She laughed. “I don’t think I’ve seen you in the same shoes twice, so I kind of already knew you’d have lots of things, and that’s fine. The D has a one-bedroom apartment because that’s all he needed. We can move ya’ll into a two bedroom when one opens up, and you can use the second bedroom as your closet.”
What did it mean that I hadn’t even considered moving in with him permanently?
“It’s good to know that’s a possibility.”
“Oh. Wow. I struck a nerve, and I’m sorry about that. Look, consider me the bitchy big sister, okay? Ya’ll will figure it out — I’m just glad you’re here, even if you see it as temporary and you want to hold onto your own place a while longer. It’s a start.”
I tried to suppress a yawn, and she stood. “You’re tired. You had to wake up early for classes. I’ll go so you can sleep. Thanks so much for the chocolate milk.” She hugged me before she left.
While I washed the saucepan, I tried to figure out why she’d come. D had told me she was kind of like their queen bee, so having her make sure I knew the club was happy that I appeared to be moving in was probably a good thing.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Dementor
I awoke in time for church Sunday at eleven. Ember was sitting at the kitchen table doing homework when my alarm went off. The bear hadn’t wakened when she got up. Interesting.
Church these days felt like more of a corporate board meeting than a biker meeting. I mean, the first business was voting two new hang-arounds into prospects, and giving one already-prospect a few more responsibilities, but then we had to vote on buying some parcels of land near Blaze in the hopes we could negotiate to buy a nearby building as well. If we could buy the whole thing, it’d be the location for our new clubhouse. Also, we voted to buy a new sign for Blaze, taller and brighter, and it would say Rolling Thunder Presents above the word Blaze. Bobcat said the Chattanooga chapter has a graphics guy who’s a friend of the club, and we voted to let him give us some design possibilities to vote on.
Frost brought up several decisions he wanted input on from the club as a whole, and we conversated about them. Some, we clearly agreed on how to handle, but Mad Dog put a few items to a vote. We trust each manager to make decisions about the business he runs, but we also trust the managers to know what they need to bring to the club for a vote. In these cases, either our reputation was on the line, or a whole lot of money, so Frost had made the right call in asking for input from his brothers.
Sometimes we’re in and out of church in thirty minutes. This Sunday was closer to three hours. I texted Ember when I retrieved my phone afterwards, asking her if she wanted to come to the clubhouse to hang out for a while. She didn’t respond after about five minutes, so I called her, but she didn’t answer. I went to my apartment and she wasn’t there. She hadn’t left a note, either.
Later, I’d find out she went to the park to skate with some of her teammates. Her phone was in her backpack and she didn’t hear it. The nearby soccer fields had games in progress, with people screaming and cheering. She said a bunch of college guys were playing touch football inside the loop the women skated, and another group had music blasting while they seemed to be having a dance-off. I believed her, but I was beside myself with worry for nearly an hour.
She was home by three. It wasn’t like she stayed out all day. She spent a few hours with her friends, and she texted me when she finally saw that I’d been trying to contact her.
However, I’d been worried, and I blew up at her when she finally arrived home. She texted to let me know where she was and that she was on her way home, so I was standing in front of her parking spot when she pulled in.
“I was worried.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know how long you’d be, and I didn’t figure we’d be gone long. A few hours.”
She walked past me, into the apartment, through it, and into the bedroom. I followed and watched her settle her skates in the corner of my room with her suitcase and duffel and shoes. I’d cleared a few drawers out for her and made some room for her to hang things in my closet, but if she was going to stay, she needed more storage space.
“This is twice you’ve worried me. I can’t keep you safe if I don’t know where you are. Just being my girlfriend can put a target on your head. Right now, it doesn’t because no one has the balls to go to war with us, but sometimes the opening salvo in a war is hurting our women instead of coming after us. I need to know where you are.”
She’d been looking through her suitcase, and she stood and turned to look at me with panties and a bra in her hand. “I haven’t had to let someone know where I am every minute of the day for a year. After years of...” She crossed her arms and met my gaze. “I’m not sure I want to go backwards.”
“Then let me track your phone. I can see where you are without you feeling as if you need to check in.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“It isn’t about trust, it’s about keeping you safe. If I could’ve looked and seen you moving around within the park, I’d have been able to figure out what you were doing.”
“Let me track your phone too and we have a deal.”
At one time that wouldn’t have been possible, but we were all really careful not to have our phones on us when we did something illegal these days. Our phones never showed up at the scene of a crime. We used to get a heads-up when a local judge signed a communications warrant on us, but we couldn’t depend on that anymore.
“Assuming Mad Dog approves it, okay, but you have to know the MC frequently ditches our phones for organized events. If I’m with my brothers, the only way to contact me will be through the control room, and that’s only for emergencies.”
“And you don’t think I’ll be worried about you?”
“I’ll be with my brothers. No one fucks with a bunch of bikers. It’s not the same as you being out alone and you know it.”
She pulled her nine millimeter from her bellyband and put it on the dresser. “I’m pretty good at taking care of myself.” She reached back under her shirt, retrieved two extra magazines, settled them beside her weapon, and met my gaze in challenge.
“That makes me feel a little better, but against a dozen bad guys, you have to know how that would end.”
She pulled her hair out of the ponytail, stepped into the master bath, and picked up her hairbrush. “We’re supposed to have our talk today about whether I’m staying another week or not. I guess that falls into the same conversation. How serious are we?”
“I’m feeling pretty damned serious.”
She grinned at me in the mirror as she brushed her hair. “I’m picking up on that. I’ve enjoyed our week, and not just because of the sex.” She stopped brushing and met my gaze in the mirror. “In truth, part of me is worried I’ll become addicted to it again. The adrenaline rush and the endorphins and the power exchange. I love having it in my life again, but what if I lose you? Weaning myself away from it was hell, after Able was killed. I masturbated until my wrist hurt, and I cried when I came because my orgasms sucked when compared to what I’d had before. I can’t do that again.”