I shrugged in the dark. Obviously he couldn’t see that.
“We’re all comin’ to terms with the fact you’re growin’ up, Jojo.”
“Oh, you are, are you? Like at Easter when you illustrated that to me by beating up that prospect for making out with your little sister?” I laughed sardonically. “Bullshit, Deacon. Bull. Fucking. Shit.” Tears made wobbly trails down my cheeks.
“All right, you might have a point,” he said softly. “But, you didn’t need to pull something like this to rub our noses in it. We’re gonna have a whole fuckin’ year of dealing with the fall out. You really wanted to stick it to all of us, didn’t you? You’re that angry?”
I shook my head, pointlessly. A year? Maybe. Unless I made a re-appearance in the following year’s calendar, which Lawrence Gale had said was a possibility as it’d be the calendar’s ten-year anniversary and was planned to be a ‘best of’. I didn’t bother to point out it could be 24 months instead of 12 before my ass was off that calendar. There was also the fact that I was now part of the logo. That could last a while, too.
Silence stretched between us over the phone line.
“We all know this is you dealin’ with Hanson’s death and the games he played just before he died.”
“Shut up,” I whispered, my voice cracking.
I did not want to talk about that. At all. To his credit, he didn’t push it.
“Comin’ home tomorrow?” Deacon asked.
“I dunno. I feel like I might need a few more days. Maybe you guys do, too.”
“I get that. Ella’s folks are having a card night Saturday night. Coming?”
“Not sure about that, big brother. Maybe the next one.”
“Fair enough. Love you,” he told me. “No matter what.”
“I love you, too,” I said, and my voice cracked again on the ‘too’.
“No matter what, Jojo,” he repeated.
“No matter what,” I whispered.
He hung up.
I loved my oldest brother a whole lot. I loved all three of them. I’d really lucked out in the dad and brother department. They loved me fiercely and definitely made up for me getting ripped off in the mom department. They protected me with a vengeance, but in the dating department it was too much. It was time for them and for the rest of the club to see that I was grown up.
Okay, well… if I was honest:
Maybe Spency had a point about me not thinking things through adequately. The minute Lawrence Gale asked me, I had an instant ‘yes, this’ll show them, this’ll show them all’ moment.
And kneejerk reactions often result in inadvertently kicking someone because you didn’t get a chance to think consequences through.
I lay there in the dark and bit my lip. My brothers would get a lot of shit for it. And Dad. They would have to see other men ogling my scantily clad body on their walls. People would recognize me when they saw me. I’d get recognized at The Roadhouse.
Maybe I’d get asked out. And maybe it’d be by some assholes. I mean, I had a thing for asshole bikers, or so I thought, but I’d always imagined the man for me might be a bit of an asshole but mostly when it was about protecting me.
Maybe I’d get lewd comments because of it, too, and that’d mean I’d have both my brothers and the brothers brawling on the regular.
Shit.
But, maybe it was all better, even if it’d piss people off or inconvenience them because this was my fucking life and I felt like I wasn’t living it. I shouldn’t hold myself back because of the inconvenience to my family when other men desired me.
I lost Luke and I almost died. Beyond having to have wrist surgery, my brain swelled to the point they had to keep me in a coma and hope it went down.
I was still here and ready to burst out of the cocoon of sadness. I’d been trying to claw my way out of the webs slowly but couldn’t fully see my way past them yet. I guess I was grasping for something, something that wouldn’t hurt. And maybe I had wanted to punish everyone else, especially since it felt like they were all getting in the way of me finding that ‘happy’ that I was grasping for.
The Fourth Time I Tried to Lose It
Twatblocked by Deacon. Thank God. I was so pissed that night, though, at the Good Friday clubhouse bash where I found myself fooling around with the Grand Forks prospect, Sax. He was a terrible kisser and not remotely good with his fingers, but I was drunk and feeling rebellious, and moreover, feeling Luke’s absence in the clubhouse that night.
Sax hadn’t meant anything to me except for maybe a chance to feel alive and in control for a few minutes, but it all went wrong when my brother ripped him off me and beat the crap out of him.
I’d been pissed drunk and pissed off. And not just pissed off at him, at myself. And here I was, a couple months later, and still feeling like life was out of my control and like the pain I woke up with every day realizing Luke was gone just wasn’t going away. It wasn’t just waking up and thinking about the loss before thinking about anything else. It was also thinking about the betrayal, the what ifs.
What if we’d had sex. Would he have still been with Kailey? What if he’d been willing to go public about his feelings for me? Or what if he really didn’t have anything deeper other than those brotherly feelings and it’d all been my imagination that he was the one?
I blew out a breath. It was too late to stop the calendar. And I didn’t want to spend my time basking in my regrets risking the chance I’d wind up bitter like my mother.
Was Mom bitter because she lost her biker, Danny Spencer? Was she bitter because Dad carried a torch for Laura even though he married her? Was I doomed to become bitter, too?
One day, my actual prince would come. I firmly believed it. Hopefully he’d ride in on a Harley. Or, maybe I’d been lookin’ for love in all the wrong places. Maybe it was time to set my sights on someone who preferred to drive on four wheels.
I turned over, closed my eyes, and finally sleep took me.
***
“Let’s just fuckin’ go.”
“We know the Valentine princess’s bike, Chrissy. She’s coming with.”
“Fuck, man. You’re fuckin’ me up, showin’ here,” Fork said.
“Nope. No fuckin’ way we miss this opportunity to stick it to ‘em. You’re tappin’ that, aren’t ya?”
I sat up. Who was Christian talking to? I’d heard two different voices besides his.
“Shit,” Christian said.
My eyes boinged.
“You been holdin’ out, brother. Which we suspected. Whose place is this? Sweet crib.”
“Shh. Shut up. She’s sleepin’. Of course I’m tappin’ her. She’s got intel, insider info, plus she’s a sweet piece. They let me in but I’m still on the outside. Now get the fuck outta here or you’ll wake her up and fuck up my long game.”
The voices were not even trying to be quiet. The room was bright. I glanced at my phone, which was in bed beside me. Seven thirty in the morning.
I quickly grabbed for clothes, so that I’d be ready for anything, noting absently that I’d lost a Pom Pom from one of my socks as I took both socks off.