“Mason.” Jock had heard this story a few times. “The previous club’s president thought he owned your boss and yanked him around, hard. Mason was part of it, but not party to it, if that makes sense, because he’d battled his own president over it.”
“Yes.” Silly’s expression grew earnest, intense. “The pendejo he was, he demanded free while keeping profits from anything Ernesto did. Working out of basement rooms, in kitchens, he did tats for all the Fiends while trying to earn enough to go legit.”
“When Mason took over the club and reformed it, he went back and righted a bunch of things he’d felt were wrongs done. Backing the shop however he could was one of them.” Jock slipped sideways, toppling them both back to the mattress, and curled around Silly, touching his forehead to hers. “At the time, it was something legal, right?”
“Si. Local laws prevented felons from owning undesirable businesses by limiting necessary licensing. An antiquated law, but on the books, and enforced by those who didn’t want unwelcome influence in their space. Tattoo parlors require multiple licenses to exist, along with bars, strip clubs, pawn shops.” She rolled her eyes, and he smiled. “So Ernesto made it his mission to educate people and change the laws. The day the law’s repeal became official, Mason handed over paperwork that put the shop in Ernesto’s name. The next day, Ernesto opened a second shop, and a national magazine ran a story. Then he got interviewed all over the country, because these kinds of laws are still everywhere. Then he got a shot at the show.”
“You are hot as fuck on that show.” Same eye roll, and his grin was broader, wider, more real. “No joke, Silly. Watching you work on all those people, doesn’t matter their background, who they are, what they own, how much power or control they have in their own lives—they get in your chair or on your table, and you fuckin’ own them.” She stared into his eyes, unblinking. “Hot. As. Fuck.”
“Whatever.” She brushed her lips against his. “I was pleased for him, because he’d earned that chance to grow the business. And he has. By leaps and bounds, he opened shops in the hometowns of all the winners, set them up to work for him for a year. Smart business, that. The show gave them so much exposure their books were full when the doors opened for the first time. No slow rise to the top through word of mouth. He’s got almost twenty shops now, all over.”
“So many? I didn’t know.” He whistled low. “That’s why he’s always stressed. Man lives on energy drinks, swear to God.”
“He opened one near New Orleans two years ago. Big splash. Famous tattoo guy coming to the Big Easy and making his mark.” She shrugged. “Only problem is, the winner was all flash and no staying power. He lasted the contracted year, but no more. They’d taken over an existing shop, too, so the other tattoo artists will be impacted if Ernesto has to close it.”
“Sucks, baby.” Jock cupped her cheek, then pushed to thread his fingers through her hair. Tangled from sleeping, the strands slipped through his hands until they were even again. “Can’t he just have one of the other guys run it instead?”
“He wants me, Jock. That’s the offer. He wants to hand me my own shop. Established, and already profitable—he wants me to take it over.”
“New Orleans is a fuck of a lot farther from the Fort than Chicago.” The words were out before he could school his tongue, and he saw her flinch. Dammit. I’m a fucking asshole. “Shit, baby. What I meant to say is that’s huge. It’s a huge honor for you. Says how much the man trusts you. I’m proud.” He pulled in a slow, even breath, trying to beat back the wings of panic that threatened to choke him.
New Orleans wasn’t a five-hour commute. It was a full day and a half driving, or a flight. The idea of getting into another plane had more sweat prickling the back of his neck in seconds. New Orleans didn’t host an RWMC chapter, not anywhere near there. Their Memphis chapter had been abandoned, and that left Little Rock, or somewhere in Kentucky he hadn’t been to yet. The club had friends all along the coast, sure, but not a single RWMC chapter to be found.
He steeled himself and looked at Silly without trying to hide his love for her for once. She’d told him early on that he couldn’t get attached. She had some fucking rule about never falling in love, and he’d jokingly promised her if it happened, she’d never know. He’d kept that promise until today, right here, in his bed, when he told her with everything inside him what she’d come to mean to him. Silently, stuffing down the pain already blooming in his gut at losing her.
“You’re going to do great.”
