Gabe had been looking for her. He hadn’t seen her for what he suddenly realized was a long time and he was asking some of the guys if they’d seen her. It was a guy they called Ripper who had crossed that invisible line. “Last time I saw her she was in the hallway with the boss. My guess is he’s about balls deep about now.” Gabe had thrown the first punch, but in minutes, especially with Blackheart conspicuously absent, the wake of their beloved brother had turned into a full-on brawl. Many of the guys didn’t know what they were even fighting about, but most of the Jokers loved a good fight almost as much as they loved a good lay. Gabe wondered now if Ripper was waking up as torn up as he was...and then, even though he was trying hard not to, he wondered about what the man had said.
Gabe had no idea how he’d gotten back to his own trailer the night before, but he was sure he never saw Patrice or Blackheart after that. He loved his president. Blackheart had been like a surrogate father to him since his own father died. He trusted him with his life, even if he didn’t know Patrice well enough to know if he could really trust her or not. He was sure Blackheart wouldn’t go there...mostly sure, almost completely sure.
He shook his head at himself in the mirror and that simple motion made him throw up again. He supposed he should head over to the club and see what kind of damage they’d done, and what kind of hell they were going to catch when Blackheart or Le Singe saw it. Le Singe had disappeared early the night before too, but since he was the closest to Booger out of them all, no one thought anything of his needing some time to himself. Gabe shuddered to think how angry he was going to be when he saw the damage they’d done to the bar, and how many bottles of booze had ended up broken and leaking sticky liquid out all over the floor. He groaned and headed back to where his bed was, with the intentions of picking up the jeans lying at the bottom and getting dressed. But once he was that close, the bed seemed to be calling to him and he flopped back down on top of it and once the room stopped spinning, he reached over to the bedside table and picked up his phone.
He stared at it for a while, as if wishing for a text from Patrice would make one appear. When it didn’t, he used his shaking hands and fingers to type in, “Hey, just making sure you got home okay last night. I lost you.” He wondered again why she would just leave and not send him so much as a text message. His head kept going back to her being with someone else. Gabe wasn’t sure which of his brothers might fuck his woman, but he knew a few of them who had priors. Most of those guys were older, part of the “wild bunch” around since Blackheart put the club together. They were the kind of guys who had no boundaries and figured if something wasn’t nailed down, it was fair game. But Gabe couldn’t imagine Patrice giving in to any of the old timers, and he knew without a doubt that if she said “no,” that would have been the end of it. The Jokers were a lot of things, but Blackheart insisted from day one that no woman would be abused on his watch, and he’d made an example of the men who ignored that directive, with a legendary fury that no one wanted to be at the center of.
He finally pressed “send” on the text and let the phone drop to his bare chest. He closed his eyes...just to rest them while his head continued to pound...and woke up sometime later to an insistent knock on his front door. The phone fell to the floor as he was startled out of a deep sleep, and stepping over it, he went to see who was at his door. By the time he got there, he found himself hoping it was Patrice, with a believable explanation about why she’d disappeared, and maybe even an apology for not saying goodbye. Instead, once he’d pulled open the door he found himself looking into his president’s blue eyes.
Blackheart gave him a once-over and when he cocked an eyebrow it dawned on Gabe that he hadn’t pulled on any clothes. He was face to face with his president, and he was butt-ass naked. “You alone?” Blackheart asked.
“Yeah, boss, sorry...”
“Please tell me you were expecting anyone but me,” Blackheart said with a smirk on his face. Gabriel felt his face go hot.
“Sorry, boss. I’m just a little...”
“Hung the fuck over?”
“Yeah. Come on in. I’ll put some pants on.”
“Well, thank Christ for that,” Blackheart said, following him inside. As Gabe made his way back to the little 5th wheel “bedroom” he couldn’t help but notice the way Blackheart was looking around the small space, like he was still expecting someone else to pop out. As Gabe was pulling on his jeans Blackheart said, “You might also want to pull on a shirt and some boots because you’ve got a hell of a lot to do in order to rebuild the bar you and Ripper tore the fuck up.”
Shit. He’s already seen the club. Gabriel didn’t say anything but went ahead and pulled out a clean t-shirt and socks. While he finished dressing, he wondered if anyone had told Blackheart what they’d been fighting about. Once again that devil on his shoulder tried to get him to wonder if he was wrong about his boss...maybe he had found Patrice too hot to resist. Blackheart was the king of getting what he wanted, no matter how unattainable it seemed to others. What was really stopping him if he wanted something Gabe had? After all, no one was kicking him out of the club, even if he did do something the rest of them would deem “disloyal.”
Gabe ate another four pain pills before scrubbing his face, brushing his teeth, and going back out where Blackheart was, boots on and vest in hand. Blackheart had made coffee and he handed a mug to the younger man as soon as he walked out into the tiny kitchen. It smelled so good that Gabe almost forgot everything and was tempted to kiss him. He inhaled the magic brew before taking a sip of it and savoring the way it warmed his insides up as it slid down his throat. “Ahh...thanks, boss. I needed this.”
“Sit down with it for a sec. Before we go, you and I need to talk.”
That sounded ominous, but Gabe did as he was told and Blackheart took a seat on the little couch, almost dwarfing it. Blackheart ran a hand through his beard and said, “Your girl...Patrice...what do you know about her?”
Gabriel’s mouth went dry again and it was hard to form the words as he said, “Not a lot. She was brought up in Baton Rouge and moved here for the job after she got out of nursing school.” When Blackheart didn’t say anything after a few minutes Gabe summoned his nerve and said, “Can I ask why you’re asking, boss?”
Ignoring the question Blackheart said, “She mentioned me to you at all?”
Gabriel was now wondering how he would feel about his hero if Blackheart was about to admit to fucking Patrice? He didn’t know...but surely his relationship with Blackheart was more important than one with a woman he still barely knew? “No, boss...she hasn’t said anything to me about you.”
“What about her parents? Her maw? She still in Baton Rouge?”
“Um...I think so. She said she never lived on her own until she moved here...so, I just assumed she still lived with her parents.”
“Parents? As in maw and paw both?”
Gabriel wished he knew why Blackheart had so many questions about “his” girl, but he didn’t have the balls to ask again. Instead, he nodded, sending another jolt of pain shooting through his poor head. “Yeah, I mean, she’s mentioned them both, and a brother and sister...younger, I think.”