Death Dwellers Motorcycle Club:: Fifteen Bad Boy Biker Books

by Kathryn C. Kelly

  She was a beautiful baby with olive skin, and the longest lashes Kendall had ever seen. While Roxy and Bunny prepared the food for the dinner, they also looked after the kids. Roxy set miserable and cranky Zoann up in a guest room. Meggie wasn’t allowed to do anything. Meanwhile, Roxy gave Kendall the option to help or not.

  “I’m pregnant too, so I’ll rest like Meggie and Zoann,” she responded to Roxy. The situation had been explained to her when she walked in and found Roxy peeling potatoes.

  Roxy gave her an under-eyed look, pausing in the paring. “It’s obvious you’re pregnant, sugar. That’s not what I asked. In case you didn’t hear the first time, let me repeat. Can you help me and Bunny, or do you need to rest?”

  “No, I don’t need to rest, but Meg-”

  “Say no more. I’m going to need you to sit at the table and peel shrimp for me.”

  And just like that, Kendall went to work, until Roxy sent her to another guest room a couple of hours ago to rest. Granted, her chores hadn’t required a lot of standing, but Kendall still thought it so unfair. The guys hadn’t arrived until a few minutes ago. Christopher immediately disappeared, returning with Meggie in his arms and carefully sitting her to his right.

  “Before we start to eat, let’s say grace,” Roxy ordered, holding out both hands. She sat at the other end of the table, dressed in a red cocktail dress, her face artfully made up.

  “I ain’t into prayin’,” Christopher said, glaring at her.

  “I don’t give a fuck. I am, so we’re doing it.”

  “You in my fuckin’ house, Roxanne. What I say go.”

  Rolling her eyes, Meggie gave Christopher a cross look. “I’m hungry, you two.” She bowed her head and made the sign of the cross. “Bless the food, the cooks, the provider, and the diners. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Zoann and Bunny chorused.

  Christopher grimaced, Johnnie sighed, and Val smirked. Another man there sat next to Bunny, whom Meggie neglected to introduce to Kendall.

  Roxy snorted, but picked up the little bell and rang it.

  Kendall drew her brows together at the sight of Stretch and Hanson carrying trays. Christopher nodded to Meggie, indicating she be the first one served. Since Zoann sat next to Meggie, Stretch sat a salad plate in front of her, as Hanson did the same with Kendall. She started in surprise, not expecting such special treatment.

  Once everyone was served, they ate in silence for a few minutes.

  “Yo’, baby, that’s Trader. Bunny old man,” Christopher said, nodding toward the unknown man with his chin.

  Meggie crunched on her lettuce. “Nice meeting you.”

  “Yeah, Outlaw,” Bunny said. The smile plastered on her face didn’t reach her eyes. “Thanks for inviting him.”

  “What do you do for a living?” Roxy asked, setting her fork aside, and sipping from her highball glass.

  Trader shrugged. “Things. Why?”

  Roxy lifted a brow. “I must want to know. I don’t ask fucking questions just to hear myself talk.”

  Bunny blushed and threw Roxy a pleading look. “Trader’s really modest,” she said in a high-pitched voice.

  “Ummmhmmm. Even modest motherfuckers share something of themselves, especially when they’re around their lady’s friends. Good impressions and all.”

  “Maybe, he ain’t givin’ a fuck one way or the other ‘bout impressin’ no-fuckin-body.”

  Trader smirked at Roxy. “What Outlaw said.”

  Zoann noisily pushed her plate and fork away, grabbing her water glass with a dramatic sigh. “I’m ready for the next course.”

  “I’m not,” Kendall piped up, returning her attention to the plain lettuce salad. She cut her lettuce into small pieces, frowning when she stuffed a forkful in her mouth, and found it to be just plain lettuce. No dressing. She made a face. “Meggie, I think you forgot to include salad dressing on your menu.”

  “No, Kendall, I didn’t,” she said coolly. “I didn’t plan this.”

  “Right. Just blindly following Christopher again.”

  “Kendall,” Johnnie began in disapproval.

  Ignoring him, she focused on Roxy, surprised at the anger in her eyes, but not paying attention to it, either. “You’re a strong woman. Tell her how important education is and having a brain of her own.”