***
Silly
She lay next to Jock. Head nestled on the pillow and Jock’s hip and leg angled over her thighs, pressing her deep into the mattress. They hadn’t started out this way. She’d been cuddled into his side, his arm holding her in place against him. But Jock had evidently internalized her attempt to slide from bed earlier, and now, even in his sleep, was ensuring she stayed right where she was.
In the year and a half she’d known him, almost all of that building towards a deeper relationship, she’d done every second of it with eyes wide open. She’d heard the stories about the man Gunny had adopted as near family, how he’d bonded with Gunny and Brute, even more of the RWMC, but mostly with the men who had served.
Slate was someone she considered one of her closest friends, and he’d been the one to nudge her Jock’s way that first night. With that confidence bolstering her, she’d been clear to make a direct approach and had never regretted an instant. In moments, she’d been curious, then attracted, and finally blown away by the man’s intellect and sense of humor.
With the stress of work, life hadn’t seemed easy for a long time, but something about Jock made everything effortless. It wasn’t that he didn’t make demands of her or didn’t challenge her, but the way he did it showed his respect for and faith in her in every way. When someone believed in a person like that? Everything else smoothed out.
Then Ernesto had thrown a monkey wrench into everything. He’d approached her Wednesday as she sat sketching on the table in her station, waiting on her next appointment to show. Blunt as always, something she’d always appreciated, he’d laid it out fast, in broad strokes, knowing she’d need the whole picture before she could get into the details.
“Need you, Silly. Place is holding on by a fingernail, but it has the potential to be one of the most profitable shops.” Ernesto rolled back and forth on the stool he’d brought in with him. “I could shuffle folks, but it’d be takin’ a good manager from a shop and replacing them with one not as good. You’ve never been official, but we all know you’re the one who keeps things running smooth here.”
That wasn’t a lie. She’d spent two hours the previous night upgrading their bookkeeping software to keep it on the same version as the other shops. Then she’d spent another hour tallying the needed supplies. She’d shown up an hour early today to place those orders. Ernesto did the hiring, but he had her interview every artist or other employee. She ran the shop, except in name.
“When do you need an answer?” He’d looked shocked, then stared at her with narrowed eyes. “Jesus, Ernie, you couldn’t have expected I’d just leap for joy and say yes, did you?” Pursed lips joined the narrowed eyes to complete the scowl. “You did. I’m honored, truly, but I’ve got a life, and that life isn’t in Louisiana.”
“Man wants to be with you, he’d make that happen.” This was something Ernie had been grumbling about for the past couple of months. Treating Silly like a daughter extended to vetting her romantic partners—the long-term ones, anyway. She’d only had one of those before, and Ernie hadn’t liked him. His dour pronouncements about the man’s lack of commitment had proven correct, something she found out when she walked into the guy’s apartment using the key he’d given her to find him sleeping next to a nude blonde. “If Jock wanted to shift to any of the Chicago chapters, Mason’d greenlight that without pause. The fact he hasn’t even asked, Sil, that says something.”
“He wasn’t a prospect when I met him. Fury
held him to a nine-month recruit period. He’s been a patched member less than a year, Ernie. You and I both know he’s putting in the time, like he should. You’d be pissed if he wasn’t doing that.” His scowl deepened and she barked a short laugh. “Your face is gonna freeze that way.”
“You’ll give it real consideration?” He leaned back, muscles in his thighs pushing and pulling, rocking the stool back and forth. “Won’t reject me out of hand?”
“Of course. That’s what I’m trying to do right now.” She reached out and wrapped her fingers around his, lifting and shaking his hand. “Love you hard, old man. I’m honored, and that’s no lie. But I have to wrap my head around what it means.”
“Love you like my own, Sylvia.” Ernesto had heavy features, dark and thick brows, a nose that had been broken more times than she had fingers on a hand, and a scar tracing up his neck and across one cheek. Family and friends said his time spent in what he called con college had hardened him, but all Sylvia saw when she looked at him was the sweet man who’d taken a chance on a girl who could sketch, giving her a seat at his side and an opportunity to apprentice with a master.
