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“Promises?”
“Didn’t wanna be a grunt longer than necessary. Didn’t want a road name. Other shit I wanted to be sure of, to know what sort of club they were. I tried it out and now here we are.”
“So you haven’t been around too long.”
“Last summer, so close to a year. Surprised our paths never crossed.”
“Rider banned me from the clubhouses when I tried to go to Lick’s funeral,” she said with sadness.
“Ah.”
“You’re not still prospecting though? Got your patch I noticed.”
“Got my patch a while back. Quick new recruit stint. Wasn’t sure I wanted to do it, know a lot of clubs use up and spit out their prospects as quickly as the club – ”
Shit.
Her mouth contorted and she finished for me, “As quickly as they use up and spit out club whores. Yeah.”
“Fuck,” I said, otherwise lost for words.
After a beat of awkward silence, she leaned over and tapped my thigh. “It’s okay, I get it.”
I caught her hand and pulled it to my mouth, dropping a kiss on her knuckle. “Just a turn of phrase, I wasn’t thinkin’.”
“Looks like I’m not the only one with foot-in-mouth-itis,” she put in, with a grin.
I groaned. “Believe it or not, I don’t really think that way. Just a phrase chameleon, spendin’ time with the brothers. You know what my ma does. That’d be pretty fuckin’ hypocritical of me if I did think that way. I don’t look down on club hang-arounds, male or female. Just like I don’t look at strippers as second-class citizens.”
She shrugged, still grinning.
But I’d bet if she wasn’t wearing that blindfold I’d see the grin wasn’t touching her eyes. I bit my tongue and cussed under my breath.
She sighed and shifted in her seat. “I am a natural blonde, Jesse, but I’m not a total bimbo. Probably only fifty per-cent bimbo. I know how hang-around females are viewed. Keep talkin’.”
I squeezed her hand. And I didn’t wanna continue the conversation, but it’d be awkward if I didn’t.
“You were saying?” she pressed.
“Lotta MCs have problems even gettin’ prospects nowadays because guys interested in the life know that unless you’re with the right club you’ll be a grunt, doin’ the hard and dirty work, subject to the hazing, and may wind up doing time or pushin’ up daisies before you even earn your patch. Earned my patch doin’ some stuff that others might think’ll stain my soul, but I knew what I was doin’, I believed in it, and these guys are the brothers I never had. Especially the Valentines. Got tight with those guys fast.”
“They’re good guys.”
“They didn’t keep me prospectin’ any longer than necessary instead of milkin’ it like some clubs do. I earned it in their eyes, and they gave it to me. I wasn’t gonna join just any club. Agreed to do a test run partly because of Torque. The rest, because of Deke Valentine and his boys. Didn’t have aspirations as a kid to join an MC and be a biker.”
“Well, you fit the part.”
“Feels right. Love riding. Bought my first motorcycle when I was seventeen, spent a shit-ton of time fixing it since it was as old as time. Anyway, how’d you wind up hanging around the Sioux Falls clubhouse? You grow up around there?”
“Born in Montana, but my dad moved to South Dakota when my parents split. Momma got into some trouble, so I got shipped to SD to live with Daddy while she did some time. There, here… uh, are we still in North Dakota or are we back in SD? Wait. Don’t tell me, I’m not allowed to know. Anyway, it was my dad’s uncle, my great Uncle Billy that made me intrigued with the MC life – it was Uncle Billy that left me the Gibson. He was a biker as far back as I can remember. Joined up after Vietnam; told me the MC saved his life, his sanity. Gave him a family when the one he had wasn’t so hot. Since it was my family too, I got that. Said when he got back after the war, he was fucked up. And if not for the MC, he might not have made it.”
“Lotta clubs right after the war saved the veterans.”
“Mm hm,” she nodded. “I spent some time around Uncle Billy’s biker friends when I was a kid, and they were always so nice to me. And a few of the couples seemed so happy. The bikers treated their women like gold. Or so I thought. Kailey got us invited to a party at a clubhouse and it was the Freebooters. The club that patched over Uncle Billy’s MC, though it was after he was gone. I thought it’d feel like family.”
“It didn’t?”
“It didn’t. Not remotely. Guess I was looking for that old feeling I got around Uncle Billy’s friends, that family atmosphere they talked about and that I saw a little of. Took a minute to find this club. Met Skip when I was workin’ at this coffee shop. Asked me out. Though that didn’t go well, as you know, I quickly figured out that at their core, most of the Doms are good guys. Real good guys. Care about their families, most of ‘em. Put the people they love ahead of the club stuff. Not like some clubs where club business comes first and families are an afterthought.”
