by Avelyn Paige
Jagger was a damn lucky guy to have a woman like her in his life. I never could figure out how the old bastard landed a chick like her even years after the fact. She was so young when he brought her to the clubhouse the first time that I actually remember asking him if she was legal. The bastard just smiled at me as he pulled her into his lap and staked his claim. Her voice sang sweetly with each word that spilled from her lips. Her sexy little southern drawl damn nearly killing me each time her beautiful mouth opened. It wasn’t long after that he announced to the club he was going to marry Darcy. I was happy for him, and hell, I was jealous. She’s the kind of woman that any of us would be lucky to have. My wife is a looker, but she isn’t the full package like Darcy was for Jagger.
There were so many nights that Jagger came home hours late, covered in blood from beating the ever-loving fuck out of some punk hassling one of our clients or from some rival club stirring shit up, and she just walked away without a word. But, there were a few times I saw that southern sass in her roar to life as she fucking laid into him in front of the entire club after missing something for the boys, but Jagger always said that she would forgive him as soon as they got home. He always said that he could solve every problem they ever had in the bedroom, but there were times I thought even a good fucking wouldn’t get him out of the dog house. I’ll admit, Jagger wasn’t exactly the best guy on the planet, but for her and the kids, he’d paint the fucking moon purple if it made them happy.
Drumming my fingers on the hardwood top of my desk, I decide to just wing his eulogy. I’m absolutely fucking kidding myself if I think that I can come up with the right words to say. The mess of crumpled up papers littering the floor is evidence enough that I’m not cut out for writing some bullshit speech. Just as I toss the last of my incoherent scribbles toward the overflowing trash can in the corner, a knock comes from the door.
“Yeah?” I call out. The knob slowly turns, and in walks Hero and Ratchet. Hero looks ragged from lack of sleep, and Ratchet doesn’t look any better.
“Hey, Prez,” Ratchet mutters as he and Hero slide into the chairs in front of my desk. Hero looks to the scattered mess on the floor and laughs.
“I see your speech is going well,” Hero quips with a cocky ass smile. “Better be careful; one of those tree huggers will start picketing in your office.”
Running my fingers over my buzz cut, I let out a sigh. “Yeah, writing something pretty isn’t exactly highlighted on my resume. I bet popping a nun’s cherry on a Sunday wouldn’t be this damn hard.”
Both men laugh at the visual I just gave them.
“Not sure waving your dick around would make a nun break her vows from what I’ve heard, Raze,” Hero jokes. I know he’s trying to lighten the mood, but the fucker doesn’t know when he’s crossing the line. When I shoot him a glare, Hero raises his hands up in defeat. “Jesus, I was just kidding. Don’t get your panties in a wad, Prez.”
“You keep this shit up, Hero, and Ratchet might just get a promotion to VP,” I joke in return.
“Nah,” Ratchet mutters. “You know I’m not the leading by example kinda guy, Prez. Well, unless you want me to teach the prospects to be a pain your ass.”
“Yeah,” Hero chimes in, “don’t you remember what happened the last time you let Ratchet out of his cage? He burned down an entire mansion-filled neighborhood.”
“Who would have thought that the finer things in life would burn just as fast as the shitty stuff?” Ratchet recalls with a shrug of his shoulders.
Shaking my head, I can’t help but laugh. Just thinking about some of the shit Ratchet has pulled makes me reconsider the idea. He seems unaffected by the fact that he torched ten-million-dollars’ worth of a rich neighborhood to the ground after we had to handle some club business last fall. The fucker is crazy as shit, but he’s loyal. We just make sure that he’s monitored when he has to clean up from now on. Some people say that I’m crazy for keeping him around, but he’s seen too damn much of our dark shit to just let him walk away still breathing. When shit goes dark, we need him around, no matter the risk it could cost.
“And that right there is the case and fucking point why we don’t let you play with matches anymore, Ratch.” All three of us laugh harder until an awkward silence builds in the room. “So, what the fuck do you two need?”
