Clubs: Motorcycle Club Romance (Savage Saints MC Book 6)

by Hazel Parker

  “I know,” she said. “You told me.”

  “I did?”

  She nodded but didn’t elaborate further. I remembered her coming home, vaguely saying some stuff about not being wanted at the club, and then passing out. If there was anything more to it that Cassie was hinting at, I didn’t remember it.

  “Well, how are you doing? You look like you haven’t slept much.”

  “I didn’t.”

  Again, she didn’t elaborate. Now worry began to fill me. Cassie had the exact same reaction I did to stressful situations: to turtle up, shut down the outside world, and ignore any questions that could have poked deeper into the protective shell. I knew how to play this game, but that didn’t mean I wanted to play this game.

  “Why is that?” I asked in as nice a voice as I could muster.

  “Just making sure you were fine,” she said. “Nothing crazy.”

  I let that go at first, taking a seat at the kitchen table. I put my head in my hands, mostly trying to beat off the strengthening hangover. I stood up after a few moments to get a glass of water—and, really, to kiss Cassie—but when I moved in for the smooch, it felt very half-hearted, the kind of thing a gal only did when she wanted to get it over with.

  When I pulled back, I looked at her for a few seconds, trying to ascertain how much it was worth pushing her here. Considering she had only told me about her miscarriage and her father losing his mind when I asked her to, it didn’t seem implausible that it would be the only way she’d start talking.

  So, with a sigh, I leaned against the fridge and looked at her.

  “You know, I quit the club last night, and I have no regrets about that,” I said. “But I can’t quit you. I can’t do that. I can’t do that even if I know you’re not saying something. Can you tell me what it is?”

  Cassie froze, the bacon dropping from her tongs, and I knew no matter what she actually said, her body language had given me the answer. Something was up. Would she tell me what?

  “Do you really want to know, Brett?” she said sadly. “Do you really want to know? Because you’re going to hate me when you hear it.”

  “You want to dump me,” I said, going straight to my worst fears. “You opened up, you’ve had sex, and now you realize we’re not the same as we were fifteen years ago. You feel you made a mistake sleeping with me.”

  I took a deep, hopeful but not optimistic, breath.

  “Is that it?”

  She shook her head.

  “No, not exactly.”

  Not exactly… not exactly the phrase I want to hear right now.

  “Then what?” I said.

  Boy, I’m asking the questions that are going to hurt like hell, huh?

  “Brett, where do you want to be in, say, five years?”

  “Me?” I said. “If you asked me a day ago, I would have said with the rest of the Saints. Today? I have no idea. I just quit last night. I haven’t figured out what I want to run toward, just what…”

  I want to run from.

  “Mmm,” Cassie said, absentmindedly putting the last of the breakfast food on our plates. “You know what my career journey has been, right?”

  “To become a lawyer, no matter what,” I said. “That’s been your objective since I first knew you as the cute freshman.”

  “Yep,” she said. “And… that hasn’t changed, Brett. Even after the last few days.”

  Finally, she looked up at me. She didn’t look like she had many tears left to shed, even if she seemed like she was about to get into something that would make us both cry.

  “I don’t want to practice law in Las Vegas,” she said. “The Red Door was just supposed to be the final step before I enrolled in law school. With how it pays, and with the connections I could make, it seemed like the fastest way to make that happen. Meeting you was just… it was a bonus. A nice bonus, but a bonus, nevertheless. I figured I’d never see you again.”

  I smiled gently at that as I motioned for her to come to the table so I could at least eat something good before the rest of this conversation crushed me.

  “When you showed up, it complicated things emotionally. In a good way, to be clear. But it hasn’t changed my plans for law school, Brett.”

  “How long?” I asked. “How long until you quit?”

  “Six months.”

  My jaw dropped when I heard that. I’d figured maybe two or three years, at least long enough that we could try our relationship again and then decide at her departure time if we could be a romantic couple. But six months?

  Six months didn’t allow much time for anything. Six months was an extended summer fling, not a relationship of love. Six months was nothing.

  “You’re serious?” I said.

  “Very,” she said.

  “How long ago did you decide this?”

  Cassie bit her lip. Guilt wasn’t the right word, but preemptive empathy, perhaps, fit the bill better.

  “Right after Crystal’s death,” she said. “When I first joined, with the pay and the clientele, I gave myself two years, maybe three if I liked it. I’d save enough money to have minimal bills in law school and then jump right into the career. But money saved won’t get me anything if I get shot.”

  Wasn’t that just the fucking cherry on the top? My failure to stop the Sinners had not only brought the California Saints in, but it had also led to the murder of a girl that would push my love away from me for a second time.

  “I’m sorry, Brett,” she said. “I was going to tell you this last night. I really should have told it to you before, but the implication didn’t cross my mind until last night. But then you looked like you’d had such a shitty day, I didn’t want to make you hurt even more dropping this bombshell.”

  “You weren’t even going to tell me today, were you?”

  It wasn’t an accusation. It was more just a matter of fact.

  “Probably not,” she admitted.