“I know you do.” She shook his hand again and released him as the bell over the door sounded. “That’s my next appointment.”
Jock hadn’t been able to hide his pain when she’d told him. Not the setting she’d have chosen, but even forced by circumstances, she’d tried to tell him without saying it that if he asked her to stay, she would. She should have delayed the conversation somehow, because with him on the tail end of that episode, she knew in her gut he couldn’t have made a decision about what to order for dinner.
The first time she’d seen him fraying like that, he’d beaten it back, putting on a stoic face. They’d been at a local bar shooting pool when the guys at a table three over had dropped their tray of balls. The rapid smacking of the hard balls against the bare concrete floor had been loud, overwhelming, and when she’d looked to Jock, she initially couldn’t find him. After a moment, she saw him crouched low at the end of the table, and when he finally unfolded upright, she hadn’t missed how pale his face was. Leaning over the table to take her next shot, she got his attention with a tiny bit of bared cleavage, something she’d noticed early on he liked, rolled her eyes, and said with a head tip towards the rowdy table, “Idiots. Let’s finish this one and go back to your place.”
The next time had been more pronounced. Down in Fort Wayne to visit him a week later, on her last night in town she’d left to pick up supper for them, intending to eat in bed before talking him into fucking her, not usually something she had to try hard for, a fact she liked because it said a lot about how he felt around her. Their first time he’d been hesitant to show his scars, but her matter-of-fact handling of them seemed to soothe his nerves, and it hadn’t been long before his manner told her they no longer factored in his mind when she was around.
She’d gotten back, said hey to Domino, who’d been sprawled on the couch in the shared space of the living room, and danced her way into Jock’s room. It had been dark, which was startling, but when she flipped the lights on, he’d started yelling, screaming at her to turn them off, because “they” would see and everyone would die. It had only been a moment until she’d felt Domino at her back, and even before approaching Jock, he’d made a call to Gunny. Ten minutes later, Gunny and Brute were in the room, she was on the couch, and the food had been growing cold on the kitchen table.
Hours had passed, growling murmurs rattling Jock’s door, Silly waiting and not sure what to do. Then the outside door opened and Slate walked in. “Come on, honey.” He’d wrapped an arm around her. “Ruby’s got a bed made up for you.”
The next weekend she’d come back down, an out-of-cycle visit, but she couldn’t stand not seeing him. All conversations that week had been short, and he’d seemed tired, exhausted, never mentioning what had happened. That continued, and his shock at seeing her hadn’t been feigned, nor had his gleeful excitement or the way he’d immediately gone about rescheduling anything he’d needed to spend the time with her. She hadn’t pushed, and at the end of the weekend, she’d made a stop on her way out of town. Slate had answered the door, swept her into a hug, and at her choked question, smiled sadly. “He won’t remember.”
She’d seen more episodes, none of them that extreme, and never, not once, had she felt endangered. The incidents had dwindled, seemingly in direct relation to how much time they spent together, until she was making regular trips down every other week. He’d come to Chicago sometimes, too, hanging out with his patch brothers there while she worked.
Through it all, they’d grown closer every time they were together, until she couldn’t imagine her life without him in it. But now, with Ernesto’s offer, and with Jock’s seemingly easy acceptance of her imminent exit from his life, she’d have to.
***
“Ernesto called.” She kept her back to him as she lifted her bag to the bed, folding and placing the clothes she’d worn yesterday inside. “He set a meeting with the bank to officially get me on the accounts, but I have to be there to sign papers and stuff. He’s been meaning to do it for months, but we kept putting it off.” She shrugged. “Saves me from signing his name on orders and stuff.”
Not a lie; she’d never do that to Jock. She’d also not tell him that Ernie had offered to delay the appointment, knowing she’d be home early on Tuesday. Right now it was Monday morning, and Jock was expecting her to be here another night. Every other weekend, she showed on Friday and didn’t pull out headed for Chicago until just before sunup four days later.
“It’s Monday.” Jock’s voice was gruff in his surprise.
