Masked & Miserable: A Novella of the Sacred Hearts MC (Book 3.5)

by Downey, A. J.

Aaron: A kiss.

  Me: Oh. LOL I’ll save mine for when I see you in person.

  Aaron: K!

  The bell over the shop door opened and my head jerked up. Zander was at the entry of my cubical and cursed. I frowned.

  “What the fuck over?” I asked.

  “Was gonna try and sneak up on you and snatch it. Seriously, who is it!? What’s her name?” I scowled deeply.

  “What are you? Twelve!?” I demanded and shoved my phone back in my hip pocket. Zander grinned a broad grin and bobbed his head in an erratic nod.

  “Just leave it alone,” I grumbled.

  “Leave what alone?” Ashton’s voice was close, and Zander startled. He whirled and she was right behind him I smirked at her from behind his back. Zander had a hand to his broad chest.

  “Jesus Sunshine! Make some fucking noise next time!” She wrinkled her nose and gave Zander an impish grin.

  “Stop picking on my shop bestie!” she said and Zander laughed.

  “You’re getting a brass pair,” Zander remarked shaking his head and again Ashton’s nose wrinkled, this time in distaste. Zander’s laugh boomed out into the shop and Ashton moved aside so that he could move past her. She gave me a sad, knowing smile and ghosted off in Trig’s direction who stood just inside the door talking on his own phone, his eyes tracking his woman’s movements, a mixture of love, concern and confusion in them.

  Our eyes met and he nodded in my direction, I gave him a guarded one back. He didn’t understand my relationship with Sunshine. Never had, but on some instinctual level I think he knew I wasn’t any kind of threat so he didn’t feel the need to question it. Thank fuck. I shrugged out of my jacket and startled a bit when Trig’s voice rose.

  “We aren’t paying for shit! Now I don’t know how many times we’ve had to come out here in the middle of the night because your fucking alarm goes off for no God damned reason! No! I will not calm the fuck down! This has been a pain in our ass for long enough, we are way past me being calm about it.” I could almost hear the big man grinding his teeth from here. Ashton was near him and gingerly put her arms around his hips, tucking herself into his side. He shuddered and the tension just eased out of him, melting off of him into the floor. It made me smile.

  “Yes. You do that,” he bit into the phone and it looked like he wanted to throw it. He shoved it in his jacket pocket beneath his cut and put his arms around Sunshine.

  “Sorry Baby,” he murmured and she looked at him with nothing short of adoration.

  “It’s okay,” she murmured back.

  The alarm company was becoming more of a hassle than a boon lately with three, sometimes four false alarms a month happening. It was enough to make us a little crazy, especially because the cops got called by the alarm company to come check it out, we had to pay a fee to the county. I tore myself away from the scene Ashton and Trig were making in a bid to give them some privacy. I didn’t see Trig lose his cool very often. Even less in the time that he’d been with Ashton. Things were just tense all the way around since July. The Suicide Kings had been laying low and we were all getting a bit nervous. The shit would go down eventually, we just didn’t know how or when or what it would or could be and it was anybody’s guess.

  I brought out my pencils and sketch pad and settled at my drafting table. I didn’t have any clients today, so instead I set myself up to work on some of my drawings for upcoming tats. Tattooing wasn’t all about laying ink under skin. The designs had to come from somewhere, custom pieces took time to draw. Sometimes hours. That sixty-five dollar tattoo that took an hour to ink in was usually more like four, five or maybe even six hours of work. Drawing and shading and re-drawing. The part of the process the clients rarely, if ever, saw. Especially when it came to the more elaborate pieces.

  So when it was ‘slow’ in the shop, it wasn’t really because I had drawings to do. Not only that, if the shop was busy then so was I. Getting interrupted fifty million times while trying to draw a piece was a bitch too, but I couldn’t gripe because usually the interruption meant rent for next month or food for next week and the rat race went on…

  Today was no exception. I got two pieces done, and was interrupted something like fifty times. Add to that Zander had a screamer in his piercing room, by the time Trig was pulling the cord on the ‘open’ sign I wanted to scream myself. I stared at my phone for long minutes and waited for it to betray me with a call from the club but it remained silent and dark. Thank fuck. I really wanted to see Aaron.