  “Get the fuck out my fuckin’ house, you ragin’ fuckin’ cunt,” Christopher snarled, jumping to his feet. Johnnie got to his, too. Everyone else just looked uncomfortable. “You comin’ back with this same fuckin’ bullshit—”

  “Outlaw, John Boy, sit back down. Now!”

  “You get the fuck out with her, Roxanne,” Christopher ordered, instead of following her instructions.

  “Please?” she amended. “If Kendall and Johnnie walk out, it’s going to dampen the spirits.”

  “This cunt already dampened the fuckin’ spirit,” he roared, but reseated himself, offering Kendall a murderous stare.

  “Fuck, Kendall,” Johnnie whispered, once he, too, sat again. “Why are you-?”

  “Kendall, sugar, I’m going to need you to grow the fuck up,” Roxy interrupted. “A degree doesn’t make a man or a woman. Personality does and from where the fuck I’m sitting, you’re sorely lacking in one, if you’re taking jabs at Meggie. In case it hasn’t dawned on you, yet, you’re making an ass of yourself, while Meggie’s busily living her life. You need to get the fuck over it and her. That’s the cheekiest bullshit I ever heard, and I’ve heard a bunch of bullshit in my life. Let me ask you, she borrow money from you a lot?”

  Kendall fought back the tears that Roxy’s public dressing down caused, and shook her head. “She gets whatever she wants from Christopher.”

  “She complain to you about how shitty her life is?”

  “Her? According to her, she has nothing to complain about.”

  “Who the fuck else would it be according to, when she’s talking about her life and herself?”

  Kendall squirmed in her seat.

  “You’re delaying dinner with this bullshit,” Roxy continued. “I have some music planned for the evening and you are acting like a hateful bitch.”

  “You have no right-” Johnnie began.

  “I have inalienable rights to do whatever the fuck I want, and at the moment I want to straighten Kendall out. If you don’t like it, get the fuck out until I’m finished.”

  Johnnie narrowed his eyes. “Do you know who you fucking with?”

  Roxy picked up a sparkly handbag that lay next to her braided, gold placemat. She opened it and pulled out a blade. “Now, motherfucker, you know who the fuck you fucking with?”

  Christopher snorted a laugh, while Johnnie looked startled.

  “Find another bitch to intimidate, but I’m not the fucking one.” She pursed her lips and turned her attention to Kendall again. “These boys need the top bitches to look after each other. They don’t need fucking dissension because one bitch is jealous of the other. You want you and this motherfucker to work out? Then you have to make peace with his past and let go of whatever the fuck happened between Meggie and John Boy. Not only that, but you’re looking stupider by the second. He can’t go back and change his fucking past, so you fucking deal with it or get to fucking stepping and don’t look back.”

  Kendall gasped.

  “You have to live with Meggie?” she persisted.

  “No, but I have to see her.”

  “Wrong. You want to see her.”

  “That isn’t true!” Kendall screeched around a sob.

  “The fuck it’s not. No fucking where is it written you have to be her bestie and get all up in her face. You need to see her just to put something else in your arsenal of misery. You’re better than that, sugar. You don’t need Meggie for shit. You don’t need her approval. You don’t need her friendship. You don’t need anything. Again, you’re not hurting her one bit. She’s happy as fuck, without school. Without you.”

  Kendall sniffled. “Why are you telling me this in front of everyone?
”

  “Why do you jump on her ass in front of everyone?”

  “Because of the way she acts!”

  “She’s in her house. If she wants to swing from a fucking chandelier, you don’t have a goddamn thing to say about it. That’s some cheeky shit. Keep your fucking nose out of her business and handle yours.”

  “I’m trying to be her friend!”

  “No, you trying to be a messy ass bitch.” Throwing Johnnie a warning glare, Roxy snatched her knife from the table and dropped it back into her purse.

  “I’ve never had a girl for a friend before.”

  “It’s no wonder with the shit you do. I sure the fuck wouldn’t want a judgmental bitch as my fucking friend.”

  “Your motherfuckin’ ass would be cuttin’ a bitch,” Christopher said with respect.

  She winked at him. “K-P ever tell you how we met?”

  “Let me guess?” Val asked, his eyes dancing with amusement. “You were cutting a bitch?”

