by A. J. Downey
“Ethan bought me this, I don’t know what it is.” She said honestly.
“Oooo Magic Mike!” I exclaimed and Mandy giggled. I laughed, I’d told her about it but hadn’t been able to get her to watch it. “It’s about male strippers!” I exclaimed.
Ashton giggled. “Oh boy!” She rolled her eyes. We all three laid back to watch.
Chapter 16
Dray…
I didn’t want to be out here. I wanted to be back in my room with Em, but we’d decided to call a full club meeting, opened it to the hang-arounds and prospects too which was highly unusual. We were gathered in the common room and the girls were conspicuously absent. The mood in the clubhouse sober and holding that edge of anger, that threat of violence. Or maybe it was just me. I stood to the right and a little behind my pops, Reaver, Doc and Trig ranged out behind us on the small stage. Our brothers sat in neatly lined chairs in front of us. My pops addressed the room. Now was a time that he was my president and not so much my father and I was cool with that.
“Everybody here knows that my boy’s Ol’ Lady, new as she may be, got shot this mornin’.” Dragon started. Yeah. Em was mine, I totally claimed that and everything that went along with it. There were grunts of acknowledgment and nodding heads around the room.
“What everybody might or might not know by now is that some other club calling themselves the Suicide Kings is in town and a boy flyin’ their colors is the one that did the shootin’.” Again there were nods and unsurprised looks among our small gathering.
“Now I know we’re small right now, what with membership flaggin’ and honestly that’s no one’s fault but mine an’ my cabinet’s but we’ve been doin’ our best to stay true to each other and turn a new leaf and all of that. What I’m getting at is we’re gonna try and make contact with these Suicide Kings an’ see what they got to say for themselves, both for bein’ on our lands without givin’ us the customary heads up and for what happened with our VP’s girl. Some of us are new.” He inclined his head towards Loyal, Zander and Squick.
“That bein’ said, now’s the time to decide if you boys are in it to win it or if you want to get off this ride here. Things have the potential to get real ugly real quick when it comes to these kinds of dealings. We’re gonna try some diplomacy first… This is our territory though and our diplomacy looks a lot like they better damn well play by our rules why they’s in it.” Cheers went up around the room, a smattering of applause with it and I felt a wicked smile curve my lips. “We may be small but we pack a punch. Shit gets heavy we got to stick together.” Dragon scratched his chin through his dark beard.
“Shit gets heavy it ain’t no where I haven’t been before. Count me committed.” Loyal said and crossed his arms.
“Sounds about right and y’all know I love a good fight.” Zander said and grinned, showing off the chip in his tooth. I heard Trigger chuckle.
“Why would I want to leave when it looks like the party’s just getting started?” Squick asked but he looked grim. I think he liked my girl, he sympathized with wanting to serve up a beat down.
“Okay.” My dad looked secretly relieved but quickly covered it by turning to Data.
“Get us what you can on these Suicide Kings. I want a number for their Prez by morning. If the bastard were smart he’d have called me long before now so let’s just hope he doesn’t want to be in anymore hot water. We’ll hold off on contacting surrounding clubs about the trespass but notify the surrounding Sacred Heart chapters. Let ‘em know no violence for now, but that could change depending…” Data was already making notes and as soon as my dad finished and gave him a nod he was up out of his chair and making strides for his media room which was really just a converted janitor’s closet.
My pops went on to remind us that this was a brotherhood and to give props to the men assembled for sticking it out, weathering the storms, both in previous years and this new threat. He reminded us that we lived the lives of outlaw bikers while walking the straight and narrow. That just because we lived clean that it didn’t mean that trouble would never find us from the outside. Such was the life of flying our colors and living under the Sacred Heart’s banner.
It was really nice, touching even, and I was proud of my old man, proud to be his son, proud to be the vice president of this club and to be a part of such a brotherhood… yet at the same time was damn near crawling out of my skin with the need to be back with Everett. I forced myself to stick around. Answered some questions from Zander and made my presence as VP of this club clear. I stayed as much as to prove that I wasn’t dicking around anymore as I was to prove that I had a real loyalty to this club despite having such a personal stake in this particular situation.
