by A. J. Downey
“You’re a shy girl,” he said, looping his hand into the crook of his arm. “Somehow I knew that about you.” He gave my hand a pat and led me around to the club’s front door which was standing open to let a cross breeze through. The moment we stepped in, I could see straight through and out the back door.
“Oh! Your cigarette!”
“Private club, baby. Don’t you worry about me,” Vyking grated.
We threaded our way through a pretty crowded and smallish barroom, a living room setup just inside the front door to the left, two black leather couches and two leather loveseats around a black area rug and a thick glass and wrought steel coffee table. To the right, immediately as you walked in, was a bar. Only six stools perched under it, five of them featuring a man. A happy, portly, older woman behind it wearing a black and orange tiger print caftan serving up drinks.
Vyking stabbed two fingers into the shoulder of one man hunched on his stool and it was only when he straightened did his blond, ponytail consisting of its many interwoven braids slipped back over his shoulder. That made me smile.
My smile only grew when Fenris’ dark expression seemingly evaporated the second he laid eyes on me.
He twisted on his seat and reached out, taking my hand and pulling me between his knees, his hand going one to my hip and the other to the side of my face, fingers curling around the back of my head, thumb caressing my jaw as he dragged me in for a kiss.
And boy what a kiss it was.
Fiery, passionate, possessive, and fierce. He tasted of the hops from the beer that he’d drunk and vaguely spicy. He definitely tasted all male and as I melted into his embrace, happily, while the music blared deafening around us, I dropped my hand to his thigh and accidentally where his erection was growing in the prison of his jeans.
He broke the kiss and put his lips beside my ear and growled, “If I thought you’d be into it, I’d fuck you right over this bar to let every one of these motherfuckers know you belonged to me.”
He brought his head up, pulling my forehead to his chest to help me hide my vermillion blush and yelled back at his dad, “Thanks for finding her, Pops!”
“Don’t mention it!” his dad yelled waving us off and heading down the hall toward the back door. I leaned my temple against Fen’s chest and watched him go, thankful that he’d waited for me. That he’d seen fit to escort me to his son and tell me what he had.
“How was your day, babe? You hungry?” Fenris asked low beside my ear. I smiled, the boisterous activity around us falling away as though it were just, he and I in the room.
“Long, and I’m starving,” I answered him.
“There are some things laid out in the chapel to nom on and we got steaks going on out back on the grill. Let’s go get you something to eat.”
I nodded and smiled and he let me go enough to step back so he could slip off the stool. He had me precede him in the direction of the hall and touched doors as we went down it, telling me what they were. The first two doors on the left were bathrooms, the first on the right he said led up the stairs. The third on the left was Maverick’s office, and then the last door on the left what he called the chapel.
It resembled a very cramped boardroom, the table draped with cheap dollar store plastic tablecloths and laden with big salad bowls, with a variety of things – fruit, a garden salad, and what looked like a Caesar salad in another.
Fen swept me past the room onto the cramped little back landing among other men clad in black leather and asked me, “How do you like your steak?”
“Um, medium-rare?”
“Blackjack, one medium-rare! You already know what I like!”
“Yo! Got it!” a man called up from down below where he manned a barbecue gas grill.
“Thank you!” I called down, and the man raised his beer in an almost salutation before looking up.
“Hey!” he said. “Fen, is that your lady?”
“Yeah,” Fen called down. “Aspen, Blackjack. Blackjack, Aspen.”
“Hi.” I curled my fingers in a shy wave.
“Nice t’ meet you, Aspen. One medium-rare steak, coming right up!”
“Hey, girl!” Dahlia came up the steps and shouldered between two of the men. She was dressed in a pinup dress and looked out of sight. She was so beautiful, and I was envious of her confidence.
She grabbed my hands and kissed air beside each of my cheeks. “Glad you made it.”
“Thank you,” I said with a smile.
“Grab some food, get a drink, and stay a while!” she called out, pushing past Fen and into the narrow hall beyond.
I laughed. “I will!”