“Yeah, I know.” She zipped the bag and glanced around the room to verify she hadn’t left anything behind. Not something she’d worried about before, and she knew he’d pick it up as a difference. “There’s a lot to think about, talk about.” Slinging the strap over her shoulder, she turned, startled to find him directly behind her. Angling her chin up, she caught his gaze. “I have a lot of thinking to do.”
“You can’t do that here?” The hurt in his voice set up a resonance in her chest, making the back of her throat tight with echoed ache. He stared into her eyes, a heavy line appearing between his brows. Absently, he lifted a hand and ran his fingers across her cheek, fingertips gliding towards her ear, where she felt a light, fleeting touch along the gems of her earrings. “With me?”
Silly let her eyes slip closed, shutting out the vision of Jock’s face, ravaged with pain. “I just…I need some time, Jake.”
His touch didn’t falter, sweeps of his thumb along her skin, and she lifted her chin when his other hand hit her throat, soft and gentle, a glide up to cup her cheeks between his palms. His breath trailed over her lips an instant before his mouth covered hers, the kiss starting slow and measured, and when she would have pushed it, taking it further, he kept it controlled. Soft, sweet, and so damned gentle, but that didn’t take from the intensity. His quivering breaths told her he wasn’t far from losing himself, and she knew that to be true when he broke away suddenly and wrapped her up tight, arm around her shoulders, hand holding her cheek to his chest.
“Okay, Sylvia.” His heart was pounding, and Silly clutched the sides of his shirt under his vest, holding just as tight. “Okay.”
***
She stopped at Slate’s on her way out of town, knocking at the side door, and as he always did, when her friend answered and saw her red-rimmed eyes, he didn’t ask any questions, just pulled her in close for a hug while dragging her back inside his house.
“Ruby, I’ll be in the office with Silly.” A woman’s voice responded from somewhere deeper in the house, where Silly could hear the chiming voices of children.
He moved them to that office, put her ass in a chair, and brought her two fingers of whiskey in a glass he wiped at with his sleeve. Then he sat down at the desk, opened a drawer and pulled out a notebook, fired up his computer, and ignored her while he did something
, probably club business.
By the time she’d finished sipping the liquor, he angled his head to glance at her. “You ready to talk?” She shook her head. “Need another double?” She gave him a rough smile and again shook her head. “Okay.” He turned back to the monitor and started clicking away at the keyboard.
She twisted and placed the glass on a nearby table, the base making a soft clink as she set it down. “Easy as that?”
“Easy as you need it, Silly. Always.” He didn’t even look away from what he was doing. “Easy as you need.”
“Ernie—” She’d barely gotten the name out before Slate scoffed far back in his throat. “Stop. I know you don’t like him, but he only refused you the one time. And you were drunk.”
“I was not drunk.” He angled that look at her again, this time with a tiny smile. “I was inebriated. And I wanted a tattoo.”
“You were high as a kite, too.”
He shook his head, and she wondered how Ruby stood his stubbornness.
With a sigh that hopefully told him what a pain in the ass he was, she insisted, “Yes, you were. I poured you into a bed in the back of the shop, so I can say that with authority.” Silly leveled a stern look at him. “You wanted a monkey’s ass tattooed on your belly, using your bellybutton as the asshole because you thought it would be funny. Face it, buddy. We saved you from yourself.”
“He still shoulda done it. I was one of his best customers.”
She snorted and shook her head. If she hadn’t intervened that night, Ernie would have done it, and Slate would have had to live with that for the rest of his life. He knew better.
Pushing back from the desk, Slate folded his arms behind his head, stretched, and told her what he always did when she talked to him about anything. “Tell me.”
“Ernie—” she paused a beat to see if he’d interrupt again, but he didn’t “—has offered me a shop to take over, run it like it’s mine. It’s a good gig. The shop is already established, popular, and in a great location. It’s got history, and you know that matters to me, and the place is perfect.”
Going Down Easy: A Rebel Wayfarers MC & Incoherent MC Crossover Novel Page 2