He locked eyes with me. I returned a bug-eyed stare.
“The club needs to grow. We’ll never open our books to prospects, but if you know someone who’d make a good prospect, invite ‘em to a poker run, or to a barbeque. Let ‘em hang around and see how they react. If it looks like they’d make us a good Fucker, and only if they’d live up to our standards, vouch for ‘em. We need size. I want to keep this club as tight knit as it is now, don’t get me wrong. But, I want the southern half of this state to become an FFMC territory.” He looked at each of the men. “One that makes the asshole of any other patch-wearing club member pucker when he rides through here.”
Half the men raised their clenched fists in agreement. The rest either shouted or hoisted their bottles of beer.
I wasn’t impressed.
I liked the club just the way it was. Along with size, came uncertainty. With uncertainty, came risk.
I didn’t like taking risks.
“That’s all I’ve got, fellas. Any questions?”
“Got a cousin in Palm Springs,” Lefty said. “Like to stay up there for a few days. If I ride up and don’t ride back, we still good?”
“We are now,” Crip said with a nod. “No sense in you riding back here, and then heading right back up there to see your cousin.”
“Appreciate it.”
“Anyone else?”
“Remember any of them Gremlins fuckers names?” Stretch asked.
“Funny thing. The front of their kuttes didn’t have region, road name, rank, in memory of, nothing. My guess is they were a bunch of wannabes, and that’ll be the last we hear of ‘em.”
Stretch nodded. “Just wondering.”
“Anyone else?”
No one said a word.
“Meeting adjourned,” Crip said. “Help yourself to a beer, courtesy of Shocker. Peeb, come here for a minute.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
It wasn’t enough that he’d embarrassed me in front of the men, now he was going to chew me out in private. At times it felt like he thought he was raising me. I had one asshole father, I didn’t need two.
I stepped to his side. “What?”
“Lose the attitude, asshole.”
“You didn’t have to fuck with me in front of the fellas, Crip,” I complained. “Seems like you just like doing it sometimes.”
“How long you been in the club, princess?”
I glared at him. “See? That was un-fucking-necessary.”
“How long?” he growled.
He knew the answer. It seemed foolish to respond, but Crip wasn’t one to argue with.
“Since the beginning.”
“Tonight the first time I fucked with you?”
“Nope.”
“Won’t be the last, either,” he said. “You notice that there’s a pattern?”
“The fuck you talking about?”
“You do dumb shit, I call you on the spot. You do dumb shit, I call you on the spot. That’s what’s commonly referred to as a pattern. You notice the continuation of said pattern tonight?”
“Wasn’t doing anything tonight, motherfucker. That night I wandered off in the bar after the big-titted chick while you was talking? Sure. And on the poker run a few months back, when I kept talking to Cholo while you was giving that speech on get-back whips? Yeah. Tonight?” I shook my head. “Sorry. Nope. Don’t see it.”
“You fell asleep.”
“Bullshit.”
“You had no idea what I was talking about.”
He was obviously right. But I wasn’t asleep. “I got distracted.”
“As hard as it may be to believe, the men look up to you, Peeb. If they see you dicking off, they’ll think whatever I’m talking about isn’t worth fucking listening to. If you’re paying attention, they’ll pay attention. Make sense?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah.”
“You disagree?”
“No, but it doesn’t mean I want to be talked to like I’m some punk kid. I was fucking thinking about some shit.”
“Something I need to know about?”
I didn’t dare tell him I was thinking about a bitch while he was talking. He’d have my ass, for sure.
“Just my pop. Worried about him, that’s all.”
“Understandable.” He patted me on the shoulder. “How’s he doing?”
“Good. Just worried about him.”
“How’s your bike-wrecking nurse? She doing a good job with him?”
“She’s alright.”
He nodded, and then looked away.
“Wanna hear something crazy?” I asked.
He glanced around the shop, and then looked at me and grinned. “I can’t wait.”
“Her ex was a biker. He’s doing life at Pelican Bay.”
“You’re shittin’ me? Pelican fucking Bay? God damn, that’s a shitty fucking joint. What the fuck did he do?”
I shrugged. “She wouldn’t say. Said it was between him and God, and it was none of my business.”
“Tight-lipped bitch, huh?”
“About some things. She’s kind of like you about others.”
He scowled at me. “What the fuck’s that mean?”
“She tight-lipped about some shit, and then she’s real mouthy about other stuff. She talks shit to me half the time, just like you.”
“If her ex old man’s in Pelican Bay doing life, my guess is you’re not going to be able to bullshit her, Brother. She’ll see right through it. She probably talks shit when you start fucking with her, huh?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Maybe don’t be such a prick around her, and she’ll tell ya.”
He had a good point. Her mouthy comments and snide attitude were always a result of me acting like a dick. I wondered what she might act like if I wasn’t a dick, and how much different things would be.
Now, even more so than I had before, I wondered about her ex, and why he was in a place reserved for the worst of the state’s most notorious criminals.
“Was he patched with any club?” Crip asked.
“Said he was an independent.”