Finally my dad clapped me on the back. The sound of his hand slapping, amplified by the leather I wore. I jumped slightly because I hadn’t seen it coming. He trained his burning dark eyes onto my own and I read clearly what he was trying to say before he opened his mouth.
“Go on, get back to your woman. We’ll let you know when we got anything.” He said. I nodded and hugged him.
“Thanks pops.” I let go and he grinned at me and I went back into the farther reaches of the club house. The building was old and there were more rooms to it than just the council of five’s but they needed some serious work before they could be anything. We were fixing the place up little by little and hoped that someday we would have a room available for each man in the club. We had the space for it, it was just bringing the rest of the place up to code.
I opened my bedroom door and smiled. My girl lay on her back, Ashton on one side, her best friend on the other watching something on the TV. Ashton looked over and raised a brow.
“Meeting done?” she asked.
“Yeah.” I said. She got up and smiled at me, brushing past and ghosting out the door. I turned back to the bed. Mandy was looking at me indecision on her face which was illuminated half blue by the flickering light of the screen, the other half cast in shadow.
“She’s asleep. Pain pills.” She said finally. I went over and sat on the edge of the bed. Sure enough Everett was out, her face tight around the edges, drawn into lines of pain, her brow slightly furrowed despite her slumber.
“She’s going to be okay.” I said and the relief finally, really set in. I let out an explosive breath and raked my hands through my hair, holding it back from my face and bowing my head as I watched her sleep.
“I want to be mad at you.” Mandy said and gave a little one shouldered shrug.
“Yeah?” I asked and eyed her warily. No sense in flying off at her until I knew what was what.
“Yeah. I look at you guys and I see ‘bikers’ and I look at her laying here, shot…” she sniffed and took a deep breath, overcome with emotion. I knew how she felt and it should scare me but it didn’t. It just felt right that I should feel what I did for Em and so I didn’t try to fight it, rather, I just went with it.
“But it’s not your fault,” she said, getting a hold of herself. “You guys aren’t like that but you are. I don’t get it, it’s weird and confusing.” She stopped and I drew in a long slow breath.
“We were like the dude that shot her.” I said quietly.
“But not anymore?” She asked.
“Not unless you push us and this was a pretty damned good push. We’re going to try and solve this one through some diplomacy, but trust me Red, I want to burn their whole motherfucking world down for this.” I curved fingers around Everett’s prone hand where it lay beside her hip.
“I’ve known Evy since we were in the second grade.” Mandy said.
“Yeah?”
“She’s always been this powerhouse, you know? Outgoing, knows how to take all comers and win, mostly by outsmarting them. There isn’t anything in the world outside this girl’s reach. When I told her it was my dream to be a chocolatier in junior high, she pushed my ass to be a straight ‘A’ honor student all the way up through high school, dragged me along in her wake like it wasn’
t anything.” Mandy looked at me, her green eyes penetrating right to my soul in a pale imitation of Everett’s cutting gaze. Still, different as it may be, it had the same effect. I was listening and I was listening good... I nodded once that she should go on.
“Everett made my dream hers and didn’t even think twice about it. She had it all planned out. Put it inside my reach and wouldn’t you know it? We’re almost there!” She chuckled and shook Everett’s other hand gently where it rested in her own.
“She got me grants and not only put me through business class right along with her but she also found a way to put me through culinary school at the same time. Talked my parents into letting me live with them, which admittedly was the easy part, I’m an only child… Anyways. Everything I have is because of this girl right here. She’s like my sister from another mister.” I laughed softly.