  I shoved my pencils back in their case and missed Zander coming into my space. I was too damned preoccupied with thoughts of Aaron’s talented mouth on my cock to pay my boss and fellow prospect much mind. He snatched my phone off the table and I smirked. It was locked. He dropped it back onto my table with a mock pouty face and picked up my open backpack off the chair peering into it.

  “You’re not going home!” He crowed excitedly. I rolled my eyes in exasperation and took my pack, shoving my sketchpad and pencils into it.

  “Just give it up man,” I groaned.

  “Nah, you present a mystery and I just have to solve it,” he clapped me on the back.

  “Dude we’ve known each other pushing four maybe five years! You already know everything there is to know,” I pulled on my jacket and cut and Zander raised a scarred eyebrow.

  “Don’t think so Squick. You play your cards close to the vest,” he held up a hand to stop me from speaking when I opened my mouth to argue. “Not sayin’ it’s a bad thing dude! I know where you come from. I’m still not sure how you got there but that’s a puzzle for another day. I like you kid, you’re one of my brothers. What you see as me bugging the hell out of you is really me checking up on you and making sure you’re straight and don’t need any help. You never ask for it, so sometimes we gotta make sure. You dig?” he tilted his head and speared me with his gaze.

  “I get you,” I said reluctantly, “Still, who I am and am not fucking is none of your business,” Zander grinned real wide and I cursed myself inwardly for making such a rookie mistake.

  “So you are getting some! Atta boy! Gonna find out who eventually,” he called over his shoulder. As I watched his retreating back as he went back up front, my phone buzzed across the table with a text alert. I caught it as it slipped off the edge.

  Aaron: See you soon. Is it retarded that I feel this excited?

  I smiled to myself.

  Me: If it is then we ride the short bus together.

  I got the hell out of the shop while the getting was good and rode the six or seven blocks to Aaron’s apartment. By the time I finished climbing the stairs and was walking down the long, open air landing, his door was open spilling a rectangle of light into the crisp dark.

  “I’ve been wanting to do this all day,” he said, pulling me into his apartment by the lapels of my jacket. He swung the door behind him shut and as soon as it did his mouth was on mine.

  I dropped my pack to the floor and kissed him back. His hands smoothed up my chest and cupped my face. I slipped mine under his shirt and he jerked in my grasp, crying out at my cold hands on his heated skin. I touched him everywhere, he laughed and tried to pull out of my hands but nuh-uh. No way was I letting him get away. I bit his lower lip and he gasped and stopped struggling. My hands warmed quickly and so did the fires of the extreme lust going on between us.

  I shoved Aaron to his knees and gasped, “I want your mouth on me. Now.”

  He smiled up at me from the floor and eagerly worked at the front of my pants. I groaned at the image and stood, hips jolting as his hot, wet mouth took me in to the hilt. Fuck I liked that. I liked him. What the fuck was I going to do?

  Chapter 3

  Squick…

  “My mom was cool,” Aaron was saying, “I knew there was something different about me, she knew it too. It wasn’t just the music, I mean I’m the son of a public school music teacher and a music theory professor,” he scoffed, “My being musically inclined was to be expected.”


  “It was other things. Guys started going ape shit over a girl in a short skirt and me… I couldn’t stop looking at my best friend Bruce.” He cuddled in closer to me and I held him a little tighter. We’d been talking for a couple of hours, maybe more, since our wild passion explosion after I’d come through the door.

  “Yeah?” I prompted when he’d been quiet a moment too long.

  “I lost my friendship with him over it. It was in high school, our senior year.” He sighed and the action held the weight of his pain.

  “I hid it all through college even though I didn’t have to. For a while I was ashamed, you know?” he looked up at me but I stayed silent. Stiff. He nodded carefully, “Of course you know,” he said softly.

  “Yeah,” I affirmed.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked quietly when the silence had stretched too long. I worried my lip ring back and forth with my tongue, delaying my inevitable answer.

