by Addison Jane
It was all a learning experience for us, and I was seeing the older members of the club looking for houses close to the club, but away from the younger group of boys that were coming in. They were respectful of the old ladies and the fact that there were kids living in the clubhouse, but they also wanted to live that life we had all experienced as we prospected in the club. Parties, drinking, girls, going to church with a hangover the size of fucking Texas. There was going to have to come a point where we sat down and decided where the balance was.
“Hey, just making sure my girl is sparkling clean,” I told Leo as I turned back around and brushed over the detailed gas tank with my rag.
Leo chuckled. “Well, can you stop touching her for just a minute, there’s someone here asking for you.”
I stopped, folding my arms as I turned around. “Who?” I asked, but he was already walking back down the hallway that passed Op’s office and led to the main room. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I murmured in annoyance and tossed the rag onto a bench before following after him. As soon as I got close enough, I was going to slap him around the damn head.
Leo stopped in the doorway, and I did just that. He rubbed at the spot and scowled at me.
“This is the last time I do something nice for you, asshole.”
“What the fuck are you…” My words trailed off as I finally focused in on the guy standing across the room. Well, not standing per se. He was leaning heavily on a pair of crutches, and smirking at me like the cocky bastard I knew he was.
I jogged across the room, my arms going around my brother and lifting him off the floor, his crutches both clattered to the ground.
“Put me down, you big ape!” He laughed, but despite his protests, he was squeezing me just as tightly as I was him. “I’m broken, you need to be gentle.”
Scoffing loudly, I placed him on the floor and helped him into a chair at the nearest table. “That what you tell all the nurses?”
He grinned, his boyish and almost innocent smile was one that had gotten him out of virtually every shitty situation since we were kids. While I was quiet and liked to take my time, standing back and assessing a situation, Jake was the kinda guy to walk right in with a ‘let’s just do it and see what happens’ attitude. One which I knew he’d toned down since he joined the army, but still popped up here and there, driving his commanding officer fucking crazy.
“Seriously, what the hell are you doing here?” I asked, pulling out a chair and sitting opposite him.
Leo came over with a smug grin on his face and took another seat at the small table. “He called one day when you were out to ask if he could come here for a week or so until they had a space open at the rehab unit in Washington. I asked Op, he said yes, then we just didn’t tell you.”
“Fuckers,” I mumbled, but with a smile on my face. I appreciated the fact that they let my brother come here to stay, it wasn’t often we had outsiders remain on the property.
Jake grabbed hold of his leg, his face twisting as he pulled it in closer to the table.
“Okay, so fill me in. How much damage did the shot do to your leg?”
He looked at me as if he was annoyed that I’d caught him out. He was in pain, and I knew the wound was still fresh, but my brother was also fucking strong, so for him to be showing signs that he was uncomfortable then there was something wrong.
“It’s nothing I can’t work through,” he said, trying to blow me off with a wave of his hand, but I stared him down, completely unsatisfied. His brow pulled together. “Fine. There’s some nerve damage, as well as a little bit of muscle damage, but hopefully, I’ll be able to build it back up.”
I glowered at my little brother, not liking the way he was trying to play things off like they were no big deal. Nerve and muscle damage was a big deal. It would all depend on his recovery, but these were things that could stop him from doing the job he loved. “Seriously Jake, you nearly fucking died. Don’t pretend like that was nothing, or that it’s going to be a piece of cake. It’s gonna be hard,” I told him, my voice stern like how I used to speak to him when he was younger, and trying to pretend that his D grades were just a starting point for negotiations with the teacher.
I could see him fighting the urge to roll his eyes at me. I tried not to step into that father role too often because of the relationship we’d had with our actual dad, but I hated when he didn’t take shit seriously, especially his health and how it could impact on his future.
Our childhood had been somewhat of a fucking mess.
Jake and I had two younger twin sisters, who were just babies at the time our dad lost his shit. Dad lost his rights and I hadn’t seen the girls since they were adopted out, and honestly, I wasn’t all that upset about it. I wanted them to have a better life, one where I wouldn’t have to answer questions about why their mom was dead, and why their father was in jail—at least until they were old enough to hear the honest answer.
Jake and I had moved in with our grandmother. She was too old to really do much other than to keep food on the table and to give us a place to sleep, which was why the twins couldn’t come with us, but that had been the only option at the time that didn’t involve us being put into foster care. I’d eventually joined the army when Jake was fourteen. He continued to live with our grandmother, but it was me that tried to attend all his sports games when I was home and speak with his teachers about where he was academically.
“What will be will be,” Jake said, his shoulders slumping. “Nobody knows right now what will happen, I have to wait until I can get into physical therapy and then just push my hardest.”
I reached over and slapped him on the back. “And I know you will. If anyone can fight through this and get back out there, it’s gonna be you.”
I had faith in Jake that he would fight with every ounce of strength left inside him to get back with his team because that was what he loved, the army was where he thrived. He was never academic, but he played sports, and he was damn fucking good at whatever sport he tried.
