“We ain’t fuckin’ businessmen,” Dad snaps.
Dad’s never held a job. Never did anything around the house except bitch and make a mess. After Mom left, he didn’t even bother to come home much. He crashed at the clubhouse or his girlfriend’s. In my opinion, he ain’t any fuckin’ kind of man at all.
Grinder stomps in and claps my back. “Who’s fuckin’ businessmen? We fucking businessmen now?”
Boots rolls in a second later, filling the room with the reek of dank weed like the world’s funkiest Little Tree car-freshener. “I’m five minutes late and someone fucked a businessman?”
“You’re not late. It’s not eighteen hundred yet.” I silence my phone and set it on the table. I don’t have any calls or texts. Not that I’m expecting any. Wash already reported back from his daily drive by. Nevaeh’s car is in the driveway. She’s hasn’t left town yet. She’ll have to soon. We’ve put the word out that she doesn’t get hired in Petty’s Mill.
Shit. This is not what I need to be thinking about.
I roll my shoulder. It’s been givin’ me trouble the last few days. I must have slept on it wrong.
A second later, Heavy tromps in with Charge in tow, and I crack my knuckles, exhaling the irritation that’s been riding me for days. I’ve been restless in my skin, impatient, not to mention my dick’s decided it works just fine again.
God, Nevaeh was so damn soft. Smelled so good. Her neck’s still sensitive, and when she cums, she still jerks like she’s possessed.
The first time I saw that I was seventeen, and I didn’t know shit about women. Nearly called 9-1-1. When I figured out what was going on, I was a kid with a shiny new toy. I lived to make her body convulse like she’d been zapped. Her belly muscles would ripple, and her thighs would twitch.
Perfect. Now I have a full-blown hard on in church. Unacceptable. I can’t afford this distraction. Shit’s been going down, and this meeting has been a long time coming. My head needs to be in the game, now more than ever. Lives are on the line.
I try a little trick I learned in Ranger school. You draw your awareness to the shit buzzing in your brain, and then you shoot it.
Drunk loser Dad, running his mouth like always? Boom.
The scent of Nevaeh’s pussy that’s been teasing my memory since Saturday night? Boom.
The racket from the clubhouse’s main room, the constant pain in my arm, the nagging feeling that I’m needed somewhere else? Boom, boom, boom.
We might not be businessmen, but it’s business time.
As if he reads my mind, Heavy bangs his gavel. Boots carved it for him as a joke, but the joke’s on us. Heavy thinks it’s funny as shit to wail it against the table, and it’s annoying as hell.
“We got a quorum?” Heavy booms.
Club charter requires ten patched-in members in good standing and three officers to pass motions. We got Heavy, Pig Iron, and me for officers. Dad, Gus, and Grinder speak for the old timers. Boots is like, their moral support.
Cue from the strip club and Big George from the Autowerks represent the small businesses. Charge, Nickel, Wall, Dizzy, and my brother Bullet represent the rank and file.
Perched in a seat off in the corner, Harper Ruth scrolls through her phone. She’s our permanent exception. Our legal representation. She might be a female, but church doesn’t happen without her. She’s smarter than Heavy, and she’s kept this club from going down in flames many times.
Thankfully, unlike everywhere else, she doesn’t peddle her brand of bullshit in church.
“Ayup. All present,” Charge says. That’ll probably be it from him. He’s a good lieutenant. Solid man, loyal as hell, but he’s not one for making plans. Especially not since he’s become a family man. These days, all he wants to talk about are the renovations he’s doing for his new wife. Like I know shit about laying tile.
“No Creech?” Heavy raises a bushy eyebrow.
“Passed out under the bar,” Cue offers.
“Scrap?” Heavy asks.
“I got him covering the garage,” George says, shifting his gaze to avoid Heavy’s eye.
Heavy screws Pig Iron with a knowing look, snagging one of his beers. “Scrap has more than earned his place at this table.”
Pig Iron shifts uneasily in his chair. “Let the boy enjoy his freedom a spell before we set him up for violating parole, eh?”
Obviously, Pig Iron arranged it with George to make sure that Scrap missed church.
We all get it. Scrap paid a steep price for protecting this club when he murdered the man who attacked Crista. Ten years upstate is real time. This business heating up with the Rebel Raiders…shit’s gonna get serious. We’re all gonna have real skin in the game. If Scrap gets busted, he’s not seeing daylight again.
Scrap’s his own man, though, and he can make his own calls. He proved that many moons ago. I’m about to say so when Boots pipes up from his wheelchair at the foot of the table.
“Ain’t how this works.” The table at large does a double take. Truth be told, Boots spends most of church snoring. Grinder elbows him when it’s time for a vote, and he raises his hand if Grinder does.
“Every man makes his own choice.” Boots slaps the table and points his finger at Pig Iron. “That’s freedom. What’d I give my legs for if not so every dumbass can do as he damn well pleases?”
“Leg,” Charge corrects. “You lost that second one off eatin’ too much sugar and shit.”
“Point still holds,” Boots grumbles, folding his arms. He’s said his piece.
Heavy bangs his gavel. “Point seconded?”
“Seconded,” Grinder spits around a mouthful of chaw.
“Motion carried.” Heavy slams the table.
My dad bitches about Heavy’s “college boy shit,” says they never took votes and signed paperwork in Slip Ruth’s day. I remind him that in Slip’s day, the club was stuck hauling black market smokes into New York, providing protection for the Russians’ gun operation, and doing wet work for the Renelli’s. Dead end shit. High risk, low reward.
“College boy shit” bought the RV that Dad’s got parked in his driveway and the weekend trips to Atlantic City. I’ve only been back a few years, and it’s already bought me a big ol’ empty house, a Softail Slim, a Jeep, and a Ford 450 Limited.
“We gonna talk Raiders now or what?” Nickel asks, swiping his nose. He’s on edge, hardly sitting still. He’s like Nevaeh in that way, always in motion. With him, it’s aggression. Nevaeh’s more like how a bird or a bee goes flower to flower. Busy going nowhere.
Fuck. Where’s my head? This is my cue.
I clear my throat. “We need a strategy.” All eyes pivot to me.
Heavy and I plotted this out beforehand.
I propose the plan. Cue and Big George will nix it ‘cause they’re focused on the businesses. Pig Iron, Dizzy, and Nickel will want all-out war ‘cause of what the Raiders did to our women. Dad, Bullet, or Grinder will suggest doin’ something stupid. Heavy’ll act like he’s considering everyone’s point, and then he’ll go with my plan, which is really his plan.
I told him I feel like a damned liar. He said I should feel like a politician. I said same difference.