I’d set the pan of potatoes down on the bar with a clatter when his lips touched her. My fists had tightened, and a growl brewed in the back of my throat.
“Chill, big guy, I was just fucking with you. Wanted to see if she was just an easy fuck for you or if she was uh… more. Guess I got my answer.” Check spoke quietly as he stepped closer to me, and I noticed a twinkle in his eyes. Little fucker. He always did know how to rile me up. He gave me a hug that I reluctantly returned.
He was right though. It was a valid question, because everyone there knew what had happened with Grace. Gwen was the first chick I’d shown any interest in since then.
Smoke stepped forward. “Hey, bro, don’t let Check’s ass ruin the day. He’s only playing, you know.”
Shaking my head, I cleared it. “Hell, I know. I guess it caught me off guard, and I didn’t like it.”
A small hand slipped around my arm and grasped my bicep. A stupid smile tipped my lips as I looked down at the beautiful woman next to me. “Gwen, I want to introduce you to my brothers. This is our president, Smoke. That’s Slice, Truth, Straight, and of course you met Check, the smart-ass. Over there on the couch are Clay and his wife, Claudia, and the prospects are working the bar and cooking. Looks like Lock isn’t here yet. He’ll be here shortly with his wife, Raiven, his daughter, Presley, and son, Bryson.”
“Hi, everyone.” She gave a little wave and a shy grin.
Once introductions were complete, I pulled her off to the side. “Hey, I hope you don’t think…. Fuck, I don’t even know what I hope. Other than I don’t want you to be uncomfortable here. I know it’s not your usual type of company. Check was playing around, and I kind of overreacted.”
“It’s okay. Really. I knew he was messing around. Well, I was pretty sure he was.” She smiled softly.
“That’s not was I was worried about. I mean, I don’t want you thinking I’m a jealous asshole or something. Things are new with us. We haven’t really established what we are, and I…. Why do I feel like I’m making a real balls of this?” Frustrated, I ran a hand through my hair. “Look, I also didn’t want you thinking we were the type of club that, uh, shared our women or something.” I looked away uncomfortably, deathly afraid that was exactly what she’d be afraid of and haul ass on me. I remembered she’d said she’d watched some stupid documentary shit on MCs.
Her tiny hand turned my face in her direction. “Hey. I could tell you wouldn’t be the type of guy to do that. Well, I gave you the benefit of the doubt anyway.” Her mouth curled.
Backed by a bunch of catcalls, I leaned down and kissed her deep and possessively. Breaking free of her intoxicating little body, I chuckled. “Fuck no, I don’t share. I barely play well with others.”
“Over and Over”—Three Days Grace
“Hi, I’m Raiven. Nice to meet you.” The dark-haired woman was all inked up and gorgeous. I was embarrassed to realize that she was the woman I’d seen with Styx in Galveston. Evidently she was the wife of one of the other guys.
“I’m Gwen.” I shook the hand she offered as she held a chubby baby boy with her other arm.
“So nice to meet you. Soooo, you came with Styx?” She grinned mischievously.
“Umm, yes?” It came out as a question because I wasn’t sure what the big deal was.
“Momma! I have a juice box?” The little blonde girl dressed in a frilly tutu with a Harley T-shirt and hot pink Converse tugged on Raiven’s shirt.
“Yes, sweetheart. Just have someone get it out for you. I don’t want you digging in the cooler.”
“Otay! Bruver have one too?”
Raiven laughed. “No, he’s too little. But thank you for thinking of your brother.”
“Yeah, hims too widdle.” The little tow-headed girl nodded sagely before she took off running to find her juice box.
“Sorry, that was Presley. She’s a sweetheart but a hellion.” The brilliance of her smile made me feel a little self-conscious. She was so pretty, and her tattoos were so cool. It left me feeling a little inferior, kind of like when we’d run into Maddox’s ex at the restaurant.
I hated feeling that way, but my inadequacies had been ingrained in me by my mom and sister for the majority of my life.
