“Fuck, I hope nothing happened while we were gone. I don’t like that we were called back early.” His hand made the journey downward and he clamped it on my wrist. “Let’s go.”
“I need to get stuff to take wi—”
He wriggled my wrist, and I looked up at him in time to catch his eyes rolling so hard, all I saw were the whites for a few seconds. He urged me toward the door. “No. You don’t. I’ll get you a new toothbrush there. We’re going to shine you up, buttercup.”
“You want to detail me?” I asked, grinning. “Oh!” I shook him off long enough to grab my Kings’ jacket out of the closet. I didn’t have the full patch, but I wasn’t the lowest prospect here now, with Dallas on board, so King had given me a small shoulder patch that was only a crown. He said I’d get the real patch soon if I kept up the good work. My stomach ran sour. That had seemed like such a good thing not too long ago.
“You, dear, are a delightful specimen of man, and we’re going to let you shine through.” I startled back toward Forrest as he snarled at my black T-shirt and rubbed the hem between his fingers. “When I’m done, you’re going to wonder why you ever wanted to be a prospect for a motorcycle club in the first place.” He pulled the door open, still hauling me along behind him, and we almost barreled into King on the other side.
Rage like I hadn’t felt in a lot of years pelted through me, and Forrest let out a gasp as I jerked out of his grasp. Being mad made me want to hurt people, destroy things, and I couldn’t be touched when I felt this way. This huge, horrible feeling inside me was the same awful garbage that had sent me from foster home to foster home until I got therapy late in my teen years. King beamed at Forrest with no problems, and then sort of winced his way through smiling at me, and the anger pushed at my insides like it was an animal that could tear its way free. I tried to pull Forrest past King and along the hallway, but he didn’t let go of my hand or budge, so I ended up stuck there in an awkward shuffle.
“Rourke says you’re leaving.” King had a glass in his hand, and I couldn’t even look at him. I stared at the floor next to him and watched the tips of his black Doc Martens twitch.
“We are, and I’m taking Hunter with me for a few weeks.” Forrest somehow turned his hand around and laced his fingers with mine, which was weird, but I didn’t mind.
“You didn’t get that approved,” King said to me. I hated this. I hated that he was my president and had ruined something I’d really fought for: my place to belong. I absolutely fucking hated that I had to talk to him right now. And it hurt that he could smile like he gave a shit at Forrest, and he wasn’t doing that with me anymore.
But I’d yelled at him and meant every word. Where did we go from here?
“My head.”It’s messed up.“Need to clear it.”Have to get the fuck out of here, what’s wrong with me?I felt dumb, the same as always when I couldn’t use the words I needed. King had to let me go because what everything boiled down to is that I was having trouble letting the strangenesswith himgo. It was nice that he cared about me, but if he’d told me to begin with he was my dad, my feelings wouldn’t have tangled up into something fucking bizarre that I didn’t want to deal with.
“That’s understandable,” King said quietly.
Forrest stepped forward and hugged him, still clutching my hand, and that left me in an awkward limbo. I wanted to maybe hug King, too, but felt uncomfortable—and I was certain it was all on my end. I wanted to stick my hand out instead, shaking would be acceptable, but couldn’t make my body move to do that, either. I waited too long and King sighed. Forrest dragged me off along the hallway to the stairs, rescuing me from myself.
“There must be something I need to take with me,” I mumbled as we descended toward the too loud music. A pool ball smacked against the floor at the bottom of the steps and rolled away, and I brought us to a stop before we reached the ground floor to make sure there wasn’t a fight going on. In spite of the fact that there were fines to be paid when a brawl broke out, it seemed to happen fairly frequently. “What about my bike?”
“You own a motorcycle?” Forrest tapped on my shoulder till I shifted toward him, and he stared at me. The wonder on his face had me feeling cautious. I wasn’t confident enough to have a second person on a trip that far. Not that I hadn’t been riding long enough to do it, I just worried, like I did about everything.
“Yeah. I could ride behind your fancy Italian car on the highway.”
“We’ll go together.” He sort of shimmied and nodded with the corner of his lip caught between his teeth. “Yes…,” he said, closing his eyes. “Brother bonding time, that’s something I haven’t done before.”
“I don’t…. You should maybe ask King—”
“No.” He tickled my chin, and I batted at him with my free hand, and then realized I was still curling my fingers between his and tried to disentangle. He didn’t let it happen. “You’ll teach me to ride your bike, and I’ll teach you to ride dick. Not personally, though, because we already established you have a ‘no incest rule.’ ”
“You don’t have that rule?”
He slid his gaze down my body and swung our hands between us. “I would have thought I was narcissistic enough for that, but I don’t think I am.”
“That’s not a no. Mine’s a no.”
He laughed and we went the rest of the way down the stairs together. Before we walked out into the barroom, by some unspoken agreement we dropped hands. It was okay to be friendly in private, but not in front of everyone. That seemed like a good rule for life. Being soft got you hurt. I’d learned that the hard way more than once. We moved around the outside of the gloomy crowded room. The bar was already lined with men who were laughing and drinking, and it seemed like Forrest was searching for Rourke, though he didn’t say so. I spun in a circle, scanning the busy party for the big man.
King appeared at the bottom of the stairs and wandered into the room behind us, and something wild took me over, some need to get away and do something new that was only for me and not for the club, not for King, not foranyone else. For too long I’d been the doormat around here, and for the Demons before that.
I turned back and yelled toward Forrest over the music, “You want to ride? It’s easy. There’s not much to teach.” He caught my eye and grinned.
We left together, and in the front hallway we had to skirt Tank, passed out drunk on the floor. He was tall with short spiky blond hair and a hard chin. He was also wide with muscle, not fat, and somehow he’d managed to starfish and take up most of the space. He hadn’t been doing well recently. I didn’t stop until we were outside in the parking lot, beside my shadow-blue Street Glide.
“This is great!” Forrest ran a hand over the black leather seat, and I had the impulse to yell at him for it, but I sucked in a breath and let it out like I was blowing on a cup of imaginary hot chocolate. That little tidbit from therapy had always stuck with me. I was still pissed off at King, and Forrest hadn’t earned my anger.
Trying to force myself out of my shitty mood, I gave Forrest my full helmet, and feeling defiant, I went and rummaged through King’s saddlebag for the half helmet he kept there, and put it on as soon as I found it. “So… you’ve been on a pedal bike?” I asked as I came back to stand beside him.
“Yeah.”
“Just follow my lead.”
