Spotting him in the corner sitting at a table by himself, I make my way towards him and pull out a chair.
“Can I get you a refill?” I ask, eyeing the mostly empty bottle of whiskey sitting in front of him.
Lifting his bloodshot eyes to mine, he stares at me blankly. Our president is hurting and to be honest, I didn’t expect to see him here tonight. Hell, Gina and I weren’t even sure he’d show tomorrow. Losing his youngest son has left the man with a broken heart and a fractured soul.
“I think I’ve had enough,” he slurs, pushing his empty glass away. “You, on the other hand, look way too sober to be the man of the hour.”
“Eh, I told you guys I was perfectly content with ordering Chinese and watching the game. Is Nico here? I didn’t catch him,” I say, glancing around the bar for Wolf’s oldest son.
He shakes his head.
“No, he’s…well…I don’t know where he is,” he reveals, looking away. A moment later he clears his throat. “I think I need to get going. I just wanted to show face,” he continues, glancing over my shoulder at the group of guys behind me. “You’re in good hands.”
“Wolf, listen…” I start, but my voice trails as I try to find a way to make things right for him. The guy has done so much for all of us and there ain’t shit we can do to repay him. We can’t bring back his son and we can’t take away his pain. All we can do is watch him fall to pieces.
“I don’t have any words for you, man, just know I’m here for you,” I sigh.
I swallow as he reaches across the table and lays a hand on my tattooed forearm.
“Appreciate the concern, Stryker,” he rasps, quickly pulling his hand back. With jerky movements, he grabs the edge of the table and goes to stand, but he bumps into the table, knocking over the bottle of whiskey. “Shit,” he hisses.
Quick to help him, I right the bottle.
“I got it,” I tell him, glancing over my shoulder in search of Blackie or Bishop. Neither of them drinks, and it’s clear Wolf is in no condition to ride.
“Bishop grab a cage in the back and take Wolf home,” I call.
“Boy, I don’t need a chauffeur, I’m fine,” he growls, swaying on his feet.
“Getting married to the woman of my dreams,” I say, rounding the table to grab his arm. Ever the stubborn bastard, he spats my hand away, but his beady eyes meet mine. “You brought me here and gave me a life worth living. I wouldn’t have my patch or my woman without you. I want you there tomorrow, so do me a fucking favor and let Bishop take you home. The last thing I need is you wrapping yourself around a tree the night before my wedding.”
To my surprise, he doesn’t argue. Instead, he draws his fingers through his hair and follows Bishop out the door without so much as a look towards anyone else. Once he and Bishop are out of sight, I grab the bottle of whiskey and bring it to the bar. The banter from earlier has come to a halt and we drink in silence.
“This has got to be the most depressing bachelor party in the existence of bachelor parties,” Riggs comments as he glances around at the sorry bunch of men sitting along the bar.
“I told you we should’ve hired a band or something,” Linc says, pointing his empty shot glass at Riggs.
“You wanted him to book a band called The Amish Bandits,” Pipe chimes in.
“Actually, they’re called The Amish Outlaws and they’re fucking awesome,” Linc argues. “It would’ve been a nice touch since Stryker proposed when we went to see them.”
“You people saw an Amish band?” Parrish questions, shaking his head.
A chuckle escapes my throat as I refill my glass. There’s no use in arguing with them.
“Yeah, and by some miracle of God, Gina agreed to marry me. It was a great night.”
“Christ you sound like a pussy,” Pipe mutters.
“I wonder if the girls are having this much fun,” Deuce ponders sarcastically.
At the mention of our women, I think back to Gina in that dress and selfishly I hope she isn’t having the time of her life. In fact, I want her to end the night early so I can peel that dress off her body and bury myself so deep inside her that when she says I do she clenches her thighs and recalls how hard she was fucked the night before she became Mrs. Kincaid.
Yeah, I hope she’s having a miserable time.
The worst.
-Three-
Gina
“Here’s to the men who love us, the idiots who lost us and the lucky bastards who get to meet us,” Nikki cheers, raising her plastic champagne flute—compliments of our limo driver.