  “I was threatening to cut one. Arrow. K-P stepped in, though.”

  “You wanted to fight Arrow?” Meggie gasped.

  “Meggie, he was a motherfucker then and he’s a motherfucker now. Only thing I give his ass credit for is leading K-P to me.”

  “Arrow is a shit-stirrer,” Zoann agreed, looking at her empty salad plate with longing.

  “Kendall,” Roxy started again, not responding to Zoann, and adding to Kendall’s mortification. “You’re amongst family, sugar. We all love you and admire you. Just the way you are. You have to get that through your pretty head. I’m going to tell you, like I told Dinah. Think about what I said. I’m not a damn counselor, but I’ve lived. I made a shitload of mistakes along the way. Picked on the wrong people, and never graduated from college. Don’t make the mistakes I made with K-P. If I could tell my younger self anything, it would be to believe what my man told me. He didn’t hand out bullshit. We had a lot of obstacles, though.” She raised her arm and rubbed the skin on her wrist, nodding as if to indicate color had been part of it. “I walked away from some women who might’ve been wonderful support for me because my attitude was as bad as theirs. Never believing K-P wanted me with the way I looked. I was a young and dumb bitch. He bent over backwards to make me happy, but I wasn’t happy with me, so I couldn’t be happy with him.” She cocked her head to the side. “You want to look back on your life, in twelve years, and remember how lucky you were when you had Johnnie? Or you want to look over your life at that time, and bask in how lucky you are to have him? It’s your choice. Everyone gets tired of bullshit. This shit isn’t up to nobody but you.”

  Roxy went silent, lifted her bell and rang.

  Throughout the entire dinner, her words rolled through Kendall’s head. She couldn’t believe Roxy’s advice combined practical wisdom, a maternal kindness, and street mentality. It also contained wistful experience that Kendall wanted to ignore out of sheer stubbornness.

  She couldn’t, though. Partly because Roxy terrified her. While the dinner party went on, Kendall noted only she and Johnnie were quiet. When he’d walked in, he’d seemed happy and relaxed. She had no idea how he’d spent his day, but Christopher, Val, and Johnnie had been laughing and joking. He looked as if he anticipated spending time with her and them.

  Even Christopher seemed to have backed off, and just let her be. Until she’d ruined it, peeved because Roxy had put her to work and allowed Meggie to rest.

  Everyone went happily along, while Kendall stewed in bitterness and hate, disliking Meggie more because she reminded her of a woman best forgotten, than anything else.

  A guffaw from Roxy interrupted Kendall’s thoughts. “Outlaw, you’re a stupid motherfucker.”

  Christopher snickered, and Meggie shook her head, laughing.

  “You’re awful, Christy,” Zoann said around her own chuckles.

  “Psycho stalker wild man,” Val agreed.

  Bunny got to her feet. “I think I’ll go help the boys in the kitchen.”

  “Do you have to?” Meggie asked, her amusement dying. She narrowed her eyes at Trader.

  “Um, no. I have to check on the kids, though,” she said, almost running out before Meggie could say anything else.

  “Time for your ass to get the fuck out, Trader,” Roxy said.

  “Roxy, babe, this still my fuckin’ house, no matter how much I like your fuckin’ ass.”

  “Bunny’s been right with me the past couple days, helping out and looking after Meggie. She’s a fine girl, and for this motherfucker to come in here and treat her like she’s just a piece of ass isn’t happening around me.”

  “Trader my brother, not yours,” Christopher countered. “I fuckin’ invited him here. ‘Til I uninvite him, you ain’t got shit to say.”

  “I think I’m bypassing desert,” Zoann said morosely. She got to her feet, and Val jumped up immediately. “I’m suddenly so tired.”

  “Take her upstairs, Val,” Christopher ordered. “Let her rest, until she feel well e-fuckin-nuff to get to your house.”

  “Come on, babe,” Val said, wrapping his arm around her and guiding her out of the room.

  Trader stood, and offered Roxy a tight smile. “I think that’s my cue to leave, too.” He nodded to Meggie. “Pleasure to meet you.” To Kendall he said, “I don’t think I ever got your name.”

  “It’s Kendall,” Johnnie answered for her.

  He smiled. “Cool name.”

