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“If you did, it wouldn’t be the first time,” Eight replied.
The need to act out, to throw some shitty words back, to defend those previous instances everybody at the table knew, or to just get up and get out of this room, was crawling up his spine, but Jay sat still and held his ground. “Like Dex said, I had some trouble at first. I’m sorry for that. I’m not having trouble anymore. It won’t ever happen again.”
For what felt like whole minutes, Eight kept staring and Jay didn’t look away. Everybody else at the table was quiet and still.
And then, with a sharp nod of his big, bald head, Eight said, “Alright. That’s good, kid.” He grinned. “That’s what I needed to hear.”
Relief hit Jay so hard it shoved him back in his seat.
“Moving on,” Eight said, his tone back to business. “We gotta talk about Eureka and the Nameless, and that’s gonna be involved. So let’s clear the decks of everything else first. Caleb?”
Jay felt emptied out and filled back up. Something big had happened just now. The whole room seemed different to him. The whole club. But everybody had moved on but him, so he set that aside to think about later and made himself focus on the meeting.
Caleb went through the usual business—the books, what was going out and what was coming in, a couple of bigger maintenance issues for the clubhouse, a request from Marcella to up the pay for Carly, their chick wrangler, and other boring shit. Jay usually tuned out once he was sure he wasn’t going to get called out for something, but this time he paid closer attention.
“Thanks, brother,” Eight said when Caleb was done. “Next run to Laughlin’s in about a month, so we’ll talk about that once we get more details. The runs so far have been smooth. There’s some shit goin’ on in Laughlin I’m keepin’ an eye on. Coop says it’s their business and not to worry, so I’m tryin’ not to worry.”
“This have anything to do with those guys they necklaced?” Simon asked.
“And the fuck was that?” Gunner laughed. “I wouldn’t have clocked Coop to be so hardcore.Youever done anything like that, Dex?”
The Tulsa SAA, whom Jay—and Gunner—had seen do some extremely hardcore shit, glared at Gun. “Shut your fuckin’ mouth.”
Gunner stopped laughing, but his grin abided.
“They did what they had to do, just like us,” Caleb said. “But the shit you’re talking about,” he asked Eight, “it’s related, right?”
“I guess. Need a fuckin’ scorecard to keep track of all the players out there, but it looks like Coop’s putting an outlaw ... what do you call it ...”
“Coalition,” Mav offered.
Eight accepted the help with a nod—and a little bit of irritation. “I guess. Yeah. He’s got all the players allied against the Clark County sheriff. They mean to neutralize him. We need to keep an eye on all that. They fail, and Nevada gets hot for our work.”
“And Coop knows that,” Dex said.
“He does,” Eight agreed. “I’m just sayin’ it’s something we’re keepin’ an eye on. Any questions about it?” He paused long enough to be sure nobody had a question, then said, “Okay. Last thing before we talk about Eureka: Mav?”
Maverick took the floor. With his attention on Simon, he said, “Sam made a request to prospect. If we say yes, he needs a sponsor.”
The normal way a prospect came in, he had the sponsor already, and the sponsor brought his name to the table. But with legacies, like Zach and Jay and Duncan—and now Sam—they were already in the family, already had relationships with everybody at the table, so every one of them had gone to the president and said, in effect,I want to be a Bull.They’d been assigned a sponsor, not chosen by one.
“Si,” Mav was saying, “you got anything to say?”
Simon, Sam’s father, cleared his throat. “I said it already. He’s decided it’s what he wants, he knows what prospecting means, and I’m okay with him wearing a patch. So’s Deb. She’s not happy to be losing her partner on the farm, but Mason’ll have to step up on that. Sam’s a good boy, you all know that. He’ll be a good patch someday. But I’m not sponsoring him. It shouldn’t be me or Gun. We’re too close.”
Jay had offered himself once and been mocked for it. Even so, he thought about offering again, if only as another way to prove he was serious about his seat at this table. But his attention now was elsewhere. He didn’t want anything else that could pull him away from Petra when she needed him.
But Fitz was looking at him, and Jay saw a question in his eyes, his uplifted brows—like he was waiting to see if Jay would offer again. Like he’d support Jay sponsoring Sam.
That caused a moment’s reconsideration, but no. There would be times he’d have to put the club ahead of Petra, but this wasn’t one of them. He gave Fitz a subtle shake of his head.
Fitz tipped his head in acknowledgement, then turned to Eight. “I got him. When we first brought his name up, I said I’d do it. I’ve talked to him about it since. So I got him.”
“Let’s vote it,” Eight said. “All those in favor of giving Sam Spellman a prospect kutte, hands in the air.”
The vote was, of course, unanimous.
When his prospect period was over, Sam would make the fourth legacy patch in the club. Jay looked around the table and realized that one day the young patches would be OG. They’d be the ones who understood the history, who built the relationships, who made the calls. They’d be in charge.