“So I want to be mad at you guys for this but I can’t… I know it wasn’t your biker gang that did it and I know that you guys don’t do that stuff but I feel like I have to say it… if you hurt her, or any of the shit you get into gets her hurt, I’m ‘a find you and cut your balls off!” she stabbed a finger at me and I nodded solemnly. She couldn’t hurt shit, but the same time I figured it’d be best to let her have this one. I wanted Em’s BFF to like me. I wanted to keep the peace in Em’s life.
“Understood.” I said and looked at Em.
“That’s the other reason I can’t be mad at you.” She said and sniffed.
“What’s that?” I asked her carefully.
“The way you look at her is… I don’t know it’s indescribable. You’d do anything for her wouldn’t you?” she asked.
“Probably as much as you, Red.” I told her. I set Em’s hand down on the bedding and got up with a sigh. I shrugged out of my jacket and cut and hung them on the hook above the jacket I’d given her. Her boss had stuffed it in her back pack which hung underneath it. I was tired. It’d been a long ass day. I glanced over my shoulder at Red and my Girl and decided fuck it.
“I’m changing for bed.” I warned her as I pulled off my boots and she looked disappointed, I softened a bit. I could tell she wasn’t ready to leave Em’s side and you know what, my girl needed all the love and healing energy she could get.
“Just do me a solid and keep your eyes to yourself.” I grunted and stripped my Henley and wife beater undershirt over my head in one fluid movement. Mandy obediently squeezed her eyes shut and covered them with her hand. I smirked with my back turned and quickly changed my jeans over to a pair of comfortable black cotton lounge pants.
I stripped out of my socks and went back to the bed. Em was pretty much dead center. It would be a bit of a tight fit for three but with her leg propped up like it was, I wasn’t about to go about moving her anyways. Red could stay on her other side.
I settled into bed and laid an arm across my girl’s trim wait and kissed the side of her neck, breathing in her lilac scent which was slightly overlaid by antiseptic hospital smell and a coppery hint of spilled blood. Her blood. I sighed and she stirred.
“Dray?” she asked sleepily.
“Yeah Babe, I’m here.” I said.
“Mandy?” she asked.
“I’m here too.” Her friend said softly from across her body.
“Good.” Em said, and slipped back into sleep. We sandwiched Everett in a cuddle and not too long after I fell asleep, vaguely aware of my door opening. Mandy said something to whoever was there but I was unconcerned. Nothing but the brotherhood and their women in the house. I was out like a traffic light inside three minutes.
Chapter 17
Everett…
My leg hurt. It was way passed time for another pain pill but I didn’t like the way that they made me sleep. I opened my eyes and realized that it was daylight outside the Venetian blind shuttered window. The light seeping in around the edges enough for me to make out the room and the people in it.
It was a full house.
I lay snug against Dray’s hard body on one side and against Mandy’s curvaceous one on the other. I smiled faintly at them both and then blinked in surprise. Sitting on the floor of the bedroom, back against the wall, was Zander. His feet were crossed at the ankle, and his chin drooped onto his wide muscled chest. His hat was still on backwards and his face was surprisingly at peace in his sleep.
I realized with a light start that though he smiled when he was awake, and his eyes laughed silently… that there was a tightness at the very edges of his expression, all the time… a tightness that I only now noticed because it was gone.
Dray sucked in a long deep breath and stirred, I turned my head at a slightly odd angle and his dark eyes blinked open and met mine. He smiled slow, lazily and stretched much like a cat. One of those luxurious full body stretches that made me realize I was in dire need of one too. I’d been in a deep, drug induced sleep for so long I felt as if when I got up, there would be a permanent impression of my body left behind in the mattress.
“Hi.” He said softly and I smiled.
“Hi…” I returned. He drank in my features and I felt myself blush faintly.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Um no,” I ventured. He pushed himself up from where he’d been laying on his stomach.
“What’s wrong?” he asked alarmed.
“Oh nothing, I just really have to pee!” I admitted and then frowned.
“Everett…” he said derisively, in a tone that more than anything told me to spill it.
“My leg really hurts, I should take something, but I’m sick and tired of sleeping.” Dray stood up and carefully helped me into a sitting position on the edge of the bed which woke Mandy.
