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He was fully aware that, with the exceptions of Mo and Sage, the old ladies didn’t much like him. Cecily had been flat-out rude to him for years—for a reason he suspected he knew, though she’d never said it outright—and had thawed only from frozen solid to slushy since he’d taken the gavel.
The reason he figured Cecily hated him: he’d fucked her mother, Joanna, wife of the Bulls’ first VP, once at a club party. Not his finest moment, for sure—and not just because he’d fucked somebody else’s woman. He’d fucked Dane’s woman. Club VP, founding member, and D’s best friend.
Definitely not his finest moment. But that had been something like thirty years ago, and Young Eight hadn’t been entirely human. Back then he’d been a pure, Grade-A Prime asshole. And a moron. On that particular night, he’d been drunk out of his head, which meant bonus helpings of both asshole and moron.
It had happened only once, and, as far as Eight knew, not a single member of the Bulls, past or present, knew it had happened. How did Cecily, who’d been a kid back then, know? Joanna must have told her. It was the only thing he could think for why Cecily didn’t bother to mask her contempt. He’d certainly never done anything to her personally beyond his usual junkyard dog personality. She was a club daughter. Even at his worst, he hadn’t been stupid enough to wrong a club kid.
That said, he’d been equal-opportunity rude enough that the best most of the women could manage was to tolerate him. He knew that. Hell, he’d cultivated it. He’d formed an entire personality on the premise that it was safer and easier to deserve to be hated than to be hated and not know why.
So he had no fucking idea what they were telling Marcella now, and what he’d have to do to repair the damage. It freaked him the fuck out.
“Easy, man.” Jazz came up and handed him a fresh beer. “She’s fine.”
Eight took the beer and scowled at Jazz. “What’re you talking about?”
“You’re gonna throw out your neck, swinging around to stare at the door. They’re not gonna eat her, Eight. They’re bringin’ her in. That’s what you want, right? That’s why you brought her here?”
Eight stared, trying to understand.
He must have looked as confused as he felt, because Jazz shook his head and laughed. “Prez, you gotta know everybody’s talkin’ about this, you bringing Marcella to the Bulls, introducing her around like she’s your old lady. And you’ve got akidwith her, too. You’re adad. You’ve blown everybody’s mind. How long’ve you worn the Bull?”
Eight thought about that. He didn’t mark anniversaries or his birthday, and he always had to stop and do some math before he could remember his own age. He did some math now, too. “I guess … thirty-five years? Somethin’ like that.”
Jazz chuckled. “Since I was two.”
“Fuck off.”
“Sorry. What I mean is, have youeverbrought a woman in? In all that time?”
He was getting real fucking sick of everybody pointing out that he was an old man who’d been alone his whole goddamn life.
“Get to the point, asshole.”
“The point is, you’re changing. I’d say since Beck brought you up to VP, you’ve been different. Not all at once, but yeah. And since last year? You’re a lot different. This is just part of it, I guess.”
“This?”
“Having a woman, making a family. Things are gonna change fast now, man. Sharing your life with somebody is a sea change. But raising a kid? That’s an earthquake. Nothing’s gonna be the same from here.”
Jazz was not making his freakout any calmer. “What’s that got to do with Marcella out there gettin’ pecked by the hens?”
“Prez.” Jazz shook his head in a way that made Eight seriously consider turning his face inside out. “They’re not pecking at her, and they’re not warning her off you. They’re bringing her in, like I said. Helping her see what we really are, not what everybody says we are. You get me?”
The women werehelpinghim? Eight turned again and considered the hallway leading to the back door. All those women, all those years of rolled eyes and rhetorical sighs, of Cecily’s bold-faced contempt, they were easing the way for the woman he cared about? They weren’t telling her to run for the hills?
Eight had been an adversary all his life—even, maybe especially, within the Bulls. They were his brothers, and there was mutual loyalty in that. He’d never doubted that they’d have his back in trouble, and he’d always have theirs as well, but under that shield of brotherhood, he’d been the shit-stirrer, the spoiler, the scapegoat. He knew it and had been as comfortable in that role in the club as anywhere else. He was supremely used to being tolerated.
Now he was the fucking president of the club, and he should have realized that he was more than tolerated in that simple fact: the Bulls had unanimously voted to make him their leader. If they only tolerated him, of course they wouldn’t put him in charge, despite Beck bringing him up to second.
He supposed he’d always sort of figured, without thinking too hard about it, that they’d made him president to honor Becker, and because they’d all been too shell-shocked at the loss of him to think twice about who should lead in his place.
But maybe they’d really thought Eight deserved the gavel.
Jesus. Before that, had anybody ever in his life thought he deserved anythinggood?
“Eight?” Jazz asked, his tone now concerned. “You okay?”
Something inside him was unspooling. He felt raw and a little sick. All he wanted right now was Marcella. He set his half-full beer on the nearest flat surface and walked to the back of the clubhouse.