“She from here?”
“Not sure. I think so.”
“Wonder who that fucker is?” he said. “Or was.”
“Hard saying.”
“If you find out, let me know.” He slapped my bicep with his open hand, and then squeezed it. “And tell your pop I sent my well wishes.”
“I’ll do it.”
THIRTEEN
Tegan
I swallowed my food and wiped my mouth. “I don’t know if I like this game.”
Bradley looked at me and laughed. “It’s not a game, it’s called being human. Abstract thinking and our ability to communicate are a few of the things that separate us from animals. Answer the question.”
“But this stuff’s personal.”
He pushed his plate to the side. “Personal?” He let out a long laugh. “Excluding my mother, you’re the only person who’s wiped my ass. Except for me, of course. And, you and one other woman have seen my cock. That’s it. So, we’re connected on a weird personal level. Answer the question.”
I thought what he said was adorable. Adorable, but unbelievable. “Only two?”
“My cock?”
“Yeah. That.”
He leaned forward. “Back when I was a kid, we didn’t have cell phones. We didn’t take fuckin’ selfies or post shit on Facebook. There wasn’t a Twitter and we couldn’t find new recipes on Pinterest. Hell, we didn’t even have computers. Needless to say, we didn’t text people pictures of our dicks, tits, or whatever we were fuckin’ eating for lunch. I met Deann, and I fell in love. There wasn’t much need – or opportunity – to show anyone else my cock.”
I started laughing.
He looked at me and grinned. “You going to tell me you’ve never received a picture of someone’s dick on your phone? Remember, I raised the circus clown.”
I caught my breath and shook my head. “I’m not going
to tell you that.”
“Good looking girl like you? Hell, you’ve probably seen more dicks unwillingly than Marilyn Monroe saw on purpose.”
I laughed again. “Probably.”
“Imagine what it’d be like if you’d only seen one,” he said. “Or none. Or if the first one you saw was the guy you married.”
“Kind of cool thinking about it, really.”
He shook his head and sat up straight. “Cell phones and the internet have ruined modern society.”
“They’re useful for a lot of things, though.”
“They damned sure are. If they’re in the hands of responsible men and women, that is. But they’re also tools for irresponsible people to become even more irresponsible. Fuckin’ child molesters, pedophiles, stalkers, internet bullies, computer hackers. Christ, I could go on for days.”
He relaxed, and then reached for his chest. As he winced in pain, I stood up.
“That wasn’t indigestion,” I said.
His jaw went tight and his eyes pinched closed. After a few seconds, he relaxed again. “It sure was. That fucking lettuce is killing me.”
“Was it really?”
He opened his eyes, and then gave a dry response. “Yeah.”
“I’ll leave the lettuce off next time. Did you like the cheese? It was different, huh?”
He grinned. “You’re unique, kid. You really are.”
“Thank you.”
“You know why I say that?”
“Why?”
“Well, I’ll tell you. When you’re asked a question that you don’t want to answer, you start talking about something else. Your ability to make the transition seamlessly is remarkable. I start a conversation about why you’re single, and the next thing I know, we’re off talking about Havarti cheese. Most wouldn’t even realize you didn’t answer the question in the first place.”
“Did you like the cheese?”
He wrinkled his brow. “Why don’t you have a man in your life?”
I sat down. “Long or short answer?”
“What time is it?”
I looked at my watch. “12:45.”
“Let’s go with the long one.”
A sigh escaped me. “Here goes.”
“I’m listening.”
I took a deep breath, and then began. “My dad left, and when he did, he took a piece of my heart with him. I grew up wondering if it was something I did, or if maybe it was that he just didn’t love me. I wanted to fix it, but I couldn’t. By the time I was a teenager, I found myself trying to fix everyone else because I couldn’t fix my own life.”
“What do you mean, fix everyone else?”
“My boyfriends. I found myself more attracted to the bad boys, and I tried to fix them. Deep down inside, I really don’t think I wanted them to be fixed, though. I liked them more than the nice boys. The problem was that most of those kinds of boys were abusive, and abusive relationships never last.”
“Well, at least you had the common sense to leave them.”
Somehow, I managed to laugh a dry laugh.
“I didn’t leave one of them. That’s not what girls like me do. We stay much longer than we should. Most of us stay in abusive relationships until we’re so beaten and battered that our boyfriend’s in jail. And then, we’re standing there waiting for him when he gets out.” I forced a smile. “No, they left me.”
He looked up. Sorrow covered his face. “Did you love any of them?”
“I thought at the time I loved them all, but I didn’t. There was one I did, though.”
“Was he abusive to you? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“It’s okay.”
I didn’t like talking about it what happened, and decided to keep my response as brief as possible. “He wasn’t. He was the only one who wasn’t abusive.”
“And he was your only love?”
“He was.”
His eyes lit up. After a few seconds, he grinned. “Did he love you?”
“He did.”
“What happened to him?”