“What’s wrong!?” she asked. I rolled my eyes. It was going to be a Domino effect I could just feel it…
“Nothing, I have to pee and my leg hurts.” Dray brought my crutches and Zander startled awake. He stretched his big arms over his head and yawned.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing!” I laughed.
“Her leg hurts and she has to go to the bathroom.” Mandy supplied.
“I get what you’re sayin’ about the meds Babe. Mandy, can you go cut one of her pain pills in half for her?” Dray asked. “I’ll help her to the bathroom.” He helped me get on my feet and I got the crutches under my arms. Oh good lord I was stiff! I groaned a little, the urgency in my bladder screaming for immediate attention and got myself going. Dray paced me. I made it to the bathroom and did what needed doing, grateful I hadn’t embarrassed myself.
“Feel better?” Dray asked when I came back out.
“Much.” I said but tears were starting to stand out in my eyes where they watered from the pain… How could something feel dull and sharp at the same time? That’s what it felt like though, a dull, deep, sharp, grinding ache that just could not be ignored.
“Come on let’s get you out to the bar. Ashton’s cooked breakfast for everyone and you should eat with your pill.” His voice was soothing and sympathetic and I let him pace me out there. An old, brown, leather recliner that had seen better days had appeared from somewhere and Dray led me to it. I sank into it and he put up the foot stool and Mandy appeared with pillows.
“Morning Evy.” Doc said and knelt down by my leg. He looked ragged…
“You look so tired.” I said concerned and he smiled at me.
“Twenty four hour shifts at the hospital, I’ll go to bed as soon as I see to this leg and get you square for the day.” He smiled kindly at me and opened up a big padded bag that was boxy in appearance. It held all manner of medical stuffs.
He gently propped pillows strategically under my leg, snapped on some gloves and brought out a pair of trauma sheers, cutting through the bandages. He stuffed the soiled bandage in a plastic grocery bag and tied it off. The prospect made it disappear. The wound was angry and red and spikey with black stitching thread. It had a sheen over the top from antibiotic ointment. Doc looked it over through his glasses and nodded.
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“Looks good.” He declared. He cleaned it up carefully and I hissed through gritted teeth and even yelped a few times. People looked on with interest. The girls’ and a couple of the guys’ expressions sympathetic, some of the men’s expressions, including Dray’s, clouded over with anger.
Doc doctored me up and re-bandaged the leg. Mandy handed me a napkin and I wiped my eyes and blew my nose. The prospect made that disappear too. Ashton handed me a plate of food and Dray stood by with a pill and some water.
“Eat a few bites and I’ll gladly hand it over.” He said and I obeyed. As much as I hated the oblivion and fuzzy feelings the pill brought, I wanted so badly to dull the pain in my leg I would do just about anything. I swallowed the bitter tasting pill quickly and went back to the rest of my food before I lost my appetite. Everyone else ate, scattered around at tables or the bar behind me.
“Got it.” Data handed a piece of paper to Dragon who took a swallow of coffee before setting the cup down and plucking the bit of white out of Data’s long fingers. He read over whatever was on it and picked up his phone from beside his plate. A hush fell over the room. He dialed and put it on speakerphone. The ringing loud in the hush between people.
“Hello?” came out of the phone.
“This Sparks?” Dragon asked.
“Yeah, who’s this?” the voice demanded, surly.
“The fuck you think it is?” Dragon asked. A long silence ensued on the phone.
“The fuck you think I’d be asking for if I knew?” the voice bit back.
“This is Dragon, President of the Sacred Heart’s MC,” Dragon said, “We need to sit down and have ourselves a little chat.” He went on before the man on the other end could say anything.
“Oh yeah? Why we need to do that?” the voice asked.
“Well it seems your crew is running around in Sacred Heart’s territory. One of your feller’s caused a hell of a mess yesterday. Shot our VP’s Old Lady. Think that might be something worth having a little sit down over?” Dragon asked.
