Steel chuckled. “You know what the biggest problem in our two clubs is?”
“Alpha Asshole Attitudes,” I answered knowingly with a shake of my head while Steel doubled over laughing.
“Alpha Asshole Attitudes,” he repeated as his laughter died down. “I’m going to start calling Sweet ‘Triple A’ and see what happens.”
“You’ll get your ass kicked,” came an answer from the man himself as he stood stiffly behind Steel. I couldn’t tell if he was angry or what though. “What’s the problem with the clubs though? I’d love to hear it.” There was a slight edge to his voice, but other than that he didn’t allow what I thought was irritation to bubble over.
“Communication.” Steel spoke the one word and I watched all the stiffness melt from Sweet’s body as he let out a breath.
“That’s a fact, brother.” He clapped Steel on the shoulder and then turned to me. “How have you been, JoJo?”
“Outside of the occasional pukefest I’ve been just grand,” I answered honestly. He nodded his head.
“You should go see Angel Girl sometime soon.” Sweet drew a hand down his face, rubbing through the almost-beard his stubble had grown into. “I don’t like thinking I fucked shit up with you and the club.” He glanced between Steel and myself then before continuing on. “I apologized to Steel already, but I owe you one too. I’m sorry for stepping in and meddling where I had no business to. My own shit-storm being what it was at the time made me think I knew what was best. I’m man enough to admit I was wrong.”
“Thank you, I accept your apology.” I turned to walk back to the bar to get rid of the glass my juice had been in before I drained it, but Sweet’s hand capturing my elbow stopped me. I turned and glanced up at him. “What?”
“I really hope you take my advice and go see Angel. I want the two of you to work your shit out.”
I had to swallow back my own anger then. So much for apologizing for meddling in one part of my life while attempting to do it again in another. “Sweet,” I tipped my chin down at his hand, which he promptly removed from my arm. “I don’t mean this in a bad way, but you need to hear what I’m telling you.” He managed a quick nod to let me know he was listening. “When I’m owed an apology it isn’t my job to go collect it. I put pride, anger, and hurt feelings aside to go welcome the three of you home. Anything further isn’t on me or up to me. Do you understand?”
I watched as his shoulders slumped a bit then. “She’s so stubborn sometimes. I was hoping I could talk sense into you instead. Not to mention she’s busy with the club and the baby, and all she can see through her exhaustion is that you abandoned the club when they needed you.”
I laughed then. “I abandoned the club when they needed me? That’s rich!”
“I’m not saying that’s the case, but there’s no reasoning with her right now. You’d think she was dealing with the baby blues and shit.” I could tell he was frustrated, but her issues really weren’t my problem since she’d made it clear that we weren’t exactly the friends I once thought we were.
I laughed then. Not at Jamie, but at him having to deal with the situation he’d put them in. “Maybe she’s pregnant too,” Steel chimed in.
“She can’t,” I started to say at the same time Sweet did. Then he stopped and we both looked at each other. “Do you think it’s possible?” I finally asked.
I didn’t get an answer because Sweet was out the door and gone. “Well, hell.” Steel chuckled. “My woman’s just runnin’ ‘em off left and right tonight.”
“Shut up,” I hissed at him.
“Nuh-uh. This is great. If we ever just want to clear a room I can send you in ten minutes before the rest of us and the problem will resolve itself.”
“You’re a jerk,” I laughed as I playfully slapped his arm. “They’re not running from me.”
“Sure, babe. Keep telling yourself that, and maybe one day it will be true.” My husband was itching to get his smart ass kicked. It was a good thing he amused me.
Chapter 12
The party at the clubhouse was so wild that I ended up falling asleep on one of the couches before Steel picked me up and took me to the room he had there. I knew it was happening at the time, but I honestly didn’t care. I was exhausted, and obviously not the life of anyone’s party.
Waking in the morning in an unfamiliar place wasn’t exactly fun, even if I did remember Steel taking me to his clubhouse room. Waking to a half naked woman storming into the room was another thing altogether. “Baby, are you here to play today?” The woman called out. I didn’t recognize her, but I knew for a fact she was trying to pull some shit, because Steel hadn’t spent a single night in the clubhouse since we’d married.
It just so happened that my man walked out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist and shaving cream on his head after hearing the announcement. “Who the fuck are you, and why are you in my room?”
“Aw, come on baby, you know I won’t tell,” she cooed from across the room before taking a step further inside and pretending to finally notice that I was there in the bed. “Oops,” she called out with a fake gasp and wide-eyes.
“Seriously?” I asked, while yawning. Her faux surprised look suddenly turned a little hostile.
“What does that mean?” She asked, clearly as stupid as she looked.
“It means… Are you seriously trying this shit right now? You do know what’s going to happen, right?”
The woman narrowed her eyes on me. “Yeah, you get the picture that you aren’t the only woman around here,” she seethed. I was actually stunned that she was going to keep up this charade with Steel standing there gawking at her. I glanced in his direction momentarily, and he just gave me a lopsided grin as he leaned back on the wall ready to enjoy the show.
“Okay, I guess we’re going to play this game then. When was the last time you were with my man, sweetie?” I asked in a super sugary tone.
