But unfortunately, pushing her away only seemed to make her more eager for me.Why the fuck does it always work that way?
“I like a good chase, you know,” she said, but the same desperation in her voice that had been there when she last came over had returned. “It makes me horny.”
I don’t think I had ever pawned a girl off on a prospect. Usually, it was the other way around. But tonight, just because of how clingy Thea was being, I went to the nearest prospect, made up some excuse about how we had been really proud of his work and wanted to reward him, and introduced him to Thea.
I didn’t think that that would get me completely off the hook. She’d come back around. But it did give me the space to breathe.
I looked over at the rest of the club. Butch, Red Raven, and Father Marcellus all had their women they were speaking to. It always was a little bizarre to me to see Red Raven with a woman, as his wife of a couple decades had passed away within the last few years. But who was I to judge for how much of a whore I was? I saw Patriot and Lane sharing a Yuengling and talking amongst themselves by the bar. Some of the girls looked at them wistfully from a distance, but most had heard enough by now to know the two young studs were off-limits.
I pulled out my phone. Once again, Rose texted me.
I didn’t know how I felt about this. I’d gone two weeks without her communicating, and now suddenly today, it was like all of the texts that she had saved up were getting sent at once. If I didn’t know any better, I almost would have thought that her phone carrier had bundled up the messages for a single day. I wanted to act like this annoyed me, but truth be told, it...
I couldn’t say it felt nice to have her be submissive to me, because Thea was more than submissive to me, and she drove me batshit crazy. It was something beyond that. Something, I dared say, more personal.
In any case, I read the text message in full.
My eyes went wide. I couldn’t stay here.
I found Lane and Patriot standing by themselves still and hurried over.
“Axle,” Lane said, holding his beer forward as if offering a cheers.
“We’ve got to get to Brewskis. Right now.”
Patriot arched an eyebrow.
“Everything all good, man?”
“No,” I said. “Friend of mine is going to drink there alone. She’s going to get swallowed alive by the Saints.”
“Are you serious?”
I was, unfortunately.
Rose might not have known the reputation Brewskis had, but everyone who had been in town for longer than three weeks sure did. It was well understood that Brewskis was where the bikers went to drink. If you went there on, say, a Tuesday night at eight in the evening, you might avoid trouble, but showing up on a Friday night was just begging for crime.
“Fuck, and she’s a friend of yours?”
“Friend enough.”
“Alright, let’s not waste any more time,” Lane said. “Patriot, you good to drive?”
“Good enough.”
I was already out the door as soon as I heard that. I didn’t like Rose’s constant badgering, and I was sure as hell going to give her a fucking earful when I got her out of there. But I wouldn’t have wished any of my exes a night in Brewskis—I wouldn’t have wished it on Thea, annoying as she was—and aside from anyone in the Fallen Saints, I wouldn’t have wished any of my personal enemies a night at that bar. There was just too much that could go wrong.
I just hoped that too much had not yet gone wrong.
* * *
As soon as Lane, Patriot, and I pulled up to the bar, I noticed that Rose’s car was indeed parked outside. Unfortunately, this didn’t guarantee anything to me. If the Saints had taken her back to their headquarters, her car would still be here.
None of us said a word as I dismounted my bike and Patriot pulled up in a van. We knew violence was unlikely, but it was unlikely in a weird way. Both sides desperately wanted to keep the bar intact, but some nights, it felt like both sides were just itching for an excuse to burn the place down and take down the enemy with them. We’d hear it from them, and we’d give it right back.
But boy, was it going to be tense.
I got to the door and swung it open and nearly delivered the first blow at what I saw.