“Does anyone want to tell her we’ve been stuck on the side of the road for a half-hour?” Celeste asks, peering out the window.
I lift the champagne bottle from the cooler and eye my cousin. Since she had her twin girls, Nikki doesn’t get out much. However, the former party girl in her seems to be making a comeback tonight.
“And ruin her good time? Never. Who wants more champagne?”
With a hiccup, Ally lowers her head back inside the limo and pushes her plastic glass towards me. I wonder if the whole hanging out the sunroof has the same effect when the limo is at a complete standstill.
“I love champagne,” she says. “It might be one of my top favorite things.”
“Careful,” I say, as I refill her glass. “This is the last bottle.”
“We’re going to have to make a pitstop,” Nikki adds.
“We would have to move for that to happen,” Celeste mumbles.
“Kelly, what about you? You haven’t had a drink—” my voice trails and my eyes go wide. “Oh my God…are you?”
Tucking a strand of bright pink hair behind her ear, she worries her bottom lip between her teeth and gives a slight nod.
“Five weeks. We didn’t want to tell anyone until I went to the doctor, but I had my first sonogram this morning.”
“Oh my God!” I shriek, shoving the bottle of champagne back into the cooler. Crawling across the limo, I envelop her into a hug. “This is the best news.”
“I would’ve waited to tell you guys until after the wedding—”
“Stop,” I tell her, pulling back to meet her gaze. “I’m so happy for you. How did Linc react?”
“Oh, please, after we left the doctor he stopped at Shoprite to buy a case of pickles and ice cream.”
“You have cravings already?” Nikki asks.
“No, he assumed as soon as the doctor confirmed the pregnancy, I’d want to dip pickles in ice cream. We went to Barnes and Noble after that and got him a book for expectant fathers.”
Everyone laughs except for Ally, who furrows her brows.
“Everyone is having babies and getting married.”
The limo goes silent and Celeste is first to respond, draping an arm around Ally’s shoulders.
“What about you and Deuce? Have you talked about taking things to the next step?”
“Honestly?” she shakes her head. “I mean I’m just over here trying to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. Ever since Needles left with Ashlynn, I’ve been searching for jobs and getting certified online to do just about anything. I’m a phlebotomist, a reverend and next week I’ll be selling Pampered Chef products…I don’t even cook.”
“Wait a minute, you’re a reverend?” Celeste questions.
“Yeah, I can marry people,” she says, looking at me. “Sorry, I got certified after you did all those pre cana classes. Then I heard Stryker complaining about the church hitting you over the head with an outrageous fee, and I decided to keep my mouth shut figuring he’d lose his shit if he knew I could marry you guys for free.”
Celest nudges Ally with her elbow.
“What? Was I not supposed to say anything?”
A frown works my lips. Stryker complaining about the wedding was news to me.
“I’m still stuck on you being a reverend,” Kelly says. “Who would hire you to marry them?”
“Apparently no one, hence the Pampered Chef gig,” Ally repli
es, a frown ticking the corners of her mouth.
“Gina, wipe that look off your face,” Celeste orders, forcing me to snap my attention back to her. “You look like someone kicked your puppy.”
“I just didn’t know Stryker was complaining about the wedding.”
“He wasn’t complaining about marrying you,” Ally clarifies. “He was complaining about all the hoopla. I mean, come on, you got the guy wearing a tuxedo. I’ve never seen him wear anything but jeans.”
When we first got engaged, Stryker told me he didn’t care where we got married or when he just wanted me to be his forever. At the time my brother had just been shot and was missing in action. After the incident of which we don’t speak of, we started mending our strained relationship. He was my only tie to my mother, and I wanted him to give me away. While waiting for him to come back to the land of the living, I busied myself with bridal magazines.