“She’s fine. I’m a teacher, so I’m used to kids. Well, I teach middle school, but I started out with kindergarten until there was an opening for a math teacher at my current school.” I reached out and touched the back of the baby’s chubby hand. “He’s so cute. Styx said his name was Bryson? I love that name. It’s so unusual.”
“Thank you. It was my dad’s name.” She smiled, but I detected a hint of sadness in her blue eyes. That’s when I realized she said it “was” her dad’s name.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”
“No, not at all. We named him after my dad because he was a good man and I loved him with all my heart. I miss him though.” She sighed.
“I bet.”
We sat silently for a moment.
When Styx stepped up behind me and slipped a hand around me to rest it on my abdomen, I leaned back into his warmth without hesitation. As soon as I glanced over my shoulder, he leaned down and kissed me.
“Hey, beautiful,” he said when he was done. I was momentarily speechless as I reveled in his nearness.
“Hey.”
A blond guy with a ton of tattoos stepped up next to Raiven and kissed her cheek. He was holding Presley as she sucked down her juice. They were a striking couple, him fair and her so dark, but both very inked up. They looked like they could be models in a tattoo magazine.
“This is my handsome husband, Matlock, or Lock as everyone here calls him.” Raiven made introductions.
“Pleasure,” he said as he nodded at me. “Nice to meet the woman who has this one tied up in knots.” He chuckled as he motioned to Styx.
I glanced up at Styx in time to see him roll his eyes and fight a smile.
“Nice to meet you and your lovely family.” I was in awe of these people. They were so much nicer and nowhere near as wild as the stuff I’d seen in the documentaries I’d watched. Obviously those things had been a little skewed.
They excused themselves to feed their kiddos.
“You hungry?” Styx asked me.
“Starving,” I admitted.
“Then let’s get you some food.” With his hand resting on my lower back, he guided me to the line that was forming. There was a table of food set up buffet style, and it all smelled delicious.
There were tables pushed together at the center of the room, and everyone was setting their plates down as they laughed and joked with one another. Though they were all very kind, I was still nervous. They all seemed to know each other well. A family—exactly as Styx had described them.
It left me feeling like a bit of an outsider. Then again, that could’ve been me, because of how I was raised. My whole life, my mom and sister made me into the third wheel everywhere we went. At least until I was old enough to work. Then I used that as an excuse to avoid them.
“So what do you do?” Clay’s wife asked me. I’d forgotten her name already.
“I’m a middle school math teacher.” As soon as I answered, I took a drink of my water. Being the center of attention made my mouth dry.
“Whoa. You must not only be smart, but brave. Middle schoolers can be vicious,” she replied.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Sometimes, yes, they can.”
“So how did you and Styx meet?” Raiven asked as she cut up Presley’s food while Lock held their son by her side.
“Ummm,” I started, then Styx interrupted and saved me.
“At the coffee shop in Leander. She tried to run me over.” The corner of his lips twisted wryly.
I couldn’t help but giggle. “More like he tried to break my nose with his chest.”
Everyone laughed.
Styx leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I’d stick my nose in your chest any day.”
My fac
e flamed, because I immediately had a visual of his face between my boobs.
“Oh my God, stop,” I whispered.
“Never.” Unrepentant, he grinned.
We stayed well into the late afternoon. It turned out to be a great day. Relaxing and full of laughs. The guys in his club were witty and entertaining, and the two wives were sweet.
Finally everyone said their goodbyes, and we headed home.
Styx wasn’t overly talkative on the drive back to his place. He did, however, hold my hand and absently rub his thumb over my knuckles. Still, he seemed a million miles away.
“You’re quiet tonight,” I finally said.
Glancing my way, he sighed. “Sorry, I have a lot on my mind. Did you enjoy yourself today?”
“Surprisingly, yes I did. Can I ask you a question?” Nervously, I chewed on my fingernail.
“You just did.” He chuckled. “But yes, go ahead.”
“Are you outlaws?”