  Someday, she’d get better at revealing these kinds of things. I didn’t begrudge her that much, honestly. I knew how hard it was to confess a truth like this. I just hoped there would come a day when we wouldn’t need to have such conversations.

  But with today’s revelation, it seemed like “a day” would have to happen either in the next six months or never. If she didn’t say it, then I would never see her again. Cassie would walk out of my life, and life would not give me a third try.

  “At least I’m being abandoned to my face this time.”

  I gave a half-hearted chuckle at my miserable, dreary attempt at humor, but Cassie didn’t return it in kind. She was deadly serious, looking hurt by what I had said. Who could fault her for feeling that way?

  “So six months, huh?” I said.

  “Six months,” Cassie repeated. She hadn’t touched her food yet, hadn’t even picked up a fork. I ate a couple of pieces of bacon, but I couldn’t claim that I felt any better because of it. “Las Vegas isn’t a place for me. I have aspirations and goals in the business and legal field. This place? This is where people get entertained and go on vacation. It’s a great place for you, Brett, and I’m not saying that condescendingly. I always loved you for your humor and your spirit. But… maybe we’re just not meant to be.”

  Ouch.

  I don’t think a worse thing could have been said right now. And yet, it’s probably the most accurate thing to say. If a fling like this can’t bring us back together, nothing can.

  I put my head in my hands, snorting through my nostrils and rubbing my still-waking eyes with my palms.

  “Just so you know, I do appreciate you telling me right now,” I said. “It may not feel like a great time, but I’d rather find out now than when it’s three months out or even one month out.”

  “I wouldn’t be that bad,” Cassie said, finally taking a bite of her bacon.

  But you might have been. Even you have to admit that.

  I sat in that chair in silence for the rest of the meal. Cassie gave me space, and we both ate quietly, munching on
our eggs and bacon. The distance from one chair to the next had never felt so vast, so distant. We were only about three or four feet apart physically, but with just one conversation, we’d gone from confessing our love to each other to admitting that before the year was out, we’d be separated permanently.

  What a fucking twelve-hour stretch. First, I quit my job, and now, my lady quit me. Life was a real fucking bitch sometimes.

  And the worst part of it all was just how well this dalliance with Cassie had gone. It wasn’t like I saw her and realized she’d grown into a fucking bitch or a sniveling asshole. She was the same Cassie I’d fallen in love with. It made it easier to fall back into that love, but it made it much harder to pull out of it now that I was rejected.

  When Cassie finally finished, she swallowed hard, as if the food had gotten stuck, and looked at me. I just grimaced and gave a weak smile.

  “I always did feel I was out of your league.”

  She gave a sweet laugh at that, though I wasn’t making a joke.

  “We can still do this if you want,” Cassie said. “I still love you, Brett. That will never change. I will always support you and defend you, regardless of wherever we go or whomever we wind up with.”

  “I know,” I said, feeling like it was the ultimate in moral victories.

  In other words, victories that didn’t mean shit. Last I checked, love couldn’t be sent like an email. It wasn’t something that I got unexpectedly and felt better by. It was something the person had to be present to give me, something that I had to feel with my own hands to receive.

  “I don’t think I can, though,” I said with a sigh. “Cassie… I love you. I love you with everything I have. But I can’t love someone knowing that they’ll walk out on me. I…”

  “I know,” she said softly. “I’m the one who caused you to be that way.”

  I chose to let no answer be the affirmation she needed to that question.

  “Can we stay friends, though?” she asked. “I understand if not. But you make my life better. I don’t want to lose you again.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, but I already knew what that meant in terms of us. “I just… I just need space right now.”

  Cassie grimaced, taking one more bite of the scraps of her food. She stood up, went to grab her keys, and then came back.

  “I still love you, Brett,” she said. “And whether you see me every day or never again for the rest of my life, I’ll always love you.”

  I bowed my head, put my elbows on the table, and nodded. She came over, gave me a gentle kiss on the top of my head, and embraced me tightly.

  “I love you.”

  But I couldn’t bring myself to say the words back to her. Not because I didn’t feel the same way. But because I loved her too much.

  I heard Cassie crying as she walked out the door. I wanted to run to her, hold her, and tell her it would be OK. I wanted to tell her that I would travel to the moon to be with her.

  And who the hell knew? Maybe I would decide I’d just follow her to wherever she went to law school. I had only lived in a little sliver of the country already, but there was no reason to believe I couldn’t just pack up and go somewhere else.

  But when I thought about it… I didn’t even know where to start. It was possible, but right now, life just seemed like a storm with no visibility. I had to wait until shit calmed down before I could make goddamn sense of it.

  At least, this time, I’d been abandoned with my knowledge.

  Chapter 16: Cassie

  It never got any easier. In fact, it got a hell of a lot harder.

  A whole month passed without me hearing a word from Brett. When he didn’t text me at the end of the first day, I figured he just needed space and didn’t say anything. When he didn’t text me at the end of the first week, I imagined that he just wanted to test himself but would come back.