“Hi, I’m Major,” a tall, thin ebony man said, his pencil-thin dreadlocks held up in a spray that resembled a crown.
“Aspen,” I said and held out my hand.
Phew, what followed was a small flurry of introductions. The other two men on the little back landing were Nine and Squatch, which there was no mystery on how the latter man got his name. He looked like a Sasquatch with all his black wild beard and hair.
Back inside, Fen led me into the boardroom that he called the chapel. It wasn’t a stretch of the imagination to say this is where they held their club meetings when it wasn’t being used as a buffet.
I fixed myself a plate, and we chatted a bit, the only two making our way around the table. He’d waited for me to eat, and I felt a little bad about that but warmed at the same time.
“What do you like to drink, babe?” he called as we got to the end of the table.
“Cider?” I asked.
“You got it; we’ll stop at the bar on the way out front.
“Okay.”
That’s just what we, did. More introductions shouted along the way. There was Derry and Deacon as well as a couple of men that Fenris said were from the Eastern Washington chapter and new in town. There were men from Western Oregon and Eastern Oregon in attendance, too. However, I would not likely encounter them again.
We took a seat across from one another at one of the picnic tables out front and he yelled out, “Prospect!”
One came running, and he said, “Sauley, Aspen. Aspen, this is our prospect Sauley.”
“Hi, nice to meet you,” I said and Sauley gave me a nod.
“Hi, how’s it goin’?” he said distractedly and looked to Fen, wiping his damp hands on the seat of his jeans. “What’s up, Fen?”
“Bring me and IPA and a Cider for my lady,” he said. “Then go on out back and check with Blackjack on our steaks. If they’re done, bring ‘em to us.”
“You got it.” The prospect, who seemed harried, bobbed his head and took off like a shot.
“Momma Kat! I need an IPA and a Hard Cider!”
“You got it, honey!” the woman behind the bar yelled out.
I smiled and shook my head in amazement as several men on the other side of the front door burst out laughing and one passed a joint to another.
“Doin’ okay?” Fenris asked me.
I nodded, silent, just looking around and taking it all in.
“Seems to me she thinks we’re some kind of a freakshow,” a voice behind my man declared. My head shot up, and I looked wide-eyed at the speaker as Fen turned, scowling.
It was Tic-Tac. I’d met him on Sunday. Dahlia had been with him at the Harley store, but he’d mostly stayed with Fen and Dump Truck. We’d barely exchanged pleasantries when we’d left and parted ways.
I didn’t understand… I hadn’t thought I’d done anything offensive.
“I’m sorry,” I called. “It’s just—”
“You ain’t gotta apologize to him, babe. Tic’s just an asshole,” Fen said and turned back around to face me with a wink.
The prospect came back out with our drinks and said, “Steaks are coming right up!”
“Thank you,” I said to him while Fen just grunted.
I was mollified. I felt as though Tic’s glaring daggers at me behind Fen’s back wasn’t warranted. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I was just existing,
spending time with Fen and here at Fen’s behest to meet his people. I didn’t know what I’d done wrong – and then Vyking’s words came back to me.
Don’t take anything personal and don’t take anyone’s shit.
Okay, I would try. I took a deep breath and a drink of my cider and just ignored Tic and ate my meal.
“So, what did you do today?” Fen asked, returning the subject to me and my day.
“Mm, made several raw serving platters to teach an underglaze decal class the middle of next week. They’re fast and easy to make, but kind of a pain in the ass to fire. They have to be done in batches, but with the decals, you have to do them before the first firing otherwise they don’t quite work. So, I try to make an excess since with greenware breakage is bound to happen.”
“I don’t know how you keep track and do it all, babe.”
“You have a lot more to keep track of on your farm than I do in my little shop,” I said with a laugh.
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “Greenware, earthenware, bisqueware, slurry, scoring, glaze, underglaze, decals, you got all these things and I can’t keep up on which shit is which.”