“We just wanted to check on you, Prez. I know this shit isn’t easy on any of us, but you knew Jagger the longest,” Hero says. “I know seeing him strung up there like that brought back some bad fucking memories for me. That’s the main reason why Ratch and I have been checked out of the situation. You didn’t need the two of us darkening the clubhouse’s corners more than they already have been.”
“I know you went through some deep shit in Iraq, Hero. I can’t even imagine what it was like for you over there, but your place is with your brothers. We need to stand united.”
“Yeah, worst fucking years of my life. I thought for sure I would be in the nut house by now, but I guess I have Jagger to thank for that,” Hero says with a half-hearted sigh. “I don’t want to sound like a fucking pussy, but I am going to miss his ugly mug.”
Ratchet stiffens next to him. Ratch has never been the feelings on his sleeve kind of guy, so to see him reacting this way alerts me to the fact he’s really hurting with Jagger’s murder. Hell, half the time, Ratchet barely talks, so calling him a man of few words is a Goddamn understatement.
“I think we all miss him, Hero. He was our brother and one of the founders of this club. His life lives in the walls of this place,” I retort.
“Until Darcy came along. The bitch changed him,” Ratchet mutters under his breath.
Staring Ratchet down, I can’t help my anger toward his remarks against Darcy. “I know you never understood his need for an old lady or for kids, but Jagger loved having a family. That fucker was so Goddamn happy when the boys were born. He changed because he was ready to change, and not because of Darcy,” I snap at him.
“Think what you want, Raze, but he changed when she rolled into his life. He wasn’t the Jagger we all knew. He became this upstanding family man and stepped farther and farther away from the club he helped build. He told me once he’d die before he gave up his position as VP, but after he met her and they punched out a couple of kids, he stepped down with a smile on his face. If that’s not old lady bullshit, I don’t know what is.”
Standing up from my chair, I circle around the table and stop dead in my tracks right in front of Ratchet as he stands to meet me face to face. “He stepped down because he was too sick to continue on as VP. He had a fucking heart attack on the charity ride to Las Vegas six years ago and waited until he got back to deal with it. He could have fucking died on the road, but he didn’t want to look weak in front of the other clubs so he powered through something that could have very well killed him. I don’t know what your problem is with Darcy, but that shit ends here. We are burying her husband and your brother today. She doesn’t need any of your bullshit, Ratchet. You can either go with the club or your ass will stay behind and help the girls cook. The choice is yours,” I yell as I walk straight out of my office and right into Maj.
“Everything okay, baby?” she sweetly questions. “I heard yelling.”
“Yeah, babe, I’m good. I just needed to lay down the rules for today with a couple of the guys.” Pulling her to my side, we walk toward the mostly-empty main room of the clubhouse. I’m honestly surprised we haven’t had a visit from the local PD since the noise alone from the visiting chapters outside would warrant a disturbing the peace call, but they know not to interrupt our club’s business. I called a couple of favors in over the last few days to help with the traffic on our ride to the cemetery because I wanted shit to be as easy as possible for his family.
Maj leads me over to the bar where a box sits on the counter. She pulls t-shirt after t-shirt out of the box, and it’s in that moment that I realize that I’ve seen these shirts before. They’re Jagger’s.
“Darcy
sent these over for the guys. She thought they may want them as a tribute for the ride today. What do you want me to do with them?” she asks.
“Tear them into strips and give them to all of the riders. It’ll be like Jagger is riding with us.”
Maj takes the black Harley shirt in her hands and rips a strip from it. She moves to my arm and ties it around my bicep. Giving her hand a squeeze after she finishes knotting it, I kiss her on cheek before she goes back to work, handing out the shirts to the club girls and the other old ladies to cut and distribute them to the rest of the club.