He chuckled again before he answered. “Are we outlaws? Well, the term outlaw refers to someone who operates outside of the law. So if you believe people who take care of things the cops can’t or won’t are working outside of the law, then I guess by definition and belief, we’re outlaws. But we prefer not to wear a 1% on our cuts because we don’t want the shit from law enforcement that the 1% patch draws. We mostly keep to ourselves, and we’ve been given authority to be here by ‘Big Brother’—the local 1% club. But don’t mistake that for us owing allegiance to them; we’re not a support club. We owe allegiance to no one but ourselves. We don’t step on their toes, and they don’t step on ours.”
“But you’re a nurse. Aren’t you afraid of losing your license?”
“For what? Being in a motorcycle club? That’s not a crime.” He shrugged as he kept his eyes on the road. It seemed like an evasive answer, but I decided not to push.
Before I knew it, we were pulling up and parking in his garage.
“Hey,” he said before he touched my chin, turning my head his way. “Thanks for coming with me today, and thanks for accepting my family.”
A soft brush of his lips to mine deepened, and the next thing I knew, his fingers were tangled in my hair. In response, my hands tightly held his shirt.
“That was nice,” I sighed as we broke off. “And your family was easy to like. Thank you for bringing me and caring enough for me to meet them.”
“Not a problem. I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.”
We climbed out of the truck and went inside. I’d kicked off my shoes in the laundry room and started toward the bedroom to change into some comfy clothes when his phone rang.
He stayed in the kitchen, but I could hear him talking. I sat on the edge of bed as I pulled on my ratty Pink Floyd T-shirt. Not wanting to be too nosy, I figured I’d wait for him to get off the phone.
“Hey. No, Sabrina, I can’t. I’m busy.” His voice became indiscernible as he walked out into the living room.
Who was Sabrina? It bothered me that he’d moved further away and his voice had dropped. The thought of being duped made me slightly ill.
Uncertain of what to do, I sat there chewing on my lip. He was in the other room talking to another woman. Was she someone he was interested in? Was he playing me?
Chastising myself for jumping to conclusions, I took a deep breath.
It wasn’t long before he was in the bedroom and stripping out of his clothes.
I was pretty sure that was my new favorite thing to do. Watch him take off his clothes. He made the simple act look sexy as hell, or maybe it was my mind. My dirty mind that I blamed on him.
“Did you want me to make supper?” he asked as he grabbed a pair of sleeping pants from his drawer.
“Lordy, no. I’m still full from lunch.” We’d eaten a little later in the day, and I’d made a glutton out of myself, so I was comfortably full.
At my answer, he looked at me, looked at the sleeping pants, then tossed them on the dresser and turned the covers back.
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask who called, but I didn’t want to sound like a jealous bitch. Finally, I couldn’t stand it. Once he’d climbed into bed, I had to know. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, why?” He appeared confused as he rolled to face me.
“Your phone call. I thought maybe something was up with your club, er, family.” I was pretty sure there was no one named Sabrina at his clubhouse.
“Huh? Oh, that. No, that was work. They wanted me to work overtime tomorrow because one of the other nurses called in sick. I guess she had a bad case of food poisoning and went home sick from her shift today.” He toyed with my hair as he spoke.
“I hope she’s better soon.” Relief that there was a reasonable explanation flooded me. Guilt also ate at me for feeling all crazy jealous in the first place. There was no reason to think we were exclusive, and I’d willingly jumped into this situation with him.
“Me too, but not my circus, not my monkeys. Now come here.” He tugged until I rolled over on top of him. Instinct had me resting a leg on either side of him.
“Isn’t it a little early for us to go to bed?” I laughed.
He grinned.
“Who said anything about sleeping?”
“This Means War”—Avenged Sevenfold
“We need to do something about the Vagabonds. They are getting fucking gutsy.” Smoke spoke to those of us at the table.
“Now what?” I asked as I slid a hand over my face. They’d been a thorn in our side since before I’d caught one of their members in my bed with Grace. Since then, they’d gotten worse, and I blamed myself.