I smiled. “I kind of miss the days where it was just making things, start to finish. Doing farmer’s markets and the like on the weekends. I don’t miss working what was essentially two and three jobs to get where I am but there was a certain simplicity to it all.” I shook my head and speared a bite of salad. “With everything going on, keeping the shop going is becoming exhausting and I’m not really wholly turning a profit now.”
“Ever consider just doing what makes you happy?” someone behind me asked. I startled slightly and looked up into a handsome face shadowed with afternoon growth, deep indigo eyes sparkling over a million-dollar smile.
“Rare,” he said, setting a plate in front of Fenris. “And medium-rare.” He set a plate down beside the one I was working on.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Mav, you didn’t have to do that,” Fenris declared.
“Of course, I did,” Mav declared and took a seat next to me.
“Aspen, this is my president, Maverick. Mav, I’d like you to meet my girlfriend, Aspen.”
Girlfriend. I didn’t know why the title surprised me. I mean, wasn’t that what we were? Still, it had, and a pleasant blush crept into my cheeks as a giddy riot of butterflies took off in my stomach, tickling the underside of my heart that took off in a rapid succession of beats.
“Hi,” I said with a bit of an unsteady laugh. I wasn’t used to being the center of attention. I was used to Copper, who was the absolute ham of the family and my mother’s favored only son, getting all of the attention, which had suited me growing up. I much preferred hiding on the fringes and the shadows and I absolutely hated being the center of attention in this application.
At work, it was different. At work, I was almost performing a role, and I loved teaching what I so loved to do and sharing that with the world. It was the only time I really did feel comfortable with people. When I was selling or teaching. The scrutiny with which Maverick raked me from head to toe with his gaze had me shrinking in my seat.
“Nice to meet you, Aspen,” he said kindly and gave me a nod.
“Nice to meet you, too,” I murmured.
“Gotta admit, Fen’s been keeping you quite the secret and now I see why,” he said.
“Oh?” I asked, slightly intrigued. I mean, I can’t imagine why Fen would.
“Uh-huh, you’re a knockout.”
I choked on the swallow of cider I’d been taking, coughing and sputtering as Fen looked on concerned and Mav pounded me on the back.
“Um, thank you,” I said and wouldn’t look at either of them, embarrassed.
“Shy, too, I take it.”
“Um, yeah,” I said, slightly uncomfortably.
“She is shy,” Fenris said and smiled at me. His smile was everything, telling me that I was alright.
“And a citizen through and through,” Tic grumbled behind him.
“Disrespect my woman one more fuckin’ time, see what happens,” Fen growled.
I froze. I’d never heard him like that before. His whole face changed into something frightening and I bit my lips together, my stomach turning leaden.
“Easy now, big dog. You know how it is,” Mav said.
“I don’t,” I said softly.
“Just takes a while to get to know you, is all,” Maverick said kindly.
“It would be nice to be given the opportunity,” I said pointedly. “It seems as though some of you have already made up your minds.”
I stared past Fen, pointedly at Tic, Vyking’s words playing over and over in my head, take no shit, take no shit, take no shit.
I wasn’t a mean person. I didn’t have that in me, but I would and could stand my ground if the occasion called for it… which apparently, it did at the moment. Tic laughed in my face, practically, took a drink out of his glass and said, “Look at her trying to be all hard and shit.”
“Mav, he don’t quit it. I’ma knock his fuckin’ ass out.”
Maverick looked nonplussed, but thankfully, he was looking at Tic and not Fenris.
“Not sure what crawled up your ass and died, there, Tic, but I’m inclined to agree with our enforcer here. Keep it up, I’ll sanction that fight.”
Tic scoffed like a sullen teenager and muttered, “Whatever.”
“I don’t know,” Mav said leaning back. “Dump Truck, what do you think?”
Dump Truck sat up, rising like a leviathan from the deep, much like Fen had off his couch that first meeting. He was sitting at the picnic table on the other side of Tic’s from ours.
“I say Tic is fixing to have his ass beat. There ain’t nothing wrong with Aspen. Spent all day with her on Sunday. Little Bird and I happen to like her just fine.”
