Clutch

by Drew Elyse

  Feeling a little better, I repeated more confidently, “Yeah, I’m good.”

  “Good,” she echoed and settled against me.

  I held her, shooting the shit for a while longer with the boys until I noticed she was starting to nod off.

  Yeah, I was not going to let that happen until I reminded us both just how well I satisfied her. I carried her back to my room without much of an excuse to the guys, and set out to do that.

  I balanced the last line of my checkbook and could not contain the sigh resulting from the remaining balance in my account. Luckily, I had retained a bank account separate from the one I shared with Nathaniel. Unluckily, I only had a couple thousand sequestered away. It was not going to last me much longer. If I wanted to have any rainy day money left over, I needed to get a job imminently.

  “What’s wrong?” I heard from the doorway.

  Ham was standing there. I was on Gauge’s bed at the clubhouse and had left the door open to quell the sense of claustrophobia I got when I was in the closed room for too long. The big man looked at me, his expression obviously a request to be invited in. I gestured in welcome and he came in, taking a seat at the desk.

  “So, what’s troubling you, sweet thing?”

  I gave him a look for the pet name, but said, “I need to find a job. I’m just not sure what to do. I never really did anything after college. Most employers are probably not going to be super keen on hiring someone with a degree in accounting and finance who has never actually had a job in the field and has no work experience in the last five years.”

  Well, that all managed to actually sound worse when I said it aloud.

  “Actually, I think this is something I can fix,” he responded.

  “Do I want to know where you’re going with this?”

  “There’s the titty bar that opened last year over on Chestnut. It’s not full nude, so you’ve only got to get down to a G-string.” He wagged his eyebrows at me. “Between me and Gauge, we could buy out your lap dance and private room time.”

  I fisted a pillow from behind me and chucked it at him. “Ass.”

  “Alright, but really, you should talk to Roadrunner,” Ham insisted. “He’s looking to get a manager to run the finances and shit for the shops. He wants to be free to go back and forth between them and do the hands-on stuff.”

  Working for the Disciples? Why had I not thought of that?

  “Wow, that’s actually a great idea. Thanks, Ham.”

  He gave me a salacious grin. “I’m more than just a pretty face, gorgeous.”

  Shaking my head, I muttered, “You’re killin’ me, smalls.”

  We both laughed, until we heard a harsh, “What the fuck is this?”

  Gauge stood in the doorway, looking fierce in a terrifying way I had never seen before. I felt myself shrinking back, wishing I could disappear behind the pillows and hide from the rage in his eyes.

  “Gauge—” Ham started, but was cut off.

  “Brother, you better choose your words real fuckin’ carefully,” Gauge warned.

  “Baby,” I spoke up, having to force each sound from my throat. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but there is no reason to be upset. Ham was just offering me some advice.”

  “Advice?” Gauge repeated the word like it did not compute.

  “Yes, advice. He walked by and saw I was frustrated, so he checked in to see what was wrong.”

  “How fuckin’ chivalrous of him,” Gauge snapped.

  Ham got to his feet and moved to stand toe to toe with Gauge. His posture was not threatening in the way Gauge’s was, but it was unyielding. “I came in here as a friend, to her and you. I was worried she might be having issues with you or the life, and I was ready to sing your fucking praises to ease her mind.” Gauge seemed to lose a hint of the aggression in his face, but only a hint. Ham’s words surprised me. I had no idea he’d come in to keep me with Gauge if I was having doubts. “Now, I’m going to let this shit slide right now because I know that girl makes you crazy, but you insinuate that I’d do something like that to you again and we’re gonna have problems.”

  With that, Ham shouldered his way around Gauge and left the room, shutting the door with a firm snap, leaving us alone in the tension-heavy room.

  “Gauge,” I tried to speak, but he put up a hand to stop me.

  “Give me a minute,” he said, already sounding more calm.

  I did as he asked, waiting in the stilted silence for him to speak. I watched the muscles in his body uncoil, his intimidating stance easing. His breaths, which seemed to come hard and heavy at first, settled. His eyes, however, stayed trained to the floor where they had fallen when he spoke.

  “I’m sorry,” he said a while later. I tried to respond, but nothing came. He stayed silent for a while, probably waiting for me, and then spoke again. “That was out of line. You didn’t deserve that shit. Neither of you did.”