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I like you a lot. I want to see where this goes, but I can’t keep you a secret. It wouldn’t be fair or right of me to ask that of you, so I’m not…” I paused to gather my thoughts, changing my trajectory midsentence. “At the same time, I can’t lie to the guys forever. They’re going to find out,” I pressed the heel of my hand against my eye where a headache was starting. I was worrying myself fucking sick.

  “I know the results are unpredictable, but still, wouldn’t it be better to come clean before they found out? Tell on yourself before someone else tells on you?” he asked. I looked down into those beautiful liquid dark eyes and let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

  “Probably,” I agreed, “I’m pretty sure I’m going to have my ass handed to me…” I swallowed hard. I didn’t think they’d kill me. In fact I knew for sure they wouldn’t but the thought of anyone of them turning their backs on me, of doing to me what my dad did to me, of seeing the raw naked disappointment, or worse, disgust in any of their eyes… Well let’s just say, that for me, there were some things worse than death. I’d rather feel the kiss of Reaver’s blades than see any of those things on Trig or Zander’s faces.

  “I don’t want to lose my job,” I said lamely.

  “I know they’re your friends, but if they’re really your friends they wouldn’t do that to you. If they do, I know it will hurt but you’re talented Andy.” He rubbed his fingers across an image in my sketchpad which was splayed across his lap.

  “You’ll find another job but wouldn’t it be nice to be free? To be who you are on the inside, on the outside all of the time and not just behind locked doors?” his words were both true and really fucking enticing. I tipped his chin up with gentle fingers just the little bit more I needed so I could claim his mouth with mine.

  Maybe Aaron coming into my life was just the push I needed at the time I needed it. I couldn’t let them patch me in to the club living the lie I was living. Brotherhood was more than just about having each other’s backs in a fight or a bind. It was about honesty and being true to each other. No secrets, no judgment. It was about having each other’s backs no matter what not just when it suited you. Aaron and I had been talking about it for quite some time through the euphoric haze of our post-sex blissed out state. I’d told him all about the guys, about some of the bikes and about the girls too. I think he liked Ashton already. She had that kind of effect on people…

  “I know I can’t hide forever,” I said plaintively, “Still doesn’t mean I know what I’m going to do.”

  Aaron nodded and opened his mouth to speak but my phone started buzzing across the night table. I reached over and plucked it off the tabletop and groaned.

  “Dray,” I said and Aaron made a motion with his long fingers, zipping across his lush lips, locking them up and throwing away the key. It was fucking endearing and adorable. I answered the phone with an appreciative smile.

  “Yo.”

  “Prospect. What’re you doing?” he asked.

  “Stuff. What do you need?”

  Dray snorted, “Closed mouthed bastard. Can you interrupt whatever it is and go get Ghost?” I sat up straighter.

  “What’s wrong with Ghost?” I asked suspicious.

  “Down at The Spot, drunk off his ass. Too drunk to drive. He’s flyin’ colors so the bar owner called me. I gotta be up early to get my girl and me to work. This type of shit is what you happy bastards are for.” I could hear the grin in his voice. It was pretty safe to assume that the happy bastards were me and Zander, the club’s two prospects.

  “I’m on it, boss, except I don’t have a car right now. My Mazda is dead in my driveway, I haven’t fixed it yet,” I said and swung my legs over the side of the bed.

  “I think Ghost has his truck out there. Just get a ride. You’re a big boy Prospect, fucking figure it out,” Dray grunted and held his hand over the phone or just held it away from his face, I heard a muffled “Fuck Baby, that’s nice!” and suddenly I couldn’t get off the fucking phone fast enough.

  “Got it. No problem, have a good time Dray,” I heard him bark a laugh and the call disconnected. I sighed.

  “Come on, I’ll give you a ride out there and drop you off. You can come back and get your bike after work tomorrow night,” Aaron captured his lower lip between his teeth in a bid to squash his devilish grin.

  “Gonna hold my girl hostage on me huh?” I asked and pushed him back into the sheets and kissed him breathless. He laughed.

  “I think I would do just about whatever it took to see you again. I like your company and the sex isn’t half bad either,” I laughed and gave him a peck on the nose, his words suffusing me with a warm glow.