“They tried to run Slice off the road this morning. Thankfully he was able to slow down a little before he lost control and had to lay his bike down.” Truth looked at all of us. “He’s in the hospital for observation because the dumbass wasn’t wearing a helmet.”
That explained the emergency church and Slice’s absence. “Why didn’t anyone say anything sooner?”
“Because we didn’t want it out on any live wires that the Vagabonds did it. It was reported as a near miss of a semi coming over into his lane and he lost control. In case we decide to take care of this shit on our own,” Straight announced.
There were several murmured comments and a dull roar of back and forth ensued. Smoke slapped his hand on the table, “Enough! All right, listen up. We need to decide where we go from here. Bitching and grumbling aren’t going to fix the matter. I’m going to put a call in to their prez to see if I can get him to rein his guys in. If he refuses or they don’t listen, then we’ll decide where we go from there.”
Radar spoke up, “I don’t mean to point out the obvious since I’m late to the party, but haven’t we already done that? I was under the impression that after the bullshit that ensued with Styx’s ol’ lady, that it was made clear that we wouldn’t deal with their shit, yet here we are. Dealing with their shit.”
“He’s right. I’m done pussyfooting around their asses. We need to send a message. I say we put a green light on ’em. See how they like that.” I was pissed and sick of dealing with their petty shit.
“Look, most of us work for the club’s businesses, but you have a license to worry about, bro. You can’t be out there beating the shit out of people willy-nilly.” Straight spoke up again.
“It’s not willy-nilly. It’s very specific. And quite frankly, if I lose my license, I lose my license. I’m not going to stand by and let them take potshots at us. When is it too much? When one of us is dead? What good is my license if I’m a vegetable or dead?” I asked.
There was some grumbling, and Smoke looked resigned. He had a level head that I appreciated, but sometimes I worried he was too conservative. “This could stir up a shit storm of epic proportions. We need to think long and hard about this. It could end up putting us against Big Brother, and that’s not something we want.”
“I get that, but we need to put a stop to this. Enough is enough. Maybe what we need to do is bring Big Brother in
to the fold and let them know exactly what those fuckers are doing.” Truth was quiet but defiant with the two cents he added. He had a hard streak that bordered on cold.
“Truth is right. We either handle this in a way that tells people not to fuck with us or we let Big Brother handle it,” Radar said. Big Brother was always protective of their support clubs; however they’d quickly discipline them when they were flat-out wrong.
“Look, this isn’t some fucking TV show. We aren’t criminals. What the hell do you think will happen if it gets out that we attacked their club?” Straight questioned.
“Uh, maybe other clubs will leave us the fuck alone?” Lock had been quiet until then. Since he’d made the jump down here from our Iowa chapter, he hadn’t had a lot of interaction with the Vagabonds, but he knew what it was like when another club ran roughshod over ours.
He’d been held captive by the Demon Runners Omaha chapter. Well, by their president, Viper, and a mafia prick that had been Raiven’s ex. I was surprised he’d survived it. He was doing surprisingly well, but it had left him bitter.
As our SAA, it was Lock’s job to protect the club and our prez, but to date we hadn’t had anyone try to fuck with our P or our VP. That could change in a heartbeat if we continued to let the Vagabonds get away with the shit they were pulling.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped up and did my job. “Enough. We’re all on the same side, remember? If Smoke says we need to think before we jump, then that’s what we do. Hell, it’s my fault they have a beef with us like they do. Maybe my emotions want to do something stupid and beat the fuck out of every damn one of them, but realistically, it could be a few bad apples. It may not be the whole club. Smoke, what do you think of you, me, and Lock having a sit down with their P and SAA? It’s possible he doesn’t know what some of his patches are doing.”
After this being tabled, a vote was cast, and everyone agreed. “Fine, I’ll set up the sit down. Where? It needs to be neutral ground, preferably somewhere public but with an area we can’t be overheard.” Smoke slowly met each of our gazes.
“What about the rock quarry? Then if they piss us off, we bury them in limestone.” Radar chuckled.
Styx and Stones: A Demented Sons MC Texas Novel Page 7
