by Kacee Kupser
“Seriously, isn’t a man allowed to have some time to himself? I knew if there was anything urgent I’d have someone at my door.”
Joker was looking around the room and when I followed his eyes I could see what he was seeing. Obviously I had been drinking myself stupid with all of the empties I had on the coffee table. I had started with beer and when I ran out of that I turned to scotch.
“You sure everything is okay Beast? You don’t usually get drunk by yourself.”
“Jesus did your woman take your balls? Since when do you act like a woman all concerned?”
“Oh my woman can have my balls any time she wants, she knows what to do with them, but that’s not the point. I know I’ve been preoccupied with Red, but I’ve noticed that you’ve been off lately.”
“Man I’m fine. Just got a lot on my plate and need to chill for a bit.”
Joker kept staring at me as if he was gauging whether he should believe me or not. He seemed to be satisfied with what he saw because he gave me a nod and started heading for the front door. “Well, I’ve got a woman warming my bed at home and it’s about time I go wake her up for a little lovin’. You let me know if you need anything brother.”
“Yeah, I appreciate it man, but as I said I’m fine. Just taking some time to myself to relax.”
Joker left the house and drove off towards his house that he shares with Everly and I closed the door behind him. Leaving the empties on the coffee table, I turned the TV off and went off to have a shower before heading to bed. I had to be up in a few hours to get back to work and try to finally get all of that paperwork done.
When my alarm went off at 6:00 am I would have loved to roll over and go back to sleep, but there was just too much to do. Rolling out of bed I put on some sweats and trudged down to the basement to get a workout done before showering and heading into the clubhouse to get my work done.
Since leaving the Seals I’ve continued to do my workouts at least once a day to keep in shape. I couldn’t expect my brothers to follow me as their President if I was weak, in both body and mind.
When I made it into the clubhouse it was still early and the bar area was thankfully empty. I was NOT in the mood to make small talk with anyone this morning.
For once my head seemed to be in the game and I was able to get the majority of my paperwork done before I started hearing movement out in the clubhouse. Most of the club whores lived on site and got up earlier than the brothers who lived here to get breakfast started. The prospects also lived on site and one of their many jobs was to keep the clubhouse clean and the bar stocked at all times.
Looking at the clock, I noticed it was nearing 10:00 am and my stomach rumbled to let me know it was ready to have some of the food the girls were making.
Walking out into the clubhouse, I saw that a few of my brothers were up and grabbing food from the buffet the girls had set out. Picking up a plate, I helped myself to some eggs, bacon, pancakes and coffee.
I sat beside Hawk and before I could even dig into my food, he was on me. “What’s up brother? Everything good?”
I turned to him and put my first forkful of food in my mouth before answering. “Yeah Hawk, everything is fine. What is with everyone asking me if I’m alright? Did we suddenly turn into a group of women?”
“Nah Pres, just noticed you’ve been off lately. Wanted to make sure everything was okay and you didn’t need me to kick someone’s ass for hurting your feelings.”
“Fuck you asshole. Everything is fine, go back to eating your breakfast and leave me alone to eat mine.”
More and more brothers started coming out of their rooms in the back and the clubhouse was starting to come alive.
“Hey Beast, you need anything else?” Looking over my shoulder was Pinky, one of the club whores who lived on site and helped with preparing our meals.
“Nah, I’m good babe, thanks though.”
She grabbed my dish and turned to take it to the kitchen, the sound of my hand slapping her ass was drowned out by the chatting going on.
Turning back to the table I saw that Hawk had finished his breakfast as well and was just looking at me. “What?”
“Nothing, just glad to see you coming back to your old self. You’ve been keeping yourself separate from the girls for a while now and I was starting to worry you’d handed your balls over to some woman or something.”
“Oh brother, you know that’s never going to happen. I don’t want or need an old lady.”
“Yeah, Joker said the same thing and then he met Red and look where he is now. Just saying Beast, you never know what life is going to throw at you.”
“Thanks for the words of wisdom brother, but I’m loving life just the way it is.”
I grabbed my coffee, saluted him with my mug, and headed back to my office to finish up my work.
Chapter 4 – Brenna
Looking down at the counter in the handicap bathroom, all five pregnancy tests were sitting on the counter staring at me and proving what I already knew, I’m pregnant. Now my next step was to get the freaking out, out of the way and see a doctor to make sure everything was okay.
When I opened the door to the washroom Cody was leaning on the wall across from the door looking at me expectantly. “Soooooo?”
“Well, I guess you’re going to be an uncle.”
“Holy shit! Are you serious? Are you okay? How do you feel? What are you going to do?”
“Slow down babe. I don’t know what I’m going to do. The first thing I need to do is finish my shift then go home and freak the fuck out.”