  “Come on. I have to go bail my brother out of trouble,” I made a sour face, “Hopefully it’ll be just that and not out of jail.” The thought spurred me in to action. I did a quick rinse off in the shower. Two minutes or less. When I dried off, Aaron appeared in the bathroom doorway in some loose sweats, sneakers on his feet and a set of car keys in his hand.

  “Where is this place?” he asked.

  “You know The Spot bar and grill on the main drag in old town?” I asked pulling on my jeans.

  “That the sports place?”

  “Yeah,” I pulled my discarded shirts over my head and sat on the edge of the bed and put my socks and All Stars on.

  “Sure. Want me to drop you off just up the block?” I froze and looked at Aaron’s face which was carefully guarded. I did a slow blink. He had that look like he was steeling himself to be hurt and while I wasn’t ready to jump out of the closet draped in a rainbow flag, throwing glitter while singing at the top of my lungs falsetto… I couldn’t do it to him. I couldn’t ask him to do that.

  “I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do about my situation but I know what I’m not going to do. I’m not going to treat you like some dirty little secret Aaron. That shit fucking hurts. My folks did it for years.” I shook my head, “No, fuck that. You can drop me off out front.”

  I stood up and pulled on my jacket and cut and slung my backpack over my shoulder. I’d need the clean clothes if I was going to drunk sit. Might get in the line of fire by accident if Ghost felt like puking. I turned to look at him and the look he was giving me said it all: Grateful. Other emotions roiled in the liquid depths of his eyes but I didn’t have time to figure it out.

  “Is it cool if I leave my helmet with you too?” I asked. He nodded mutely. I wanted him to know that I wanted to see him, despite the fucked up situation I had myself in. If I left my helmet I had to come back to his door. His willingness to keep it for me spoke volumes on its own.

  “Come on, before your friend… er, brother, gets himself into more trouble than it sounds like he’s already in.” I nodded and followed him out behind the building. He unlocked the doors on this older little Subaru, a bubble backed station wagon thing, and we got inside. I sighed.

  “I’d much rather be back in bed with you,” I grumbled as he started the car, he smiled at me, the glare on his le
nses from the overhead street light through the windshield hiding his eyes from me.

  “I don’t disagree,” he said and shifted the car into reverse. We spent the short trip into old town in silence, his hand on my thigh, my hand curled around his long fingers.

  Chapter 4

  Squick…

  The inside of the bar was dark and surprisingly crowded. I glanced at the banks of televisions and realized it was a game night. I scanned the murky interior and landed on the familiar Sacred Heart’s colors at the end of the bar. The bartender caught my eye and lifted his chin, indicating I should meet him down the bar some. I went and he stuck out his hand.

  “Jimmy Mac,” he said, I took his hand and shook, “Dragon send you?” he asked. I shook my head.

  “Dray! Our VP!” I called over the sudden loud cheering. Jimmy nodded and leaned over the bar. He was an older guy, long graying hair in a loose pony tail down his back. He wore a black tee shirt with the bar’s logo on it and a pair of faded jeans. He held a dishrag in his hand and picked up a glass to polish it.

  “Your boy’s been drowning his sorrows hard over there for the last two hours. I got his keys. He handed ‘em over without a fight,” he produced a set of keys from his pocket and handed them to me.

  “Thanks,” I called.

  “Don’t mention it. You guys have helped me and mine out before. I don’t mind giving back,” he nodded at me and I gave him a respectful nod back. I went over to Ghost and slid up onto the stool next to him. I slapped him on his cut.

  “Ghost, brother!” I called and he turned bleary eyes at me. Holy fuck he’d tied more than one on! Try like three, maybe four… Hell! I slung my backpack higher up on my shoulder and sighed.

  Aaron had left me at the curb out front with a gentle squeeze of my hand. I had wanted so badly to close the gap between us, to kiss him but he had simply smiled sadly and told me to get out of the car. I was regretting that just a little bit right now. Ghost was an ugly sloppy drunk. He didn’t need me pissed off though, he needed me supportive and to figure out what the fuck, so I plastered a smile on my face and slipped my usual mask of happy resolutely into place.