It was in between the Vera Wang dresses and over the top centerpieces that I decided Stryker and I would have a big wedding, complete with a twelve-hundred-dollar cake, five bridesmaids and five flower girls, two of which are Nikki’s twins and because they’re too little to walk down the aisle I had someone make a replica of Cinderella’s carriage—Luca and Victoria are going to look so cute wheeling the twins down the white runner.
Stryker didn’t blink an eye when the carriage was delivered, and when I asked him to decorate it with twinkling fairy lights, he asked me what color lights I wanted. The next day, I found the carriage in our living room all lit up and a bouquet of flowers tucked inside.
Nor did he complain when I told him how much my dress cost or when I hired a band instead of a DJ. He didn’t say a word, he just handed me his credit card.
And when I signed us up for pre cana classes because I wanted to get married in a church, he showed up for every class without me having to remind him. He even made his confirmation! Wolf was his sponsor—which started another ruckus because Jack wanted the title.
“Oh my God,” I whisper as the realization settles over me. “I’m bridezilla.”
“I mean I don’t know about that, but you are extra as fuck,” Nikki confirms, turning her empty champagne glass upside down to get the last drop. “I mean Mikey was wondering if you were going to have a pony drag the carriage you got the girls down the aisle.” she pauses, chucking the plastic glass onto the seat beside her.
“I’ve been torturing Stryker,” I say, looking around the limo at the girls.
“Stryker? What about us?” Nikki mutters. “Do you know how ugly those bridesmaid dresses are?”
“Nikki,” Celeste hisses.
“Oh, stop, you hate them too. You said satin went out with the eighties!”
I turn to Celeste.
“Why didn’t you say something? You’re supposed to be my person! The one who tells me when I’m acting like a complete lunatic.”
“Well…” her words trail as she chews on her bottom lip.
“Celeste!”
“I wasn’t sure if you were trying to keep your mind off of Rocco or if you were genuinely into all this bride crap,” she admits, throwing her hands in the air. “There, I said it.” Turning to face me, she releases an exasperated breath. “The truth is, none of this matters, Gina. Who cares if the bridesmaid dresses are satin?”
“Apparently, you care,” I fire back.
“No, I don’t. I’d wear a potato sack if you asked me to because at the end of the day, I just want you to be happy and the person who wants you to be happy the most, is Stryker. So, yeah, he complained about the priest charging an outrageous fee and newsflash, he complained about the tuxedo too. But tomorrow, he’s marrying the woman of his dreams and if you asked him to dress up as Richard Simmons, I’m pretty sure the man would.”
The limo door opens and Adrianna slides in. Her eyes dart around, taking in all our solemn faces before settling on mine.
“What did I miss?”
“Ally is a reverend, Kelly is pregnant, Celeste hates satin, and Gina just realized she’s bridezilla. Oh, and I’m hammered,” Nikki says.
“So, now wouldn’t be a good time to tell you guys the driver had to call a tow truck, huh?”
-Four-
Gina
I don’t know what’s worse—realizing you’ve been tormenting everyone you love, including your fiancé, with a ridiculous over the top wedding, or having your limo break down on the side of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway the night before said wedding.
“Can someone tell me again why we’re not calling the guys to pick us up?” Nikki questions as she struggles to balance herself on her stilettos.
“We are not calling them,” I reply. “Not after you all pointed out how horrible I’ve been. I refuse to ruin Stryker’s night.”
“I’m sorry,” Nikki mutters. “Walking on the shoulder of the B.Q.E. in three-inch heels is totally a better idea.”
She’s overexaggerating. Yes, we walked the shoulder of the B.Q.E. dressed like a bunch of hookers, but luckily for us, the limo died close to an exit and we’re currently on a sidewalk somewhere close to Williamsburg—I mean I think this is Williamsburg.
“Oh, thank God,” Nikki cries. “Land!”
“That’s a bar,” Adrianna mutters.
“Even better,” Nikki says before she powerwalks towards the bar on the corner of the block. I won’t admit it, but I’m all for stopping. My feet are killing me and drowning my sorrows in a bottle of Patron seems like a good idea.
“Uh, guys,” Kelly starts. “I think we should find another bar.”