“Oh yeah, there will definitely be some freaking out going on I’m sure. I’ll text Ethan and get him to make all of your favourite foods and we will come over and get pissed drunk while you eat as much junk food as you can and we will cry it out then figure out your next step.” Ethan is Cody’s husband, a chef who owns his own restaurant in town, and he loved to try new foods on me so he knows exactly what I love to eat.
“That would be fantastic. I’m not telling Everly yet. She’ll be so excited and will tell Joker and I can’t risk it getting back to Beast until I’ve calmed down a bit.”
“I feel you babe. Let’s finish off our shift and get the crying party started.”
Cody always has a way of making me laugh. He takes the most stressful situations and makes inappropriate jokes about them, but it makes me laugh every time and always cheers me up.
The rest of our shift seemed to crawl by. When it was finally over I was exhausted and emotional, but was looking forward to having Cody and Ethan over.
I waved to Cody while I got in my car to head home, he would head home to pick up Ethan and then they’d meet me at my place. It would give me plenty of time to get home, have a shower and get into some comfy clothes.
Pulling into my driveway, I was happy to be home. I bought my house a few years ago and it was my sanctuary. I had been slowly working on it, making it into my dream, and I was almost finished. I loved to cook and so my kitchen was the first thing I renovated. It was a chef’s dream. Ethan had helped me pick everything. I made sure to have all the baking accoutrements since my best friend, Everly, was a professional baker and I wanted her to be able to bake me all the good stuff whenever she came over. Very selfless of me, I know.
Cody and Ethan arrived minutes after I got dressed in my most comfortable clothes. Opening the door, Ethan came charging at me and grabbed me up in his arms, lifting me off the floor and swinging me around.
“Obviously someone is excited to be an uncle?”
“Oh boo, you have NO idea how excited I am. I’m so happy you got knocked up!”
“Jesus baby, calm down. We are here for moral support, remember? Our girl needs to have an emotional crying and freaking out night before we can be all excited and start shopping for the little squish.”
I just rolled my eyes at the two of them. They were ridiculously cute, but Cody was right, I needed to have a freak out night and then I’d be okay. I was one of th
ese people who could just have a break down for a few hours and then put my big girl panties on and get on with life.
Cody was carrying a couple of bags full of food that smelled fantastic. Ethan knew how to spoil me and I was looking forward to it. Even though I was sick every morning, my appetite afterwards was huge.
Walking into the kitchen I grabbed some plates and we all filled them and then walked into the living room to sit down and talk.
Ethan was the first to drill me on what was going on. “So, tell me what’s going on. Obviously you’re with child, but who is the father? Why haven’t we met him? How does he feel about the baby?”
“Slow down Ethan, slow down. The father is named Beast…”
“Hold up, Beast? You never told me his name was Beast. Where did that name come from? Is he a beast in bed? Is he hung like a horse?”
I could see the look on Cody’s face and he was going right to the dirty. We both had a tendency to do that.
“Slow down Cody, we can get to your fantasizing when we get home. For now, let our girl finish what she was saying.”
“Thanks Ethan. As I was saying, his name is Beast, no I don’t know where the name came from, yes, he’s a beast in bed, and yes, he’s hung like a horse. He’s Joker’s best friend and that’s how I met him. We hooked up one time, it was going to be two, but something came up, and obviously first times the charm, as they say. Lastly, no I haven’t told Beast yet. I’m not sure how he’s going to feel about it, but I need to figure my shit out before I tell him and have to deal with him.”
For once they were both silent. They were just staring at me with looks of wonder on their faces.
Cody was the first to come out of his trance. “Okay, well obviously Beast has some powerful swimmers. Didn’t you guys use protection?”
“We might have forgotten in the heat of the moment. But I’m on the pill, we should have been fine!”
“Damn babe, you never forget to make a brother cover up. That aside, obviously you were meant to be a mother. Now what are you going to do?”
I thought I’d be freaking out and crying by now. I’m not usually a crier, but my hormones have been all out of whack and I usually cry at the drop of a hat right now, but having Cody and Ethan here has been having a calming effect on me. I know they’ll be there with me through this no matter what happens with Beast.
“Well, I haven’t really given it much thought. I’m not going to get rid of it, that’s for sure, but I never planned on being a single mother. Working the jobs we work, with the different shifts all of the time, it’s going to be difficult to find any kind of child care. Plus the cost of child care is going to make life hard, but I’ll figure that out.”
“We’ll help out any way we can babe.” I smiled at Cody, I always knew I could count on them. “Have you thought about how you’re going to tell your family?”
Shit, of course Cody had to bring up my family. They were great and they loved me, but they were rather traditional. My parents moved here from Northern Ireland, before I was born and they still had quite traditional beliefs. Mom would be excited, if a little disappointed. It’s dad I was worried about.