“Okay, so now that the sappy bonding shit is over, can we have a drink or something?” he asked with a grin.
Leo raised a brow. “You on any pain meds?”
“Nothing crazy, just the over-the-counter shit,” he replied, waving off Leo’s remark.
“Beer it is then,” Leo grinned and headed for the bar.
We sat chatting and catching up for a few hours, not moving from that spot. My brothers came and went, the ones who hadn’t met Jake before introducing themselves and instantly forged a connection with him. Jake was the life of the party, a little bit cocky, a little bit class clown, but deep down he was a sweet kid who had a lot of love for the people he cared for. He would protect them at the drop of a hat, no questions asked, which was why he connected so well with my brothers in the club because that’s exactly what we stood for.
Jake was chatting with Blizzard, and I looked up when I heard Skylar’s soft laughter float in, followed closely with her body. She was just one of those people whose presence entered the room first, lighting it up with positive energy. She and Jess were giggling like school girls and playfully pushing each other.
“Sky!” I called, drawing her attention to me. Her smile beamed, and I couldn’t help but grin back as I waved her over.
She said a quick goodbye to Jess and walked toward us, her hips swaying with that natural sex appeal that I loved. It wasn’t forced, it was just her. Her blonde hair fell loosely around her shoulders, and her eyes reminded me of the ocean, deep but playful.
Sky had somehow managed to get through the angry scowling face that I initially used to avoid people trying to get close to me. With my brothers I was far more open, still quiet and happy to not be the center of attention, but I felt like I could at least be somewhat myself around them.
Sky, on the other hand, made me fucking laugh, and I found myself enjoying her company and listening to her talk about the things she was interested in and passionate about. She really was like a ball
of positive energy, and after what she’d been through as a child, I admired her strength and resilience to not let that taint her and make her angry at the world.
She rounded the table and bumped me with her hip. “How was your day?” she asked happily.
“Pretty damn good actually,” I told her, before pointing across the table at Jake who was observing our interaction intently. “This is my brother, Jake.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Oh wow! I’m really sorry to hear about you getting hurt, but I’m glad you’re doing okay.”
He smirked. “Well, thanks… Sky, was it?”
“Sky or Skylar, either is fine,” she said with a nod before looking down at me. “I have to go help Jess get dinner started. I’ll catch up with you later?”
“I think I’ll go order takeout,” I murmured, but it didn’t go unnoticed, and soon there was a sharp pinch underneath my arm. I almost shot out of my fucking seat. “Holy shit, woman!” I cursed, my hand going to the spot and rubbing it furiously to try and ease the ache.
She was already backing away with a delighted smile, pointing at me sharply. “You will eat it, and you will like it, so help me God.”
The doors to the kitchen swallowed her, and my brother didn’t waste a single second now she was out of sight. “I’m sorry, did I miss the part when you got an old lady?”
Lifting my beer to my lips, I rolled my eyes. “Sky isn’t my old lady,” I muttered, cringing before I even managed to say the other words. “She’s a club girl.”
Three, two, one.
“You are fucking with me, right? You fucking like her, I can tell. But she’s a damn club girl!” I knew he was going to notice that things between Sky and I were a little extra than what she was like with the other boys. You know what, I didn’t give a shit. I figured Jake would give me shit, try to talk me into making shit official.
But I could actually see the fire blaze in his eyes, one that I really hadn’t seen alight too often.
“Any girl in the world and you pick the one who has had every single one of your friends’ dicks inside her,” he spat at me across the table in a mixture of disgust and shock.
Leo scowled at Jake. “Not every one of the boys have—”
“Have you?” Jake threw back, and a chill went up my spine because I knew that Leo at some point had been with Sky, but now that he had Hadley, it was as though the rest of that bullshit was wiped free. We didn’t speak about the girls’ pasts. Harmony, Chelsea, and Hadley at some point had slept with brothers, but not one of us would ever call them on it or make them feel like they didn’t deserve happiness because of what they’d done.
Yeah, Sky was still a club girl and did that get to me a little? Yeah, it did. But I didn’t think any fucking less of her because of it. It didn’t make me want to spend less time with her. In some ways I guess it made me want to spend more time with her, because I was getting to the point where I was wondering if it was worth pursuing something more, just to see where things could go. And the more time I took up, the more I hoped she might see things the same, and the less time there was for my brothers.
“Jake!” I growled with a serious warning in my tone, hoping he would shut his fucking mouth right now because Leo was staring at him with such intensity that a weaker man would have made a run for it.
“Hadley was a club girl, you think I shouldn’t be with her because she fucked my brothers?” Leo asked, his tone tight but I could tell he was trying not to just rip Jake a new one out of respect for me.
Jake’s back went a little straighter, but his voice softened slightly, the disgusted look on his face turning to one that resembled sadness. “Look, I’m not here to judge what they do. But I want to make sure the person that my brother is having some kind of feelings for, isn’t the type of girl who just likes to be the center of men’s attention and is gonna drag him along by his dick while she’s off having her fun elsewhere.”