As I make my way out to the back lot of the clubhouse, Ratchet and Hero walk out of my office toward the front doors. Ratchet nods at me when we pass, signaling that he’ll be with us today. I know he’s hurting, but I won’t hesitate to corral him if he gets out of line with Darcy. I know he sees her as the sole reason why his hero walked away from this life, but it was Jagger’s decision, not his.
Stepping into the sun, I see Jagger’s black and gray metal casket being loaded into the back of our Harley Hearse by the people from Morton’s mortuary. Darcy got her religious memorial service last night at the funeral home, so today is all about the club’s traditions and saying goodbye. Darcy argued with me, but I wanted his last ride to start from the clubhouse. She reluctantly agreed after explaining to her that it was her husband who designed our funeral rituals and that Jagger would have wanted it this way.
While I button up my cut, I see Darcy standing outside as the boys slide into the family car that will be following me. Darcy’s face is hidden behind a wide-brimmed hat and black lace veil, but even I can tell she’s visibly shaken up. She clutches a white handkerchief in her hand and stops to watch me prepare for the ride. I can feel the heat of her veiled stare for a few moments before her body disappears into the car with Morton closing the door behind her. As he makes his way to the driver’s side of the car, I walk to the hearse holding my brother’s body and lay my hand on the warm glass.
It shouldn’t have been you, Jag.
Lifting my hand from the hearse, I make my way to my bike and slide my leg over the warm leather seat. I turn on the ignition before firing up the engine. I let my Harley rumble for a few minutes while I settle into the ride to come. Turning back to the hearse hooked up to my bike, I take in Jagger’s last time at our clubhouse. I rev the engine of my bike and begin to pull the hearse in front of the clubhouse to gather the rest of the procession that’s already lined up.
I hesitate momentarily before I inch my way to the end of the parking lot and pull out onto the highway. Two neat rows of his brothers are lined up behind the family car, ready to give him a final salute.
“Time for one last ride, my brother.”
ONE YEAR LATER
Three short words forever changed the course of my life. I never imagined at thirty that I’d be a widow raising three children on my own. Brent had once promised me forever, and even though we both knew with our twenty-two-year age gap that he would pass long before me, that’s the kind of guy he was. Brent never worried about what tomorrow would bring, and that’s one of the many reasons I loved him. He was the optimist in our relationship, even if the world looked down upon the age gap between us with disdain. Chuckling quietly to myself, I can remember him saying the day he overheard someone calling him a cradle robber. He told them that the only opinions that mattered in our relationship were our own before he cracked a joke about me robbing the grave instead.
Brent always had a way to spin the dark shit around us into a joke to make me smile. Fuck, I miss him so much.
For the past hour, I have been sitting at the vanity that Brent built for me as a wedding present and stared at the stranger in the mirror. I see the reflection of a woman who’s lost everything and gained nothing in return. My cold hands brush against my pale cheeks while tears begin to fall in quick succession down my face. My dark-brown hair looks lifeless and dull just like my skin. Even the former light in my eyes has dimmed to nearly nothing, only further hammering home that they’ll never shine again. I may put on a brave face for my children, but deep down, I’m shattered inside. Thinking about his smiling face only makes the darkness inside me swell more, because every time I see his smile, I also see that damn club in the background.
I have tried to keep my distance as much as I could since Brent’s death, but I keep finding myself at that fucking clubhouse. Maybe it was because I can feel my husband there or the familiarity of the people, but I couldn’t fully walk away from the one thing my husband truly loved. Those within and associated with the MC are the only friends that I have out here. Not having their support in my life made things so difficult to the point that I’ve had to turn to Dani a few times to help me with the boys in emergencies. She never let me down, even as her own pregnancy progressed, and we have formed a much deeper bond as not only friends, but as mothers.
Raze can lie to me as much as he wants to protect my feelings toward him and the club, but I know Brent didn’t wreck his bike. It was in pristine condition just like Brent always kept his other wife, as I teased him about so many times. No, my husband didn’t accidentally die. He was fucking murdered, and his brothers know who has blood staining their hands.