“You’re seriously going to take the side of some citizen trash over your brother’s?” Tic demanded.
“I told you, you disrespect my woman one more time I was gonna knock your ass out. I meant it. Get your ass up.”
“Fen, please,” I said, frightened. Not for Fenris, but for Tic. He wasn’t any match for Fenris in size and I’d been insulted much more heartily than someone refusing to trust me because of my background. “It’s alright,” I said. “I’m not that fragile and I can take it.”
“Not how it works with us, baby,” Dump Truck called out. “Tic is disrespecting you, you’re Fen’s property, for all Fen hasn’t made it official.”
“That means that shit cannot stand,” Maverick said with a wink at me.
“Please, I don’t want anyone fighting because of me,” I said.
“Ain’t fighting over you, hon,” Dahlia said from the front door. I turned to look at her. She blew a plume of fragrant smoke into the air and handed a joint over to one of the men there looking on in interest.
“They’re fighting over Tic being a royal fucking disrespectful dumbass.” She gave Tic a flat, unfriendly look and turned on her heel, reaching behind her and grasping one of the men’s hand.
“Mav, I’m going to borrow your office if you don’t mind,” she said lightly. “Pool table is occupied.”
Tic looked murderous, and she gave him a meaningful look before towing the guy whose hand she had a hold of into the club.
“Help yourself, Dahlia,” Maverick said, but his expression was thoughtful. Thoughtful and, dare I say, disappointed somehow.
“Fenris, please. Give him one more chance, for me?” I asked.
Tic made a disgusted noise and got up, stalking around our table and going in the front door to the bar.
Fen sank down, staring holes in the other blond man’s back.
“He needs to figure his shit out,” Fen growled.
Mav, who was staring after Tic as well, said, “I don’t disagree. He opens his mouth again in your lady’s direction, I got no problem with you settling things the good old-fashioned way.
“Should I just go home?” I asked
softly. “I really don’t want to cause any trouble.”
“No,” Maverick said unequivocally. “It’s nothing on you, honey. It’s all Tic and whatever issues he’s got going on in his head. We don’t do drama, Tic knows that. He’s just asking to get his ass kicked.”
“I’m gettin’ happy to oblige,” Fenris declared, cracking his knuckles.
I sighed and nodded.
We ate the rest of our food in relative peace and had a nice conversation with Maverick – one that Dump Truck and Little Bird joined us for.
Maverick asked a lot of questions, but I got the impression he was genuinely just trying to get to know me for himself and his own peace of mind, and so I did my best to answer them honestly and truthfully… even if some of them did happen to feel quite personal or strayed into uncomfortable territory.
They weren’t very trusting. I understood that. I also understood that I was wholly an outsider. A law-abiding citizen, through and through… even if or when I disagreed with a particular law. It wasn’t because I was any sort of particular goody two-shoes, I just had always been raised to follow the rules. Not just follow the rules, but to not make waves. I had always been raised to worry incessantly about what other people would think if I did this or that. My mother had always been hard on me, extremely judgmental, while Copper being the male of the family had been allowed to do whatever he wanted.
I hadn’t been lying when I said my mother and I had a contentious relationship. I had never been good enough, really. Had never stood up straight enough, had never been pretty enough or thin enough, a million little flaws of mine and more pointed out at every turn. Not thankful enough, not gracious enough, not appealing enough… very rarely had I made my mother proud.
In short, I was used to being a disappointment. I was certain that no matter what I did, no matter who I encountered, I would always in some way be disappointing.
Which is why I had worked so hard to be precisely what Charles and wanted and needed me to be. Which was why his betrayal had been all the more devastating. I’d done everything right. More than right. I knew that to the bottom of my soul. It had, in its own way, been a sort of revelation.
Then there was Fenris, who lifted me up, who looked at me as though I were some sort of queen, and I have to admit… I loved that despite the feeling that I’d done nothing whatsoever to deserve it.