She smirked at me. “I’m with him a couple nights a week,” she explained in her best effort at a sultry voice.
“I see,” I managed to choke out before turning to Steel and busting out laughing. I heard the woman harrumph from the other side of the room, but couldn’t make myself pay her any more attention.
“Bunny? What the fuck are you doing in there?” I heard one of the men yelling from down the hall.
“Bunny?” I questioned. “Oh hell, just when I thought it couldn’t get any better. There it is. Bunny is the one that came hopping in here with some bullshit story in an attempt to get rid of me.” Steel just shook his head and kept grinning at me.
Chief, one of the new local guys, came to an abrupt stop outside the door. “Sorry, I’ll get her out of your way,” he quickly tossed out.
“She your responsibility last night?” Steel asked the man.
“Fuck no! JD brought her in, says he went to high school with her. She’s been hanging around a bit, waiting to get on as a club girl.”
“I’m not waiting,” she informed him.
“No, you’re not,” I told her as I pulled the sheets up tighter around my chest since we were starting to draw an audience from the hallway. “Here’s what you didn’t think through. First, if you’re going to try to play these games, you need to know your mark. Steel is home in bed with me every night. He hasn’t missed a single one since we got married.” Her face paled. Obviously, she sincerely thought he spent nights here which made me question who had been using his room and if the sheets were clean. Ugh.
“Then there’s the issue of you lying about a club brother to his face, to his woman, and doing it in his clubhouse.” I smiled sweetly at her. “In my club we have a saying, ‘no loyalty, no patch’. I’m pretty sure the guys have something similar, because I know for a fact they don’t tolerate this type of drama from any of their club bitches.”
Steel finally peeled himself off of the spot he’d been leaning on the wall. He addressed Chief first. “Find JD and tell him I want to see him.”
“Yo
u want me to,” he pointed to the miserable looking woman still standing there trying to put two and two together. It seemed like she was coming up with 53 instead of 4, because she didn’t realize the shit storm she was about to bring down on herself.
“No, I’m going to deal with that myself,” Spike answered from just behind where Chief had been standing. “Honey, you aren’t too bright, are you?”
“It’s Bunny,” she corrected him.
“Like I said,” he returned causing me to laugh, because she seriously didn’t get it, but that shit was funny.
“You can’t fix stupid,” I offered up with a shrug, still barely managing to contain my amusement.
“No, and in this case there’s not enough pretty to make up for it either,” Spike concurred.
“What did you just say?” the woman asked, clearly finally catching on to what was being said.
“No need to worry about it, honey. You need to come with me so I can explain a few things.” He grabbed her elbow and started to pull her from the room before turning and addressing Steel. “When JD gets here, keep him here. I’m going to need to have a few words with him too.”
Steel nodded then came over to me after shutting the door. He leaned in and gave me a kiss before straightening and pointing to his messy head. “I’m gonna get this taken care of before someone else knocks on the door – or doesn’t.”
“Can you toss me a shirt?”
He threw his shirt from last night at me and I put it on quickly before someone got word to the prospect that he was needed in Steel’s room. I had just tugged it down to my hips that were still covered by the sheets when a knock sounded on the door. “Come in,” I yelled out since Steel was still shaving.
“Hey, someone said Steel needed me,” the kid announced after poking his head in the door and not bothering to come any further.
“You might want to come on in for a minute. He’s shaving, but he’ll be right out.” The kid stepped in and then bounced back and forth from the balls of his feet to the heels as he waited. He kept glancing at the door nervously as he did.
“Why so nervous?” Steel asked as he came back out of the bathroom freshly shaved.
“Sorry, I just have a lot to do this morning since there was a party.”
“You know we don’t tolerate lying,” Steel reminded him. The kid blanched.
“I know. I really do have a lot to get done.” Steel squared his shoulders and the kid wasn’t stupid enough not to take notice. “Not that whatever you’re wanting me to do isn’t important,” he tacked on.
“Did you lose something this morning?”
The kid’s shoulders slumped and I watched as Spike slipped inside the room, standing just behind the kid. “JD,” he said causing the boy to jump.
“Spike,” the kid managed to get out without a stutter, which seemed like a miracle.
“Lose something this morning, JD?”
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
“We found this one when she came barging in Steel’s room trying to tell his pregnant wife that she’s been sleeping with him here several nights a week.” Spike held his cell phone out, no doubt to show him a picture the brothers would be circulating of Bunny so all the men would know she was off limits. Steel moved over to the nightstand that was on his side of the bed and opened it while Spike was talking. He reached in and pulled something out, handing it to me before he turned back to the two men in the doorway.
“My wife is pregnant,” he told JD as I glanced down to see what he had handed me. It was a root beer flavored Dum Dums. I unwrapped it and popped it into my mouth as he continued speaking. “When she wakes up in the morning, she isn’t feeling particularly well these days. Imagine how a scene like what happened this morning makes her feel.”
The kid turned sorrowful eyes to me before returning his attention to Steel. “I didn’t realize she was still here. I sent her ass packing last night after I caught her trying to hook up with one of the brothers. I thought she came to be with me,” he lamented.
