Ripped came over to the bar and shook a couple of hands, said some hellos, and ordered a beer for himself. I put my beer down and shook his hand too. We were similar men in height and build, and we stood eye to eye giving each other curt nods.
“Ripped,” I said as he pulled me in and patted my back.
“Battle,” he replied, letting me go. “Hot as balls in that office.”
“Yeah, well, that’s Georgia for you. Don’t help that the A/C’s on the blink.” I’d noticed it as soon as we’d walked in, and I was intending to go up on the roof of the clubhouse to take a look once I finished my beer and gave my report to Hardy.
“Heard you just got back from Atlanta. Any news?” Ripped asked.
“Same as what I’m hearing about the Burning Eights—brothers vanishing, missing shipments, and shit going misplaced from busts. Should probably speak to Hardy about that first, though,” I replied. “No offense.”
Ripped was a big bastard, with shoulders bigger than boulders and fists the size of sledgehammers. He used to compete in competitions until a couple of years before, when he blew out his back and couldn’t compete anymore. Man still trained like a machine, though, from what I could see. I’d met him quite a few times over the years and I liked him; though he had a messed-up temper that got out of hand all too often, he was a relatively good man.
He smiled. “No offense taken. You’re loyal, I like that. Can’t buy loyalty like that.” His gaze went over to his own men and he gave a soft shake of his head. “Not many men like you left.”
“A lot of people get into this life not realizing how serious the vows you take are,” I agreed.
It was why there was such a long wait to join a club. You started as a hang-around for a couple of years, proved how useful you could be to the club, then you turned prospect and paid your dues doing grunt work and taking orders before you patched into the club. Because once you were in, you were in for life. The club became your family. Your blood. And your life. Nothing and no one beyond the club mattered. And if they did, then it wasn’t the life for you.
“Vows to the club are like marriage vows,” he replied gruffly, as if reading my thoughts. “Not to be taken, or given, lightly.”
His big hand was still on my shoulder, his jaw twitching as he looked over the club in quiet contemplation. Clearly the man had something on his mind other than just club business.
“You thinkin’ of claiming a woman?” I joked, picking up my beer and taking a drink.
Ripped laughed. “Between you and I?”
I nodded, and he continued.
“Claimed me a good woman already—beautiful little thing named Quinn. But I don’t think she’s ready for this life yet, not fully.”
“Civilian?” I asked, and he shook his head.
“Not totally. She’s actually from around here, though she moved away a while back after some family shit went down. Got a friend of hers that introduced her to club life. We started seeing each other a month or so back and things are getting serious, but I think she’s holding back on me.” He got that pissed-off look in his eye again. “She’s in my bed and no one else’s, but I want more.”
“Damn, brother,” I said in surprise. “You really want to marry her?”
“Woman’s got somethin’ special about her. Can’t explain it.” He grinned widely, looking like a fox in a henhouse as he rubbed his hands together and ran his tongue over his lips. “Gotta keep the good ones close, right? Like I said, she’s the hottest thing on two legs and I want her by my side, always. If I don’t make a claim to her, someone else sure as hell will.”
Didn’t think I’d ever see Ripped like that—pining after a woman. Women normally flocked to him, spreading their legs or dropping to their knees before he’d even asked, and I had no doubt they’d be signing on the dotted line before the ink was dry on the papers if he asked. Ripped was the feared president of the Burning Eights, a powerful club that ran coke and weed out of Savannah. To be his old lady was to be the Queen of Savannah.
And this Quinn was turning him down?
Woman must have been crazy.
No wonder he was so fucked up about it.
He laughed again. “Don’t go getting your dick in a knot over it. I’m not. She’ll submit sooner or later. They always do, right?” He winked and patted my shoulder again before heading over to his own crew.
I thought about that, wondering what woman could be so hot that the president of the Burning Eights was willing to marry her. And more so, what woman could be so dumb that she thought she had any say in the matter.
~ 2 ~
I stripped out of my shirt and cut and laid them both over the back of a sun-bleached deck chair before opening my toolbox. I scratched at the hairs on my chin and cracked open the A/C unit on the roof.
The thing hadn’t been replaced since it had been put in over thirty years before, and after carefully puling it apart I had come to the conclusion that the whole thing would need replacing. I stood back up and slammed the door to the unit shut before making my way over to the stairs that led back inside the clubhouse and hunting down Butch.
He was sitting with Dom on one of the sofas in the main room of the clubhouse, his head thrown back in laughter at something the other man had said. Hadn’t seen him laugh like that in a long-ass time. In fact, seeing him like that made me stop in my tracks because I couldn’t think of a time he’d ever looked like that—free and happy. Butch took his role within the club seriously, but his role as older brother and successor to his father, Hardy, our president, even more so. Rider was our VP, but it was a given that Butch would one day take over the gavel and run the club, and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that he’d do a damn good job of it too. But just like his father, he took life too seriously, and in my opinion both men needed to remember what the life was really all about.