  “Gauge,” I called, hoping to get him to look at me. It took a moment, like he had to call on the will to do so. “Why did you freak out like that?”

  “I don’t know.” His powerful shoulders drooped and he sat on the foot of the bed, facing away from me. “I didn’t even think. I walked up, saw you alone in here with another man, and I lost it. I didn’t stop to think about how fucked up my reaction was, I just started running my mouth.” He looked over his shoulder with a wary expression. “I’m sorry, Cami.”

  As much as I wanted to go to him, to comfort him, I was also not prepared to sweep what had just transpired under the rug. “I won’t lie, I’m a little worried about what just happened,” I admitted.

  With a resigned look, Gauge turned his body around so he was facing me. “I can understand that, babe. That shit, it was uncalled for. I fucked up, spectacularly. But you need to understand, I may have gotten angry too easily there, but that anger would never—I mean that, never in any situation—turn into me harming you. You could fuck the whole damn club, but I would never hurt a damn hair on your head. I was fixing to turn around and walk out. That’s the most dramatic thing that would have happened.”

  His sincerity told me his words were true, but I already knew it. “I know that.”

  “Good,” he said with a half-hearted nod. “I know it doesn’t fix that shit, but you need to know it anyway.”

  “But why? Why did you react that way at all? Don’t you trust me?”

  “I do. I do, it’s just…” he trailed off, clearly struggling with the best way to express what was in his head. “I’ve spent a long time not answering to anyone. There might be a structure of respect around here between brothers, and Stone might be able to dole out orders, but we’re also all free. Part of that freedom has been not reigning in aggression. Not reigning in anything, really. Haven’t had to. That’s never been an issue until now. Suddenly, you’ve got me reacting full throttle to simple shit, and I have to find that control. It’s not easy, and I clearly just fuckin’ failed, but I’ll keep trying, and I’ll try harder in the future.”

  The despairing frustration in his tone made the space between us feel too great. I crawled to him and curled into his side when his arm came around me. “We’ll work it out,” I said. “That, it wasn’t okay. You know that. I need you to remember I would never do something like that to you.”

  “I know. Despite how I reacted, I do know that.”

  Not having a whole lot else to say, I just leaned into him. This was a road bump. It was a big one, the kind that makes your hands grip on a little tighter and your teeth ache from clenching them so hard, but it was a bump we could leave behind if we kept moving forward.

  We both sat in silence for a long time, and eventually my eyes settled on a plain brown shopping bag next to the doorway. Obviously, Gauge had brought it in with him.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  He looked over at it, and his already blank face fell into a frown. “It’s for you. I got it this morning,” he explained. “But, can we wait? I don’t want to give it to you n
ow, not with all that crap that just happened still hanging around. Can I just hold onto it for a bit?”

  “Of course,” I told him. I had a sneaking suspicion of what was in the bag, and if I was correct, he was right to wait. It was something better given without that blow up in the air.

  “Thanks, babe.”

  A few hours later, it seemed like Gauge was loosening up again. I had told him about Ham’s suggestion. He, as I anticipated he would, said I didn’t have to work, that he would take care of me. I shut that down. I had lived a life of being the kept woman already and was not interested in returning. He respected that, which I was glad for. I was worried it was going to be a fight about it being “the man’s job to take care of his lady” or something. Instead, Gauge acknowledged my desire to make my own way and agreed that I should talk to Roadrunner about working for the club.

  We even talked about going to visit his mother the next day. I had heard a great deal about Linda already. In fact, I was starting to think Gauge was a closet momma’s boy. Though, that wasn’t surprising given that Gauge’s father had not been in the picture. I was a daddy’s girl by rote, having lost my mom so young. Gauge had spoken to his mom that morning and made plans to go over and visit. It seemed Linda was having car trouble. Gauge had already gone to check on it once, but realized she needed to have her brake fluid changed. I was coming along as a bit of a surprise.

  And I was not nervous about that a bit. Nope, not me.

  I was nervous way more than a bit, but I kept that to myself.

  With the real strain of the earlier incident behind us, I decided to broach the still unresolved part. “You should go talk to Ham.”

  “Not sure he’s gonna want to talk,” Gauge replied.

  “It shouldn’t sit,” I insisted. “It’s not going to get easier.”

  “Babe, you do realize bikers don’t have pow-wows about our feelings and shit, right?”

