“There are three other rooms up here.” I tilt my head. “Not as big as this one, and each of them has plumbing or electrical problems. That’s why I chose this room. It’s bigger, and it was the only one with pipes that didn’t leak or dead electrical sockets.”
“We’ll make it work. For now, the other brothers have their own places, but when we get to it, we’ll overhaul the rooms up here too.”
“You mean at some point they’ll be living here too?” I certainly don’t like the sound of that arrangement. I remember the craziness of the Dogs’ clubhouse in Philly.
His smirk returns. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“I don’t think you do. I want The End to be a working, profitable bar, not filled with club bunnies, fucking and sucking on the main floor.”
He heaves out a low laugh. “I guess you really do know club life.”
“All too well.”
“The Kings’ first priority is getting this place fixed up, then to have the bar show a profit while marking The End as our clubhouse. My guys are far from saints, but if they’re balling a bitch, it will be behind closed doors.”
“And what about drugs?”
“No hard shit. Ace and I went down that road, and we both know the hard stuff is the fastest way to lose it all, ‘cause your brain is fried.”
“Sounds like you have firsthand information.”
“Too many lines of coke made me weak, then I missed the warning signs. The fine white powder also made me believe the bitch I was banging was hot for me and wasn’t a DEA agent.”
“Kudos to the DEA for using a woman.”
“Yeah, a woman with stripper hair, dressed in crotch-shot skirts, and tops so sheer, you could see her nipples.”
“Ahhh, a biker’s two favorite things. Tits and ass.”
“Yup, she fed me the good stuff, along with telling me how great my dick was, then, when I was either too fucked up to care or fucked out, she hacked my laptop and sent all our lives into the shitter.”
“Interesting.”
“Now, I gotta scrape my way up from the bottom of the barrel just to get to where I was five years ago. So, to answer your question—no hard drugs.”
“And that goes for the other guys too?”
“If they wanna be Kings, it does. Smoking weed, or doin’ a few shots doesn’t get you in the same trouble as snorting five lines before breakfast.”
“Unless you’re my father, who blames alcohol on every bad decision he ever made instead of owning his bullshit.”
“I have a feeling you have one of those love/hate relationships when it comes to your father.”
“That’s exactly what the prison therapist said.”
“Yeah, I had to see one of them too. I think they all throw out the same bullshit phrases, but the guy I saw used to talk about accountability a lot. Instead of blaming the DEA bitch for taking me and my clubhouse down, I should own my shit. Like saying I shouldn’t have been snorting blow off her ass or spilling my guts while I was shooting my load, balls-deep in her snatch.”
I suppress a giggle. “I have a feeling he worded it differently.”
“Yeah, maybe, but you get the idea.”
“What I get is that we’ve both been screwed over by the opposite sex, and I’m guessing you, like me, have huge trust issues.”
“Fuckin’ truth.”
“My problems started with a father who was like a child, always looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.” I bite my lower lip. “When I was little, I hung on his every word, then I got older.”
“My old man was . . . let’s just say he sucked at being a father.”
