“Where’s yer girl?” he asked, making my gaze lift. “Ya really gonna try to say she ain’t yours? After all this shite?” he asked, waving a hand toward my battered body.
“No. She’s mine. She always was. I just forgot for a while,” I added.
“Dense. Like yer old man,” he said, smirking. “Alright. I’ll leave Fallon to chew yer arse out now. Gotta go tell yer mother that I saw ya and yer alright.”
“Dad,” I called, making him turn back.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“For chewing ya out?” he asked, smirking.
“For giving a shit,” I said, shrugging. I knew that, for my father, learning to love had been a long road.
“Love ya, kid. Even when yer a fucking pain in the arse. Speaking of pains in the arses,” he said, shaking his head. “Ya might want to reach out to Jax. Ward said he got word ya made it back to town and didn’t stop in. He’s pissed.”
Ross Ward was a part of my father’s horrible childhood. Two young boys stuck in an impossible situation and needing to learn to survive and figure out how to escape.
Even though they didn’t see each other for decades after, my father had held that friendship close to his chest. When he eventually decided to “retire” in Navesink Bank, he joined the Henchmen and renewed his friendship with Ward like they hadn’t lost any time at all.
That meant that Jax and I had been practically raised as brothers. But, like with everyone else, I’d lost touch with him when I’d left town. It never occurred to me that he’d be pissed that I didn’t let him know myself that I was back.
Jax Ward had gotten himself the title of a pain in the arse a while back when Niro was fighting for him at the underground club. And Jax went and fucked with our club by pitting Niro against a member of the rival club that Danny used to be the president of. And everyone knew that the end result was going to only make the war between the clubs worse.
It also ended with Niro being forbidden from fighting at the club anymore. Or for us to spend our money there. To teach Jax a lesson.
It was a whole fucking thing.
And Jax Ward hadn’t exactly been a club favorite since that day.
But my father, clearly, still thought of him like a second son. Which meant I did have to make good on that too.
I was mending a lot of fucking bridges I never should have burned.
“I’ll add that to my list,” I agreed.
“Bring that firecracker of yours to protect ya,” he suggested, giving my shoulder a hard slap, then a squeeze before making his way out.
“That wasn’t as exciting as I’d been anticipating,” Finn said. “Oh, here we go,” he went on when his brother came walking out of the hallway that led to the bedrooms.
“Did your father give you some shit?” he asked.
“He did,” I confirmed.
“Good. So, all I need to say now is this. You don’t get the luxury of deciding to handle shit on your own when you belong to this club. Your choices blow back on all of us. So we all need to know what the fuck is going on.”
“I understand that,” I agreed, nodding.
“You got any more secrets I need to know about?”
“Nothing like that.”
“You make more enemies on the road?”
“None that would feel the need to track me down.”
“Alright. Good. Go heal up. Brooks will have your ass back to work in no time.”
“That’s it?” Finn asked. “I got more shit when I forgot to take the fucking trash out last time. When I had a bullet wound in my fucking shoulder.”
“Yeah, life’s not fair,” Fallon said, smirking at his little brother. “Anyone seen Dezi?” he asked, looking around. “I feel like I haven’t seen him in a while. Did he drown in a bucket of bacon grease or something?” he added, talking mostly to himself as he made his way out front.
“That was a waste of popcorn,” Finn decided, climbing off the couch.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” I told him, hissing as I got up off the chair. “I’m gonna go drop into bed for an hour or so. When Lulu gets her, send her in my direction.”
Voss and I were just moving into the prospect room when we realized we weren’t alone.
Because the missing Dezi and Nave were standing in the sink area of the bathroom, talking in hushed, but heated tones, their body language confirming what we’d been suspecting since we’d first seen them interact.
They’d crossed paths in the past.
And, from the looks of things, it maybe hadn’t been the friendliest of interactions.
“There he is,” Nave said, spotting us first, and dropping all his tension as he turned. “Dezi was just telling me we need to re-clean the bathroom,” he lied. Smoothly. Easily.
“I heard you played a horny chick via text to Curtis,” I said, reaching out toward him to give his hand a shake. “I appreciate it.”
“Had an idea. Ran with it. Nothing to thank me for,” he said, shrugging. “Before anyone asks, yes, I tossed the burner already,” he said, looking at Voss. “That’s where I was this morning,” he added. I wasn’t sure if there was a hint of dishonesty in his tone, or if I was imagining it there because I was a little suspicious of his ability to lie to us.
“Good,” Voss said, shrugging it off.
“Where’s Louana?” Nave asked, frowning. “Thought she wasn’t hurt.”
“She’s not. She’s getting coffee. But she’s done here,” I told him.
“What?” Dezi asked, looking genuinely hurt. “But what am I going to eat in the morning if not her omelets?” he asked. “I’m gonna have to go back to donut holes and then Zaddy is going to give me all kinds of shit. You tell her she’s to blame when I put on another twenty pounds,” Dezi said, shaking his head sadly as he made his way past us and out of the prospect room.
There was a tense moment after he left, all of us unsure if anyone was going to address the elephant in the room.
In the end, it was Nave who broke the silence.
“Better get to cleaning then,” he said, going under the sink to find the cleaning products, then disappearing into one of the bathrooms.
“I feel like I’m walking a tightrope with Fallon, and not telling him about this is problematic,” I admitted to Voss as I walked over to the bunks.
“Not our secrets to share,” he reasoned, shrugging.
That was fair.
Besides, if some shit came up down the road, Dezi was a patched member of the club. He would hold onto the lion’s share of the blame.
And who was to say anything was going to happen anyway? Just because Dezi and Nave knew each other from their lives before the club didn’t mean there was some giant catastrophe heading the club’s way.
When you ran in criminal circles, it wasn’t weird to cross paths with people you would run into again sometime in the future.
“You two settle shit?” Voss asked as he located my phone cord for me.
“Me and Lulu?” I clarified, getting a grunt out of him. “Yeah. We worked it out. She’s out looking for a lead on an apartment,” I told him.
“Can’t be alone here,” he said, shrugging.