Clutch

by Drew Elyse

  “Afternoon,” Dad muttered. Then, more quietly, he grumbled, “Asshole.”

  Nathaniel turned toward Gauge and extended a hand. “Hello, we have not met. Nathaniel Wright. Welcome to my home.”

  It would have taken someone exceptionally thick skulled to miss the derisive look Gauge offered. Whether that was the result of him pointing out the obvious fact that the two had never met, that he had welcomed Gauge into a house the man had been in for several hours, or the general air of superiority Nathaniel unjustifiably had about him, I could not be sure. Gauge looked Nathaniel over, seeming to size him up. What he saw must not have been favorable. He did not reciprocate the handshake, simply grunting out, “Gauge.”

  Nathaniel pulled his hand back when it was clear he was holding it out for nothing, then returned, “And your real name?”

  “Far’s you need to be concerned, it’s Gauge,” the now less-than-happy biker answered.

  “Well, then,” Nathaniel tried to move on, but it seemed even he was flustered by the blatant animosity coming from the man much larger than him and much less concerned with social norms like not beating a man to a pulp in his own house, “I will go change so we can leave for the club.” Only then did he finally look to me, giving me a long inspection. “Is that what you’re wearing?”

  “Yes. Julianne picked it out,” I told him. I watched acceptance of the outfit settle in as soon as I mentioned the personal shopper he paid generously, as I knew it would. Without another word, he left the room.

  “I need a fuckin’ smoke,” Dad muttered before heading out the front door.

  Silence filled the room for a moment, until Gauge spoke up. “He always talk to you like that?”

  I sighed. That was not even remotely something I wanted to get into. “He is very particular. He cares a great deal about his image, and how I dress when we go out is a big part of that.” I wondered if he could hear Nathaniel speaking those words through me as clearly as I could.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  There was no point in responding. He was not wrong.

  It was unsettling, having him dissect my relationship. I was so used to everyone buying into the performance. I was used to Nathaniel’s friends and associates who saw our interactions as ideal. I was used to the wives from Fair Oaks and their willful acceptance of the same life. I had come to accept the way my world operated, but Gauge was not part of that world. He and the Disciples—including my father—lived in a world far more transparent despite the grit to it.

  I could hear Nathaniel’s footfalls on the steps, and noticed Gauge’s eyes flick in that direction. His focus returned to me, and he spoke in a hushed, but intense, tone. “You don’t deserve that shit.”

  That rendered me speechless. I stayed mute even as Nathaniel returned, even as my dad came back from his cigarette break, even as Nathaniel and I climbed into his sedan while Dad and Gauge straddled their bikes, and even as Nathaniel criticized Gauge’s appearance as “unbecoming” and spoke of his displeasure at arriving to the country club with two bikers in tow. My mind was focused on two nearly black eyes that still managed to hold all the heat of a burning flame as they singed right through to the heart of me. I knew fire; I felt it within me all the time. I battled the flame that tried to ignite into an inferno every day. I kept it contained where it needed to be, only allowing small flare-ups to escape. Suddenly, with one blazing look, it felt like he scorched clean through those walls.

  I had no idea if they could hold.

  Eating at the damn country club was high on my list of the most awful meals I’d ever experienced. It wasn’t the looks of censure leveled on Tank and I from the minute we walked in the damn door. It wasn’t the slimy assholes regularly approaching the table to speak to Cami’s jackass fiancé who were only too quick to run their eyes all over her and completely ignore the tattooed, bearded thugs sitting across the table.

  No, the thing that had me ready to fucking break something was having to sit directly across from a shell of the woman who’d had me at the end of her hook all day.

  Cami—or maybe this was Camille, since the jackass next to her refused to call her anything else—was like a stranger. She was poised and gracious, spoke softly but clearly, and never went so far as to express an opinion of her own¸ just agreed with everything Natey-boy said. She was the perfect fucking arm candy. And it made me sick.

  From the tension rolling off of Tank, I could tell he wasn’t enjoying the puppet act either. The man was determined to draw his daughter out from under the veneer, and I was happy to help.

  “Find any new bands recently, sweetheart?” Tank asked her, then turned to me. “My girl always knows the best new metal. I don’t know where she finds ‘em, but they’re always the shit.”

  Cami smiled, and I swore I saw a flash of the real her shining through for about half a second. Then, Natey-boy spoke up. “We do not particularly care for music, especially of that type. Camille has grown out of that phase.”

  What the fuck kind of person doesn’t “care for music”? That shit makes no sense.

  “You sure about that, Natey-boy?” I asked. “Seemed to me Cami was enjoying some sick music earlier when we rolled in.”

  Another flash in her eyes, this one almost seemed like anger at me. Fine, baby, have at it. If she wanted a fight, I’d take that if it was all I could get. I’d take whatever was real.