  But now? After a month in which not only had he not texted me, but he had not spoken to anyone at the club? I truly believed that Brett Pierce was now gone from my life forever, never to return. I’d had the treat of having him make a surprise cameo for a couple of weeks, but that’s all he would be in my life—a cameo, a brief fling, a return to the good old days, but also a reminder that the good old days were that for a reason.

  It wasn’t helping matters that every day at the club was an awkward reminder of him. I had never seen the club without Brett before the past month, and while more time had passed in which Brett was not at the club than he was, that he’d started there with me made me feel like the two were entangled with each other. Dom, apparently realizing one day I had become single, tried to hit on me, but Mama slapped him so hard it knocked him to the ground. Suffice to say, Dom didn’t try to hit on me again.

  I found myself heading to my car at night, looking for Brett’s motorcycle. I wanted the rush of sexual energy the bike gave me, sure, but more than that, I wanted the thrill of feeling my goosebumps flare when my arms were around him. I wanted the uncontrolled smile that formed when I saw him walking toward me. I wanted the rush that came from having him kiss me and then lift me in the air.

  None of which was coming.

  And none of which would come.

  Before my first shift of the workweek, I started doing some financial calculations. My savings plan had always been in place on the basis of minimizing loans and having some housing expenses, but was that worth the utter lack of life quality? Was it worth remaining at the club if my life could never move forward?

  I tried to project how long it would take me to save money before I had enough to at least get off the ground and at law school. I knew how much better positioned I’d be if I saved more and more, but I could just as easily get a job in Los Angeles or somewhere else in Vegas where I wouldn’t have to run into Brett or anyone that reminded me of him. Even if I took a pay cut of fifty percent, I’d still be in great position to have a jump start in law school.

  I was blown away at how little I needed to work, even if I didn’t get another gig in the next six or so months.

  I approached Mama when I got to the club, finding her in the changing room as normal.

  “Can I talk to you for a second?” I said.

  Mama, smiling easily at something else one of the other girls said, put her hand on my shoulder and led me outside, to the theatre. For such an open space, it was empty right now, just what I needed.

  “What’s going on, hun?” she said.

  “Mama,” I said, taking a deep breath. You want to get better at hard conversations? This is it. “I’m putting in my two weeks’ notice.”

  “Huh?” Mama said, more of a sudden reaction than an actual word. “You’re quitting? You’re one of our best dancers. What the hell is going on?”

  I bit my lower lip as my chest tensed.

  “I just need to move on,” I said. “I just need to go somewhere where I’m not emotionally tied up and invested in.”

  “Fuck,” Mama said, putting her right hand on her forehead, pinching her thumb and index finger together. “Jesus. This sucks. You’re a wonderful lady, dear. I knew we wouldn’t have you for long. I just wished it was for longer than two months.”

  “As do I,” I said. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

  “Don’t be,” Mama said. “Hun, I always said that I would put you and your goals first. I’d ride you like hell if you had a bad performance, but if you did what you were supposed to, I would defend you until I ran out of options. And I never had to ride you like hell. So if this is what you wanna do…”

  Mama, though, didn’t look like she wanted to believe what she was saying. She spoke more in platitudes and less from the heart. I knew that if I asked her what was really on her mind, I might not like what I heard. But in the spirit of trying to get better with these types of conversations…

  “You don’t want me to go, do you?”

  “Fuck no, you kidding me?” Mama said with a laugh. “We’ve had a rough month at The Red Door. First, everything with Crystal.
Then Brett just… fucking goes off the grid. And now you’re leaving. Look, girl, I just appreciate you giving me two weeks’ notice. Most of the girls that storm out on us wind up quitting the day of, and that’s a real bitch to deal with.”

  She folded her arms and shook her head.

  “Can I convince you to stay any longer?”

  I grimaced.

  “Not sure,” I said. “I really need to move on. I need a new place.”

  “Fuck,” Mama said. “OK, how about this? It’s Thursday, right? Give me a week to try to persuade you to stay. So you’ll stay three more weeks total. I’ll pay you time and a half for that last week if you stick it out. If you still want to leave then, we’ll wish you all the luck in the world as you leave. But I will do everything in my power to get you to stay.”

  I shrugged. I could manage one more week, especially if the paycheck over the three days was over four grand instead of three grand.

  But I didn’t see anything changing my mind. Not at this point. Not with Brett still not in my life. Not with me changing my aspirations for law school.

  “OK,” I said. “I can do that.”

  “Thanks,” Mama said. “Don’t take offense if we try to put the full-court press on you the next seven days. You’re one of my girls, you know. I don’t want to lose you if I can help it.”

  “I know,” I said with an empathic smile.

  If only all bosses could simultaneously be as sweet and as crassly hilarious as Mama.

  “Oh, and one more thing?”

  Mama nodded.

  “Don’t tell Brett,” I said. “That’s… that’s something I need to tell him.”

  But how? He hasn’t texted you in a month. You think he wants to hear from you right now?

  Or maybe you’re just rationalizing an excuse to not see him, to leave without warning again. What’s going to happen if he shows up in a month and finds out from Mama you’re not here? He forgave you once. Don’t think he can forgive you twice.

  “OK, but if I see him after you leave and he asks, I’m telling him.”