  “So, your plan is to not to address it at all?” That sounded stupid.

  “No. I’ll probably offer him one cheap shot,” he answered.

  Ugh. Right, biker answer to everything: punch someone.

  “Whatever. It should still happen sooner rather than later.”

  He looked at me like he wanted to argue, then resigned. “Fine, I’ll go find him. You gonna play nurse for me when I get back with a black eye?”

  “Can you tell him no face shots?”

  “If I do, that asshole will go for the nuts. Rather have the black eye.”

  Well, there was that.

  “I’ll be your nurse if you promise to be a good patient,” I said as he made his way to the door.

  As he left the room, he looked at me over his shoulder. “Is sticking my fingers up your skirt being a good patient?”

  “No.”

  “Then, I’m probably going to be a very bad patient,” he said as he walked away.

  Oh boy.

  “Babe, you’re pacing,” I said.

  I was reclined on the bed, watching as Cami wore away the floor. She’d been at it all morning. First, her alarm had gone off at a god-awful hour so she could get up and start getting ready. Then, she’d bemoaned the fact that she was out of some kind of makeup and made me take her to Target to get more. After that, she’d thrown a fit over me telling her not to curl her hair since we were taking the bike to my mom’s anyway. She couldn’t understand “why we have to take the bike”. Yeah, because I was the one acting crazy. We always took the bike, and she suddenly wanted to lock me in a cage so her hair could look a certain way?

  The real cherry on top was when she tried to put makeup on me. The night before, I did end up giving Ham the free shot. Hell of a lot better doing that than having a damn heart-to-heart over it. He’d gone for the face, and then we were straight. That meant I had a good shiner when I woke up. Cami was not thrilled about Mom seeing it.

  “She’s seen me with worse. I’ll just tell her Ham did it and she’ll know I did something to deserve it,” I’d told her.

  “Yes, but won’t she ask what that was?” Cami had asked.

  “Probably.”

  “What if she thinks it’s my fault?” Had been her ridiculous jump in logic.

  That was how the morning had gone. It was one freak out after another, despite me trying to assure her Mom would love her. I would never have expected Cami to be the type to get so distressed over something like this. She was usually so self-contained.

  I watched her continue to pace, not even acknowledging that I’d spoken, before hauling myself to my feet. Her focus on her meaningless worry was so intent, she didn’t even notice I was coming until I grabbed her.

  “Darlin’, calm the fuck down,” I said with no finesse at all. “Mom’s super laid back. She’ll just be happy I’m actually seeing someone. You need to stop worrying.”

  “What if she hates me?”

  I laughed, not sure Linda Baxter had it in her to hate anyone—except maybe my asshole father. “Look, you can ask any of the guys here and they’ll tell you my mom is like a walking fairy princess. She won’t hate you. She isn’t capable.”

  Cami released a long breath. “Alright. I’m ready to go.”

  Without giving her time to freak out again, I got my shoes on and led us out to the bike.

  When we pulled up to the little Cape Cod house surrounded by the sickeningly sweet white-picket fence, I could practically feel Cami’s bemusement at my back. She stared at the light blue siding and white shutters as she pulled her helmet off. “This is your mom’s house?”

  “Yeah,” I answered. “Same house I grew up in.”

  She looked from me to the house and back. “You grew up here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Has it always looked so…”

  “Cheerful?” I offered.

  “Yeah, cheerful.”

  “Pretty much. Mom’s changed the paint several times, but it’s always something too damn bright.”

  Cami nodded, but her expression said she didn’t understand a bit. Admittedly, the idea of someone like me growing up in the cheeriest little slice of suburbia you could find probably didn’t make a lick of sense. But it wasn’t as if I was getting tattoos and riding a Harley out of some ridiculous rebellion phase or some shit. I loved the life, plain and simple. Mom taught me always to follow my heart, and my heart was nestled in the V of my Harley’s engine. I looked at my girl as she continued to stare at the house. Maybe my heart was considering a change in scenery.

  I knocked on the door twice before trying the knob. It was open. Go figure.

  “Ma, what have I told you about leaving the door unlocked?” I called as I led Cami in.

  “Oh, pish-posh. I leave that door unlocked all the time and the only trouble that’s ever come through it is you,” she answered, her voice coming from the kitchen.

  Cami followed me through the living room into the kitchen, where Mom was busy at the counter chopping away at apples.