Page 42 of Rough

His glare continued. “What was I talking about?”

Crip and I were best friends, but often, and especially in front of the entire club, he put me on the spot. Every time he did it, it pissed me off.

“The Goblins bar fight.”

“Gremlins,” he said. “And then what?”

Half of the fellas glanced over their shoulders and looked at me. I felt like I was in kindergarten again, and Crip was Mrs. Kutler.

I clenched my jaw and locked eyes with him. “You said we should keep an eye out for any of those fuckers wearing new kuttes.”

“And then what?”

I shrugged. As far as I could remember, that was it. “That was it. At the first, you talked about the run up to Palm Springs. Before that was finances, and that bores everybody, Boss.”

“That’s what I thought,” he said. “Pay fucking attention. I’ll back up.”

He cleared his throat. “As I was saying, the Savages aren’t threatening us, but they are a threat. If you bump into more than two Savages on the road, and you’re alone, keep your head on a swivel. Beat feet to Pete’s bar or back here, they won’t bother following you into either of those places.”

“After that, Peeb, I said I was going to look over Pete’s surveillance videos and see if there are any good images of those dipshits that were in there the other night. If there is, I’ll print them and bring ‘em in. I’ll post ‘em up on the poker run board. One of ‘em kicked over the Sporty Peeb was riding, so if you recognize any of ‘em, speak up. Next was…”

He locked eyes with me. I returned a bug-eyed stare.

“The club needs to grow. We’ll never open our books to prospects, but if you know someone who’d make a good prospect, invite ‘em to a poker run, or to a barbeque. Let ‘em hang around and see how they react. If it looks like they’d make us a good Fucker, and only if they’d live up to our standards, vouch for ‘em. We need size. I want to keep this club as tight knit as it is now, don’t get me wrong. But, I want the southern half of this state to become an FFMC territory.” He looked at each of the men. “One that makes the asshole of any other patch-wearing club member pucker when he rides through here.”

Half the men raised their clenched fists in agreement. The rest either shouted or hoisted their bottles of beer.

I wasn’t impressed.

I liked the club just the way it was. Along with size, came uncertainty. With uncertainty, came risk.

I didn’t like taking risks.

“That’s all I’ve got, fellas. Any questions?”

“Got a cousin in Palm Springs,” Lefty said. “Like to stay up there for a few days. If I ride up and don’t ride back, we still good?”

“We are now,” Crip said with a nod. “No sense in you riding back here, and then heading right back up there to see your cousin.”

“Appreciate it.”

“Anyone else?”

“Remember any of them Gremlins fuckers names?” Stretch asked.

“Funny thing. The front of their kuttes didn’t have region, road name, rank, in memory of, nothing. My guess is they were a bunch of wannabes, and that’ll be the last we hear of ‘em.”

Stretch nodded. “Just wondering.”

“Anyone else?”

No one said a word.

“Meeting adjourned,” Crip said. “Help yourself to a beer, courtesy of Shocker. Peeb, come here for a minute.”

Jesus fucking Christ.

It wasn’t enough that he’d embarrassed me in front of the men, now he was going to chew me out in private. At times it felt like he thought he was raising me. I had one asshole father, I didn’t need two.