I should have known he would ask. I tried to take a deep breath, but couldn’t. The pressure in my chest increased with each heartbeat until I thought I was going to burst. Thinking about it was painful, and talking about it was impossible. I hadn’t thought about it for years, and in the last two days, I’d mentioned it twice.
Avoiding lengthy responses with Pee Bee was easy. With Bradley, it would be impossible. He would pry and pry until he got what he wanted.
A response was necessary.
It was the price I paid for allowing people into my life, I supposed. I gazed beyond him, and into the small landscaped area in the back yard. “He uhhm. He didn’t work. He hustled for his money. You know, made a little here, a lot there. But he always provided, so I never asked. He didn’t use drugs, if you’re wondering. So, we’d been together for a few years, and I was in college, studying for my nursing degree. Back then, I lived in a house, not an apartment.”
I paused, remembering the night the police crashed into our home.
“He had this friend, Josh, who I never liked, by the way. I wouldn’t let him in the house. Ever. That was my rule. We had another rule. We never lied to each other. That’s where the evasive responses come from. I think I picked it up from him. Sometimes he’d talk in a circle to keep from lying to me.”
I took a shallow breath. My soul ached. What happened wasn’t my fault, and I knew it. But, I was forced to live with my memories of the time we were together, which included his execution of the crime.
“We were in bed one night. Sleeping. The police came through the windows, through the walls, and through the front door. They uhhm. They drove one of those things through the side of our house.”
I took a short, choppy breath and although I didn’t want to, continued. “They took him away, and other than one visit in jail, I haven’t seen him since.”
It wasn’t enough. I wanted it to be, but it wasn’t. He would certainly ask. I needed to finish the story.
My eyes fell to the floor. I couldn’t look at Bradley.
At least not yet.
My stomach soured. I pressed the heels of my palms against my ribs and struggled to swallow.
“Did you hear about that family in Escondido? Two uhmm. Two years ago? It was in June. The 16th. That was the day that uhhm…that it happened. There was…it was three…three kids…and their…both parents. Somebody…”
I exhaled. Along with it, part of my soul escaped me.
“They were…Somebody uhhm…”
My mouth had gone dry. Continuing wasn’t going to be easy. My lower lip was quivering. I bit into it and spoke softly through the corner of my mouth.
“They had all been…”
It was all I could say. I let out a breath and then looked up and met his gaze. His eyes were red and swollen. One of my shoulders shrugged. Kind of. I wanted to be done.
He nodded.
I needed to say it anyway.
“That. That uhhm. That was him. Him and Josh.”
My head nodded a few times, even though I didn’t want it to. I think it was trying to remind me that it really happened.
He reached across the table. “I’m sorry.”
I gently squeezed his fingertips.
“Yeah.” I wiped my cheek against my upper arm. “Me, too.”
FOURTEEN
Pee Bee
Heaven, by Rag N Bone Man blared from the speakers. Momentarily lost in the music, I twisted the throttle back and increased my speed. After a few very enjoyable blocks, the song ended.
I glanced at the dash. Much to my surprise, it was 3:00 a.m. I cocked my head to the side. “You worn out yet?”
“Whatever you want,” she said. “I could do this all night.”
“We don’t have to go much longer for that,” I said. “It’s three o’ clock.”
She leaned forward. “Three? In the morning?”
“Well it sure as fuck isn’t afternoon.”
Unlike most women riders, she didn’t hold onto me, and knew very well that she didn’t have to. She rested her feet on the pegs, her back against the rest, and let her arms hang at her sides. Each time she leaned forward, however, her boobs pressed into my back.
It was enough of a tease that each time it happened, I wanted to fuck her that much more.
“So what are you thinking?” I asked.
“I’ve got to get up at 5:15. Take me home, I guess.”
Although we’d ridden up and down the coast in our night’s excursion, at that moment we were only fifteen minutes from where she’d dropped off her car. I changed lanes, rolled up to the light, and quickly made a U-turn in the vacant intersection.
I grabbed a fistful of throttle and sped up to 60 as fast I could. As I steadied the speed, she rested her chin on my shoulder.
“I love it when you go fast,” she breathed into my ear. “It’s…it makes me feel clean.”
“What? Clean?”
“I don’t know how else to describe it.”
A ride on the bike did a lot of things for me, but making me feel clean wasn’t one of them.
“Always made me feel free,” I said. “When I twist that throttle, I want to scream freedom!”
“Maybe that’s what I feel.”
She leaned back against the rest. Within a few minutes, we were parked beside her car.
I switched off the bike, put down the kickstand, and glanced at the apartment complex beside where we were parked.
“This is where you live?”
“This is it.”
“I’ll walk you to the door.” I said, hoping I’d figure out a way to get inside without pissing her off.
She got off the bike, pulled off her helmet, and let her hair down. “I’ll be fine.”
“No, really,” I said. “I’ll walk you up.”
She handed me the helmet. “Okay.”
We walked side by side, weaving through the maze of buildings, until we reached one in the rear of the complex. As she stepped onto the sidewalk, I glanced over my shoulder and looked out toward the street. Her car was half a block away.
Rough (Filthy F*ckers MC #2) Page 8