“Too late,” Adrianna says as Nikki disappears through the front door. Is that what happens to a woman after she has kids? I make a mental note to scratch out one night a month for girls night after I give birth—I think it’s a requirement to be a functioning adult.
“Guys, this is a biker bar,” Kelly informs.
“How can you tell?” Adrianna asks.
“Oh, I don’t know…maybe the twenty bikes parked on the side, right over there…you know it’s really not fun being the only sober one.”
I don’t know what the big deal is, our money is green, and so, I shrug off Kelly’s warning and follow my cousins inside the bar. Celeste once told me I was completely unapproachable by guys. She said I had this crazy sense of sex appeal that I just ignored, and when men looked at me, I didn’t give them the time of day. That really wasn’t the case. I just did my thing. I never walked into a room expecting attention. I walked to get where I had to go and right now, I had to get to the bar.
I guess that would explain why it took me two shots and a cosmopolitan to finally look around the room and notice the two dozen bikers ogling us.
“Do we know these people?” Adrianna whispers next to me. “Are they like pals of the Satan’s Knights.”
“Pals,” Kelly snorts. “That’s funny.”
My eyes move slowly, taking in the leather kuttes and the insignia declaring them the Corrupt Hellraisers. Yeah, pals probably wouldn’t be the right word.
“I’ve never heard of them,” I say, turning back around to signal for the bartender.
“I think we should call one of the guys,” Celeste suggests. “You know, so they know we’re not dead and that we’re possibly playing nice with one of their enemies.”
“I vote for Jack,” Nikki says. “He’s my favorite.”
“The guy gives you a pack of Marlboros one time, years ago, and you two are thick as thieves,” Adrianna says, sipping her martini.
You should’ve seen the bartenders face when she ordered a coconut martini—that was pretty comical. She got a regular martini with three olives and a piece of coconut flavored gum on the side. I suppose a bartender having coconut flavored gum on hand should be considered impressive. I don’t think there is any flavored gum to be found in Kate’s and if there was, the Satan’s Knights wouldn’t be serving it up with martinis.
“No one is calling anyone,” I say, handing the bartender my credit card. “Can I have a
round of lemon drop shots please?”
As soon as I place my order, I realize I’m probably going to get a basket of lemons and six shots of vodka.
“Or a round of whatever you have handy will work too,” I amend, flashing the big burly bartender a smile.
“You girls are not from around here, huh?” he questions.
“What gave it away?” Celeste replies from beside me.
“Your friend here is dressed like a disco ball,” he says, jutting a thumb towards me. “And the other one ordered a coconut.”
“It was a coconut martini,” Adrianna corrects. “Thanks for the gum, by the way,” she says before she blows a bubble. It pops around her nose—not a good look.
“So what brings you, girls, to The Twisted Kettle,” the bartender asks as he lines up the shot glasses.
“Is that the name of this place?” Celeste asks, picking up a cocktail napkin. She looks like she’s inspecting it for a logo or something to confirm the name of the bar.
“Shiny disco ball is getting married tomorrow and we’re supposed to be celebrating her impending marriage, which, by the way, I am not officiating,” Ally reveals.
“Our limo broke down,” Adrianna adds.
“And these idiots thought it was a good idea to walk the B.Q.E,” Nikki says. “Until I stumbled upon your fine establishment.”
“Stumbled being the operative word,” Kelly quips.
The bartender looks back at me.
“Congrats,” he says, pushing the shot towards me.
Surprise, surprise.
No lemons.
“Thanks,” I reply, taking the shot. I knock it back and whatever it is burns my throat something fierce. Still, I don’t flinch. Instead, I push it back to him and ask him for a refill. “But I’m a horrible wife.”
“You’re not a wife yet,” Adrianna says.
“Okay, so I’m a horrible fiancé,” I correct, rolling my eyes. “I can’t believe no one thought to tell me how badly I was making a mess of what is supposed to be the most important day of my life.”
The Nomad Series-Collectors Edition Page 129