  Natey-boy looked at her in reproach, but she stayed focused on me. He didn’t care for that based on the way his mouth pinched. I smirked at him. Can’t fault the lady for focusing on a real man.

  As the prick was about to say something I’m sure would only make me want to lay him out, Cami spoke up. “So, does everyone know what they are going to order?”

  I snorted at her thinly veiled attempt to keep the meal from going to hell. Those brown eyes flashed with warning, but it wasn’t that simple to keep me quiet. “Not sure, darlin’. What’re you getting?”

  I didn’t miss the way her eyes closed when I called her ‘darlin’’, like she was trying to hide whatever reaction it caused in her. Of course, hiding the desire I’m sure I would’ve seen in her eyes didn’t do much. I still knew she felt it. That was all I needed. Surely Natey-boy hadn’t missed the pet name either, but I wasn’t pulling my eyes from her to see what he thought.

  “I am having trouble deciding,” she responded cooly, causing my smirk to grow. “Possibly the stuffed chicken or the fettuccine primavera.”

  “Camille,” Natey-boy’s cautioning voice told me right away I wasn’t going to like what he was about to say, “are you sure either of those are a good choice? What would your trainer say? You don’t want to undo a week’s worth of workouts in one meal.”

  Tank had been trying far harder to be civil with the jackals than me, but that seemed to be the final straw. “Are you telling my daughter she needs to lose weight?”

  “Dad—” Cami started, but he cut her off.

  “Fuck no, girlie. You’re thinner than I’ve ever seen you. I’m not about to sit here while you let him fill your head with shit. Fuck, I’d say you should put on a few more pounds, get back to where you were before you left for school. You want to eat something a little bad for you, then you’re damn well gonna do it.”

  The tension at our table was thick. I waited for the pompous shit to open his mouth again—he wasn’t smart enough to recognize the threat the men seated with him posed—but the waiter stopped back by, saving him from saying something he might seriously regret.

  There was another punk I wanted to get my hands on. Kid had serious eyes for Cami, and he wasn’t nearly as good at disguising that shit as he thought he was. I was also pretty damn sure he was keeping her glass full of liquor. I caught a whiff of Jack when he set her drink down earlier. Maybe that was how she suffered through this crap on a regular basis.

  “Have you decided what you would like to eat this evening?”

  There was a momentary silence, which Natey-boy broke by saying, “
Yes, James, I believe we’re ready to order.” He acted like knowing the server by name made him the damn humanitarian-of-the-year. He ordered, adding on a list of instructions for the kitchen that made me want to tell him he should go back there and make it himself. Tank ordered the steak I had been eyeing, but when the kid turned to me, I made a split-second decision.

  “I’ll have the stuffed chicken, and she’ll take the fettuccine primavera. And can you bring out an extra plate, so we can split them?”

  “Of course, sir,” the waiter, smarmy kid he was, answered. His eyes went back to Cami again, and I was getting close to calling him out on it.

  As he walked away, Tank started giggling like a fuckin’ schoolgirl. Natey-boy looked ready to throw a tantrum. Cami, though, her lips tipped up slightly, making me feel like a damn king. Then, she had to take it a step further and make me hard.

  “I bet the club girls love you,” she sassed.

  “You and I both know club girls don’t get that kinda treatment, not that they’re complaining about what I’m giving them,” I answered. “The woman who gets my patch though, I’d say she’ll be a damn happy woman.”

  “Club girls?” Nathaniel asked, clearly agitated about not being privy to part of the conversation. That was alright; I was happy to ruffle his feathers further by explaining it to him.

  “Bitches who hang around the club to fuck the brothers. If a member wants to get his dick wet, he can tag one of them to do it, no questions asked.”

  That rendered him speechless. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, like he was trying to think of the “proper” way to respond. “This is not an appropriate dinner conversation.”

  “No? Huh. Sorry, my manners are pretty fucking lacking overall. Mom never could get me to mind my p’s and q’s.”

  Tank, who’d turned into fucking Chuckles McGee next to me, said, “Fuckin’ savage, you are.”

  Cami looked like she was barely containing herself. I couldn’t quite tell whether she was ready to tell me off or found me messing with her fiancé as funny as her father. It didn’t really matter which it was, I wasn’t letting up. If she wanted it to stop, she’d have to make me.

  A bus boy dropped our food off a while later, and Natey-boy watched on while I divided up the two entrees I had ordered for Cami and I to share. I loaded half of the chicken onto the extra plate, in case she wanted to keep her dishes separate, then spooned half the pasta in its place. The way she immediately tucked in with vigor was all the affirmation I needed. I’d made the right call.

  I was begrudgingly admitting to myself that the food was choice when the waiter returned.

