knows better than to bring it up unless he thought there was a chance something big really was going on, and since he was in there for a couple months, you know he was able to see who was who on the inside,” Trak said.

  “They say they are all the same when they get inside, but I can tell you right now that’s not the case,” Blade said. “I bet you anything Ryu kept his head down, but someone had to notice the tattoos he’s got. You know that’s as much of an announcement to the rest of the world as the emblems on our backs.”

  “So, are we arguing that the information we have is credible, or are we going to argue about what we’re going to do about it?” I asked. “I don’t really care if it’s honest truth that can come straight out of a Bible or if it’s just a rumor. What really matters is what we’re going to do about the cocaine.”

  “Jett’s right,” Kage said. “It doesn’t really matter what the word on the street is if no one is going to do anything about it.”

  “That’s where the problem is. I mean, we could send them a warning, if you will, and see how that goes over,” Blade suggested. “Flex our muscles a little and let them decide if they really want to come in and get a piece of this.”

  I shook my head. I knew where he was coming from, and that would more often than not be the way I would take care of this. I would prove to any threat in the area that meddling with us or what we were doing would be a stupid idea, and anyone who wanted to test us would be sure to feel the sting. But, with the way things had gone lately – all the violence that had been erupting not only with our MC, but with many of the MCs in the area – we didn’t need to have the cops on our asses again.

  It was hard enough to stay out of their line of interest. With all the cocaine we had to sell, I didn’t want to bring them down on top of us again. I just wanted to get the deals done, get the drugs out of our way, and have the money in the bank before we had to deal with the cops or any of the other rivals who were throwing shade about this.

  “If you don’t like that, what do you suggest?” Kage asked. He was far more likely to shoot first and ask later, too, but that was why I was the president, and not either of them.

  I thought things through a lot more before we acted. I might have been given the position largely because of who my father was, but there was a reason why these men would defer to me and let me make the final choices when it came to such things.

  They knew I had the best of the MC in mind, and I wasn’t going to do anything that would cause us to get arrested or killed. That is, I would try. And, I knew they would have my back no matter how hard this got.

  “I think we need to calm down about doing anything right off the bat and focus on the drugs themselves. Let’s make the connections we’ve got set in stone, get the money, and keep our eyes open for anything that seems off,” I said. “There’s no need to slow down this operation when we’re right on the brink of pulling it off because of some noise that’s being made in prison.”

  “But we need to address this at some point,” Blade said, and I nodded. I knew he was right. We could ignore it for this run, but we had to get this under control. The last thing any of us wanted was to get into a war with another MC, and we were tired of dealing with the cops, too.

  But, to strike without having any solid proof of what was going on would be stupid, too. We had to play it safe and see what happened before we made the decision to get violent.

  “Alright, then for now, we’re going to sit back and keep our eyes open for what’s going on,” Trak said. “And, report anything to the rest of the MC right away. I don’t care how insignificant it seems – we’re in this together, and we need to know what’s going on.”

  “Agreed,” I said as I raised my drink. “Now, does anyone have anything they want to add to this, or should we dismiss it as handled for now?”

  “I think that’s all we’ve got to discuss with what we have to work with,” Blade said with a sigh. “I don’t want to sit and speculate, if you know what I mean.”

  I nodded. That was another way to get into trouble. We had to work with the facts, and while there was talk in prison of a war that could break out, and I already knew about the disputes that were taking place over who could sell drugs and where, so far nothing had happened.

  We had to wait for something solid to go down before we reacted. That was just the way I did things. It was how my father started the MC, and it was how I intended to continue to lead it. The Steel Wings was one of the most respected MCs around, and I was proud of that fact.

  I wasn’t going to stoop to the level of the smaller MCs in the area, or stir up trouble when there didn’t need to be any. After all, if this was just noise and there wasn’t anything real in the work, then it would give off the impression we could be easily spooked into doing something stupid.

  And that was another message I didn’t want put out there to the other MCs in the area. If we were going to maintain our status, then we had to stay cool, calm and collected throughout the threats that were being tossed back and forth, and hope that there wasn’t any real weight behind them.

  After all, I was willing to go to war if it came down to it, but I would rather not deal with the violence or potential to lose any of our brothers if we could avoid it. This was a dangerous life, that was for sure, but there were some things we could do to avoid some of the danger that came our way.

  When we agreed that was all we could do for now, we broke up the meeting. There wasn’t any more need for us to huddle together, and I knew Blade and Trak wanted to get back to the game of pool they had lined up for a couple weeks now. So, I turned my attention to the bar to see what Callie was doing and let Kage leave to find someone to flirt with for the night himself.

  It was another decently busy night at the bar, but with so much on my mind, I didn’t head over to the counter much. I didn’t want to distract Callie from what she was doing, and even more than that, I didn’t want to be distracted from what was going on around the club.

  I had my eye on everyone, on high alert in case one of the seemingly innocent patrons in the bar was undercover from another MC. But by the end of the night, I was glad nothing had happened, and I was more than ready to head home.

  I headed out to my bike, my mind spinning with the new information I had. We needed to maintain our status here, and we would do it, too. It might not be easy, and I didn’t want to think about the possibility of a war, but we would do it if we had to.

  I wasn’t going to back down, that was for damn sure. And, I knew none of my men would, either.

  But, as I was heading out of the parking lot, Callie once again popped into my mind. I wasn’t sure what it was about this woman, but I couldn’t seem to forget about her. I was used to sleeping with women then cutting them loose, but I just couldn’t seem to do that with her.

  I wanted to get to know her, and I wasn’t sure why. And, when the urge to see her struck, it struck hard. As I pulled onto the road, I didn’t turn back toward my place. I wanted to see what she was doing. She’d just gotten off work, but what did she do when she went home for the night alone?

  I didn’t care if she was tired from being up with me the night before, and I didn’t care I had a lot of other things I could be thinking about with my time. I wanted to see her, so that’s what I was going to do.

  After all, I was used to getting my way, and Callie was just one more person who would have to get used to that. I wasn’t
even sure what was going on in my head, and I didn’t want to think about it too deeply. All I knew was that I wanted to see her.

  So, I would.

  Chapter 10

  Callie

  At first, I thought it was a dream I was having. But then, as the rumble of the bike’s engine became clearer, I realized it was outside, and I was just waking from sleep.

  I’d passed out quickly when I got home. It had seemed a long walk that night. Still the same few blocks, but after being busier than I thought it would be and dealing with the customers’ demands, I had to admit, I was more than a little ready for bed by the time I walked through the door.

  I’d snacked at the bar most of the night, so I didn’t even bother with dinner, just falling into bed and taking a few deep breaths, thinking over the past couple days and wondering what it was my life was becoming.

  I was getting the attention from the guy I’d wanted, but I didn’t expect this sort of attention, and I didn’t expect it to happen so fast, either. I was sure it would be a gradual process, but it wasn’t. We went from making eye contact across the bar to wrapped up in bed together, to him asking me to hang out, in just a couple days.

  Well, I could say a couple weeks considering how much time it took us to actually get to the point of talking. But, I was still certain by the time we got to the point of falling in bed together, it was going to slow the process in some ways. The last thing I thought would happen was for him to ask to see me again, and so soon at that.

  I didn’t even realize I was falling asleep until I woke to the sound of the bike. And, once I realized it was pulling up right outside, I knew it had to be Jett coming to see me again.

  Even that was a surprise. As surprising as it was for him to want to see me the next day, I really didn’t think he was going to be back that same night. But, there was no mistaking the sound of the Harley outside my apartment building, and since I was on the first floor, I felt the rumble of it even more intensely.