“Fuck you, are you kidding me right now? I was just starting to get calm about the idea and now you had to bring up telling my parents?”
Cody just laughed at me. “Oh you know you love me. Someone had to remind you that Everly and Beast aren’t the only ones you have to tell.”
“Yeah, I’ll put off telling them as long as I can. For now I’m going to have to make a doctor’s appointment and get an ultrasound done. I should be far enough along that they’ll want to do the dating ultrasound so once I get all that done and know that everything is okay I’ll figure out how I’m going to break it to my one night stand that he’s going to be a father.”
As I was talking, my phone buzzed and looking down I saw I had a text message from an unknown number. Opening my phone it looked to be from Joker.
Joker: Hey Brenna. This is Joker. Just wanted to invite you to the clubhouse on Saturday for a BBQ. I’ve got a surprise for Red so she won’t know you’re invited.
“Who sent you a text that has you looking all panic stricken?” Asked Ethan.
“It’s Joker. He wants me to come to the clubhouse this weekend for some kind of surprise for Ev. It made me realize I’m supposed to be going for dinner with her tomorrow night and I can’t do that until I’m ready to talk to Beast. She’ll know that something’s wrong. I also can’t go to the clubhouse, he’ll be there too.”
“Okay, well text Ev in the morning and tell her that Ethan asked you to cover my shift for me because he has a surprise for me for our anniversary. She won’t question that. Then make plans for next week. You know you can get in to see one of the OBs tomorrow, just talk to one of them on the ward and they’ll fit you in.”
Nodding I responded, “Okay, right, sounds like a good plan. I don’t even need to go into the hospital tomorrow to find the OB on call. I’ll just text Tamsyn and see if she can fit me in.”
Tamsyn was a friend and co-worker at the hospital. She was the best OBGYN we had, in my opinion.
Brenna: Hey babe. How you doing? You have time to fit me in tomorrow sometime?
Tamsyn: Hey! I’m good thanks. Of course, you know I can. Come to my office at 8:00. Text me when you get here and I’ll let you in.
With that, I was on to phase two of figuring out the rest of my life as a mom.
Chapter 5 – Beast
The week has gone by quickly and today was the day of the BBQ. Joker has been around the clubhouse more than usual making sure that everything is all ready to go for his proposal. I still can’t believe that my boy is going to ask his woman to marry him. I thought we’d be single together until we were too old to ride anymore, but I’m glad he found Ev. She’s a perfect fit for him and the club. She’ll make a great old lady.
Walking into the clubhouse it’s a hive of activity. We love to have BBQs as often as possible. It’s not a typical club party, no sex out in the open, club whores are welcome as long as they are respectful of the old ladies and kids.
We’ve become friendly with another MC in the area, the Cursed Bastards, and I’m sure some of them will be here today with their families.
When I enter the kitchen Queenie is ordering the other old ladies and the club whores around like a drill sergeant. She’s been the queen bee for years now and she runs a tight ship.
“Hey Queenie, you got everything you need babe?”
She stopped what she was doing and turned to look at me. “Yeah Beast, I’m good hun. The girls are being a great help. Everything will be good to go by the time Joker and Ev show up.”
“All right ladies, keep up the good work, and if you need anything else just let one of the prospects know.”
Turning back out of the kitchen I headed toward the back door to see if the prospects had everything under control out there.
It was a beautiful day outside, but thankfully not too hot. There is a nice breeze, so even though we’ll be outside we won’t be dying in the heat.
Looking around, the prospects were getting everything set up. Griff was setting up the fire pit for when the sun goes down, Kevin was loading coolers with ice and drinks and getting the kegs tapped and ready to go, and Nick was setting up the toys and games for the kids coming. We didn’t have a lot of kids in the club, most of them being older, but we did have a few younger ones so we always made sure that there were activities to keep them occupied and out of their parent’s hair.
“Everything under control Kevin?”
Kevin stopped what he was doing and looked up at me. “Yeah Pres. The ladies are getting all the food together, I’ve got most of the alcohol out here ready to go, with more in the storage room in case we run out, and Griff and Nick are almost finished getting the playground and fire pit set up.”
“Good job. Make sure to check in with Queenie to see if she needs anything from you boys. Who’s on babysitting duty tonight?�
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Griff had walked up while Kevin and I were speaking. “That would be me Pres. It’s my turn.”
“All right, you make sure those kids are safe, but that they have a great time.”
With a nod, Griff went back to getting everything set up and I turned back into the clubhouse. People should be arriving soon and I wanted to get my work done so that I didn’t have to worry about it tomorrow. If everything goes well Brenna will be here and maybe I can convince her to come up to my room with me once the party starts to die down.
I wasn’t sure how long I had been hunched over my desk, but when a knock came, followed by Joker walking into the room, I looked at my watch and noticed it was time for the party to start.