  “How is everything this evening?” he asked.

  “Just fine, James. Thank you,” Natey-boy clipped out. Again, with the damn name—I got it, he knew how to address the kid.

  “Can I get you anything else, ma’am?” What, did he think amping up the drawl was going to get her to outright ask him to fuck her in the middle of the dining room?

  “I am alright, for now,” Cami returned. “Thank you, hun.”

  Wait a fucking minute. Natey-Boy might have been too obtuse to notice the insinuation in her tone, but I sure as hell wasn’t. Was she screwing that little punk? I swore to Christ, I’d break his damn hands if he was touching her.

  A quick glance at Tank told me he was just as ready to take down the waiter. If he didn’t get his eyes off Cami soon, he’d be finding out how being choked with that bowtie he had on felt.

  We’re going to leave the fact that she called him “hun” alone. There was no fucking reason to get into my reaction to that.

  “So, Sturgis is coming up? That should be a good time,” Cami said. There was a nonchalant way about her I wasn’t buying. My guess was she noted the way Tank and I were watching the waiter, and wanted to offer a distraction.

  “Always is,” Tank answered. “Sure you don’t want to ride along? Always got room for my girl on the back of my bike.” I’d be happy to volunteer the back of mine, if she’d rather ride there.

  “Sturgis, as in that motorcycle rally?” Natey-boy asked like that was shocking.

  “Yeah, as in the fuckin’ motorcycle rally,” I retorted.

  “And why would Camille want to go to such a thing?”

  “Sturgis is a good time. Get to know a lot of good folks, see some bands, have some fun. Used to be Cami’s favorite week. I took her along every year when she was growin’ up,” Tank answered. “We had a lot of great trips up there, didn’t we, kiddo?”

  “Yeah, Dad,” Cami said, looking a bit wistful.

  “You went to something like that as a child?” That fiancé of hers really had no concept of respect. To sit there and insult Tank, his parenting, me, and the rest of the motorcycle community, was seriously crossing the line.

  “Look, Natey-boy, you need to watch your fuckin’ mouth. That’s my brother you’re disrespecting. You know nothing about the life, so you have no place passing judgment. At least we’re fucking respectful enough not to tell our women what to eat and wear. I’d rather have my daughter around the folks at Sturgis than the likes of you any damn day.” I stood, needing some fucking space. “I gotta take a leak. I’m rollin’ out when I get back, Tank.”

  With that, I walked away before things got out of hand. I had been losing the grip on my control all evening. Seeing that piece of shit talk down to Cami, pass judgment on my and my brother’s life, and generally walk around like his shit didn’t stink…it was more than I could handle. How the hell Tank held it together every time he saw that dick was beyond me. I hardly knew Cami, but watching anyone with a bit of Disciple in them get treated that way was too much for me. If that were my flesh and blood, Mr. Self-Righteous out there would’ve been pushing up daisies a long time ago.

  I splashed some water on my face in the bathroom, telling myself, again and again, this had nothing to do with wanting Cami for myself. This had to do with Disciple blood. This had to do with my mom raising me to treat a woman right. I may not respect easy pussy around the club, but if a woman gets a patch or a ring from me, that woman gets treated like a queen. The last thing my reaction had to do with was the images that kept popping into my head of Cami on the back of my bike, Cami laid out in my bed, Cami on her knees…

  Shit. I shook those thoughts off again. Last thing I needed was to be getting hard in a country club bathroom over some woman getting married to a douche who treated her like crap. That was a level of complicated I did not need in my life.

  Now, if only I could remember that when I saw her again.

  There had been nothing but stilted silence since . His frustration was not exactly a surprise, and certainly not unjustified. I had hoped beyond hope Nathaniel might be capable of simply keeping himself quiet and not inciting any issues. With Dad, he had actually managed to do so in the past. There seemed to be something about Gauge that made him feel threatened and caused him to jockey for position.

  Actually, I supposed it was straightforward. Gauge was living, breathing masculine power. He exuded it with every look and every word. Making it a point repeatedly to flirt with me only added to the issue. Even if his attentions had come across as harmless, it was still an affront to Nathaniel’s sense of dominance. Worse still, it was clear Gauge’s flirting was anything but harmless. Then, of course, there was the nickname, Natey-boy.

  It seemed Gauge brought out the worst in Nathaniel—not that that was a particularly difficult thing to do—and Nathaniel’s worst was something Gauge simply could not tolerate. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Gauge was also not a man who kept his feelings to himself.

  That left the three remaining members of our party caught in a silence heavy with animosity and disapproval.

  I searched around the room, the desperate need to numb the failure of a night away clawing at me. I found Dallas standing beside the door to the kitchen. One look was all it took. He gave me a purposeful nod, then walked through the halls beyond the dining room.