  “Dead ass,” Johnnie countered in warning.

  Trader lifted his calloused hands. “No harm, John Boy. Just commenting.”

  “Don’t,” he barked.

  A moment later, he left. Not missing a beat, Roxy raised her bell again. When Stretch and Hanson walked out this time, they carried plates with… what…? Kendall didn’t know as Hanson placed it before her. It smelled delicious, a combination of yeast, cinnamon, and sugar. It had icing on it, and sugar colored, purple, green, and gold.

  “Kendall, taste this,” Meggie gushed. “It’s King Cake. Roxy brought three with her. Omigod, it’s sooo good.”

  “I brought three. You’re right,” Roxy said. “What I want to know is what happened to the other two?”

  “I wanted something sweet,” Meggie said around a mouth full of cake. “Christopher found this and when we tasted it…Omigod.”

  “Herb, Al, and cake, un-fuckin-beatable.”

  Kendall took a bite. “Um, yum,” she said, surprised at how delicious it tasted. Four, hearty bites later, she finished and craved more.

  “You girls okay?” Roxy asked, once everyone cleaned their plates.

  “I’m fine,” Kendall said, as Meggie nodded.

  “Then, let’s go to the den, so we can listen to some good music.” Roxy picked up her purse, rolling her eyes when Christopher scooped Meggie into his arms.

  Johnnie put his hand at the small of Kendall’s back, not immediately following the other three. “Are you all right?” he asked, the intimate contact of his touch affecting her.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to talk to Roxanne,” he promised. “I didn’t want to-”

  “She scared the shit out of you, too, didn’t she?” Kendall interrupted with a giggle.

  The tips of his ears reddened and she laughed harder.

  “Not really scared me. I backed off because I didn’t want any bloodshed.”

  “Yours.”

  He glared at her, and the redness spread to his cheeks. Hugging him, she kissed his cheek, still chuckling. He relented, and laughed with her.

  “Come on. Let’s see what music she’s so anxious for us to hear.”

  Taking her hand, he started forward, but Kendall stopped him.

  “Don’t tell her anything. Everything she said made sense. What’s more is she’s speaking as a woman who’s been in my place.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  He kissed her forehead. “I’m so glad you’re back, gorgeous,” he whispered, taking her face between his hands an
d caressing it with reverence. “I missed you more than I can ever express.” Brushing his lips against her own, he pulled away from her and guided her out.

  In the den, Bunny watched over the boys.

  “Here, ‘law!” Little Man demanded Christopher, pointing to a spot on the floor where he sat with Ryan in the huge den.

  “Don’t call daddy Outlaw,” Meggie chastised from the sofa, next to Christopher, who had his arm draped casually behind her.

  “Come me,” Ryan demanded, frowning between Little Man and Christopher.

  “My ‘law!” Little Man protested.

  While Stretch rifled through an iPod, Roxy cooed to Harley.

  “Come here, buddy,” Meggie instructed her son. “You come too, Ryan.”

  “My Mommie!” Little Man yelled, getting to his feet and running to his mother as fast as his little legs could carry him. He wore pajamas with tiny little dinosaurs decorating the white cotton. He climbed onto her lap, situating his body so Ryan would have no space.

  Ryan pushed Little Man’s leg, whining.

  “Come here, Ryan,” Christopher directed. Sniffling, the child went to his uncle and held his arms up, even as he climbed onto Christopher’s lap and snuggled against him.

  Getting to his feet, Christopher held Ryan above his head, then carefully placed him around his neck, unaffected when the little boy gripped his hair, smiling in delight.

  Shocked at what she witnessed, Kendall allowed Johnnie to guide her to a loveseat, situated across from the sofa.

  “John-John,” Little Man said happily, when he caught sight of Johnnie.

  “Uncle Johnnie,” Meggie corrected, and then pointed to Kendall. “Aunt Kendall. Can you say that?”

  He tipped his head back and looked at his mother upside down, reaching for her hair. For as long as Kendall remembered, he’d tormented his mother’s golden strands.

  “Aunt Kendall,” she repeated patiently.

  “Ant Kenda.”

  While Kendall’s heart swelled inside of her chest at the child’s words, Meggie raised her hand. “Hi five.”