Leo looked at me out of the corner of his eye.
We were both thinking the same thing.
This had nothing to do with Sky and everything to do with something going on inside him.
Jake held up his hands and forced a grin. “I’m sorry, okay? I’ll try to keep my opinions to myself next time,” he joked, searching for his crutches. “Now how ‘bout you show me to where I’m gonna be sleeping so I can lay down before dinner.”
I stood with him, helping him get his balance. “Come on princess, better get some beauty sleep ‘cause I think I can see a wrinkle on your forehead.”
He tried to hit me with one of his crutches, but I jumped out of the way. “You just wait, brother o’ mine.”
And like that, things were back to normal.
I missed him, more than I thought I did.
I just hoped he was telling the truth when he said he was going to keep his opinions to himself. Because if he says that shit around Sky, he’s really going to put me in a place where I don’t want to be.
I’d spent the last few days avoiding Eagle’s brother Jake, and in turn, avoiding Eagle since they were together a lot of the time. I was happy that Jake was here and that he came out of the mission okay because I’d seen how close Eagle was to breaking point when he thought there was a chance that his brother wouldn’t come home.
The truth was, the way Jake looked at me made me feel like shit. I could tell he’d already formed his own opinion, his eyes following me with suspicion when I was around other brothers serving drinks or just talking. I didn’t understand why he was always glaring at me as though he was just waiting for me to do something that he could criticize.
I had a job to do, and it wasn’t like the clubhouse demanded that the girls stay in their rooms with their legs spread until a brother needed them. The brothers weren’t continuously horny every minute of the day. A lot of the time we would just hang out when the boys weren’t working, we’d chat about our day, things that were going on, the news and stuff in the media.
It was why I loved it here because all of us were really close and there was no intense segregation, like I wasn’t allowed to speak with the boys unless spoken to or bullshit like that that I know does happen in other clubs.
My curiosity was driving my brain wild as I wondered why Jake had come here and wasn’t with family, or whether Eagle and Jake even had a family. It was all festering away in my mind, but there were just questions that we didn’t ask unless the information was offered or less than personal. I didn’t want to seem like I was digging my nose in Eagle’s business so I decided to remove my nose altogether, and what I discovered about myself during this time was that I missed Eagle. I basically had a list of jokes and comebacks that I’d actually started noting down in a pad beside my bed so that I could use them on him later.
Not seeing any of the other boys come through my room wasn’t helping either because it was just confusing me even more. Part of me could use the distraction, and the tension release that sex brings, the other part of me wanted to leap up and run and hide every time I heard footsteps come by the door in case it was one of them needing something.
It was a strange vortex to be in where you really don’t want to belong to someone, you don’t want to give your entire self to them and have them basically own you. Maybe not in the sense that I was once raised, where you were the property of your husband, but in the sense that you’re giving him your heart, allowing him to own that piece of you. You’re giving that man the power to love you and fill your life with amazing joy, or to completely destroy you.
It’s been a long time since a man had enough power to destroy me, and I wasn’t about to let that happen again.
A knock on the door had my gut churning, for a second, I actually contemplated just climbing under the bed.
“Hey Sky, I have that stuff for you,” Wrench called through the door, and I chewed my lip nervously as I crept toward it and pulled it open just a crack.
“I’m not sure I know what stuff you’re talking about,” I told him innocently.
Wrench smirked. “You know, the information on that guy that Sugar asked me to find, refusing to tell me that it was on your behalf until I offered to buy her some new material for her to sew Harlyn summer dresses with.”
I strummed my fingernails on the doorframe. “Oh, that information!”
After talking with Sugar about what Emerald had told me, she’d suggested that I ask Wrench to run the guy’s name. Unfortunately, that isn’t something he can do without letting Optimus know what was going on, and I just wasn’t sure I was ready to bring more drama into the club than I had already, especially given that this was to do with Emerald, not exactly me.
So instead, Sugar offered to ask him to do it for me which had ended up in Wrench figuring out what was going on anyway. I wasn’t even surprised that she was so easily persuaded to tattle.
“Fortunately for you…” he started, making my eyes grow wider, “… Eagle had already requested information on the same guy. So as long as you talk to him about it, I don’t have to go to Op and let him know that you’re digging for trouble.”
My mouth fell open at the knowledge that Eagle had already had Wrench dig out information on this guy, and there was no doubt in my mind it was because of some kind of connection with the Colony, I just didn’t know where he would have gotten the name from.
I looked down at the paper and quickly scanned the list on the front which happened to be things that Brock Obrien was wanted for in different states and fucking countries.
Human trafficking.
Pimping and pandering underage girls.
Kidnapping.
And the list went on.
Wrench leaned against the doorframe. “I’m not a hundred percent sure why either of you needed this information, Eagle didn’t say much. But what I can tell you is there was nothing good in this guy’s background, and by nothing good, I mean he’s a really fucking bad guy.”
“He was the reason Emerald ran,” I said quietly, unable to draw my eyes away from the paper. “My father was trying to marry her to this guy.”