“Let me guess,” I started to say, but it came out somewhat garbled so I popped the sucker out of my mouth. “She was the popular chick in high school who wouldn’t give you the time of day?”
“Oh, she gave me the time of day,” he told me with a waggle of his eyebrows. “She would just never do it in public.”
I rolled my eyes. “Then she’s not worth an ounce of your time or thought. Hell, an ounce of thought,” I said as I snickered. “That’s about all that woman has to offer.”
Spike guffawed behind the boy and Steel just laughed. “Be nice, babe.”
“I don’t have to be nice to people who intrude on my space and try to lie to my face,” I told him before popping the sucker back in my mouth and leaning back. I don’t know why, but the flavor was soothing to me and kept the queasiness in my belly at bay.
“I’m really sorry, JoJo. If I had known she was still here I would have made sure that never happened.”
“Why was she still here and you were unaware?” Spike asked.
“I told you I sent her on her way last night after seeing her offering Quickshot a blowjob,” he told them and immediately my hackles went up, because Quickshot belonged to my best friend, Keys. He must have seen my reaction, because JD was quick to tack on the rest. “He didn’t take her up on it. He told me to get her away from him, and I did. I took her outside and told her to get gone. I didn’t realize she was here still until this morning when I saw her go by with one of the Tallahassee guys that’s in town.”
“Okay, enough,” Steel sighed out. “Can you go deal with this shit somewhere else? I need to get Jo out of here before they start cooking down there.”
“Sure,” Spike agreed before glancing my way. “You gonna be okay?”
I waved him off with a smile. “I’m fine. Just growing a little Steel over here and he’s just as much a pain in the ass as his father already.” I winked as I said it and Spike laughed, then stilled and turned to look back between both Steel and myself.
“You already know it’s a boy?”
Steel laughed. “She thinks she knows,” he said. “I think it’s going to be a girl.”
“Never go against a mom’s intuition,” JD told him. “They know crazy things sometimes.”
I couldn’t help smiling at the kid. He may have fucked up by not making sure Bunny was actually gone last night, but he was still young and learning. “You have redeemed yourself, JD.”
“Uh, thanks,” he muttered as Spike pushed him back out of the room.
“What do you have planned today?” Steel asked me as the door shut behind JD and Spike.
“I’m going to see MiMi and Grant.
“Okay, well let’s go get you home so you can get ready then. I’m headed to the garage for a bit this morning. I stood and took the baggy sweat pants that Steel handed me, admiring him a bit more, because he had noticed that even though I hadn’t gained much, if any weight yet, my pants were still rather uncomfortable for me. What little weight I had gained seemed to be in my boobs and butt, and let’s just say when your butt starts spreading out jeans become uncomfortable real quick. I smiled at him and he just continued getting ready.
I sometimes wondered how what I once thought of as a curse had turned out so well. I’d probably never have dated Steel. He hated women – or at least one in particular. I hated men – at least the ones who were trying to force me to have them in my life as some crazy validation for being able to run my business. We couldn’t have made a worse couple if we tried. Yet, underneath all that, I think I found the perfect man. He was sweet, attentive, and he knew his way around a garage. My eyes started swimming in unshed tears just about the same time Steel turned around.
“Babe,” he called out and then he wrapped me in his arms for a big hug and kissed me on the head before helping me into the sweat pants. “Please, tell me that shit going down this morning isn’t what has you in tears? I’ll hunt that bitch down and bring her back so y
ou can bitch slap her if I need to. Will that make you feel better?”
That did it. I went from tears over his thoughtfulness to laughing at him. “I don’t care about that desperate woman’s silly games.”
“What had you crying then?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Hormones?” My answer was too vague apparently, because he lifted my chin so that I was looking him in the eye. “You’re so thoughtful,” I admitted. First the Dum Dums, and my favorite flavor. Then the,” I couldn’t even finish my sentence. Instead I indicated my pants.
“Babe,” he smiled down at me. “I love you. Let’s get going.”
So, we got going. After I wiped the tears away though, because I wasn’t about to give the assholes in his clubhouse ammunition. They already called me Pixie half the time because I was so tiny. I definitely didn’t need them coming up with some crybaby nickname for me too.
Chapter 13
I thought about calling Steel, but figured it could wait until I got where I was going. I knew I couldn’t head to MiMi’s house with a tail on me though. There was no longer any denying that someone had been following me again. The same beat up Chevy pickup truck was trailing along behind me cruising at my Sunday driver speeds I was doing on my motorcycle since I already knew Steel would be furious with me for taking it out.
I needed to take it out though. It was a drive, a calling, a piece of me that I was already dreading the loss of. I knew, without a doubt, that being a mom would put my drive times on hold for a while. They would come too few and far between for my liking soon enough. I needed this. One more ride to feel the wind in my hair and on my face as I maneuvered through another twist on the mountain road. If only I hadn’t been enjoying the breeze so much that I had missed the last turn off that would take me back to town. Instead, I found myself trailing further up the mountain that had only a few spread out residences along the narrow road. I had well and truly fucked myself especially considering the truck behind me had started accelerating as if the driver was no longer concerned that I might notice him.
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