Deep down, I know why when I miss Brent the most I end up there—I need answers, and by staying away completely, I’ll never get them. My husband was stolen from me, and the motherfuckers that took him will pay for their crimes against my family. They murdered the man I love and robbed his children of being able to know their father. From the moment his life was snuffed out, I put a plan into motion to protect my family if something ever happened to me. Brent’s life insurance was more than enough to make us set for life and put the kids through college, but I wanted to make sure that they wouldn’t want for anything. The side business I started while Brent was out on long runs has flourished since his death, and I am so close to the goal I had set for myself. Soon, I can settle the score once and for all. I never thought of myself as a killer, but for Brent’s memory, all bets are off.
A soft cry from beside the bed snaps me back into reality.
“Mama’s coming, baby,” I softly whisper. Sliding the chair back from the vanity, I slowly stand and make my way to the small bassinet nestled next to the side of the bed. Peering inside, I see the sweet smile of my little girl as she wakes from a good night’s sleep. Brent always wanted a baby girl, and it pains me to know that he never got to see her.
“I want a little girl that looks just like you, babe.”
“A biker with a baby girl? That sounds like trouble,” I teased.
“No one would mess with her, and she’d be the toughest little girl in town. I even have a name picked out.”
I stared at him in surprise. “And, what would that be?”
“I’d call her Roxie Belle.”
And Roxie Bell she was named. She’s the spitting image of her father with brilliant green eyes and black curls. She might only be four months old, but you’d know exactly who she belongs to; her demanding and somewhat stubborn personality she inherited from her father was apparent the day she was born.
Uncurling her from the blankets, I gently lift her from the bassinet and cradle her against my chest. Her little hands splay against my skin while I sway and hum a lullaby to her. I wrap one of her blankets around her and gingerly walk us into the kitchen to make a bottle. I make quick work of mixing her powder formula with water and setting the bottle into the warmer on the counter.
A few minutes later, I pull the bottle from the warmer, tuck her tiny little arm under mine, and pull her closely to my chest before settling into the love seat near the patio door. Much like her brothers before her, a six-ounce bottle never lasts long. She sucks away at the warm formula as her free hand wraps around my finger, making my heart swell. I’d give anything for her father to see her like this. His favorite time with the boys was sitting up in the middle of the night and feeding them. He told me that it made him feel like the best dad on Earth wh
en he could feed them and settle them back down without ever waking me up. He was such a good father.
Setting the now-empty bottle on the side table, I untuck her from my arms and lay her across my shoulder as I pat her lower back. Just a few pats later, Roxie lets out two large burps before cooing against me.
“That’s Mama’s girl. Let’s get your diaper changed and back into your swing before your rowdy brothers get up.”
Twenty minutes later, Wesson barrels into the kitchen with messy hair and demanding his belly to be filled. Like his little sister, he wakes up like clockwork, unlike Colt, who has to be dragged from his bed by his feet while kicking and screaming for five more minutes. He gets that from me, I was never an early riser until I married Brent. That man would make so much damn noise and leave every single light on in the bedroom and bathroom that I could never go back to sleep after he got ready.
It’s memories like these that break my heart on a daily basis and yet keep me going.
“’ancakes, Mama. I want ‘ancakes,” demands Wesson.
Smiling back at my boy, I reach into the cabinet and pull out the pancake mix, setting it onto the counter. “Is this what you want?” I teasingly ask. “I was sure you were going to ask for bacon and eggs this morning.”
“Naw, I want ‘ancakes. Can you make the shape of a weenus?”
I stop dead in my tracks. Did he just say what I think he did? Turning to face him, I watch as Wesson hops up into his usual seat at the island and lets his legs swing while he waits for his breakfast. Just looking at him, I know I must not have heard him right.
“Wes, what shape did you want them in?” I sheepishly ask, hoping to hear something different.
