SIX
Pagan
"Where were you?" Repo asked when I walked in, going directly behind the bar for a beer because, well, it was hot as balls out and I needed something cool. That and maybe I needed a little oblivion to stop obsessing about fucking goddamn Kennedy already.
"Oh, didn't you know?" Maze asked, her hair perfectly dyed from the Benny guy. "Pagan has a giiiirlfriend," she teased, shooting me a smile. "Pagan and Kennedy sitting in a tree..."
"Come the fuck on!" Cyrus said, slamming his drink down on the coffee table. "No way are you settling down with that girl. Granted, she's gorgeous and all that, but I need my wingman."
"Got a room full of new prospects," I said, waving a hand toward the new addition that was set up barracks-style for just that reason. Then, realizing exactly what I had just said- insinuating that I was serious about Kennedy- I rushed to cover. "Besides, I'm not fucking dating anyone. You know me enough to know that's not my style."
"Wasn't supposed to be any of those fucks' style," Cyrus complained, waving a hand toward Cash, Reign, and Duke who were on the other side of the room talking, "and yet they're all locked down now. Love Summer, Lo, Penny, and all the other crazy chicks, you too Maze, angel," he said, shooting her a smile that worked on way too many girls in bars. But Maze, having his number, was unaffected. "But we're too young for settling down. Booze and brotherhood and b... ladies," he covered when Penny walked in, raising a brow at his almost-slip.
"Where are the puppies?" Maze asked, looking around. "Did you guys lock them up so they don't piddle on the rug again?"
"Sugar, Virgin, and Roderick all went to the gym," Cyrus said, lip curling slightly.
"Aw, the bromance begins," Maze said, walking toward Cyrus and sitting down. "Where's that other one then? The one who looks like he was maybe raised in the woods?"
That'd be Roan.
He did sort of have that primal, wolf-like look to him.
"Mult timp în urmā, frate," Edison's growl dragged my attention to where he and the man in question had been walking out of the kitchen. "Mult timp," he added with a nod as he moved away.
Generally, I didn't give a fuck about the background of my brothers. Maybe a part of that was because I didn't want them to know all of mine, but there was something about Edison that I just could never put my finger on. Maybe it was as simple as strange characters like Wolf and Roan seemed to know who he was by name and reputation alone, while the rest of us barely knew one damn detail about him.
And while Edison wasn't exactly afflicted with some kind of trauma that made him talk in as short of sentences as possible, he was a quiet fuck. He didn't engage in small talk. He didn't volunteer any personal details. The fuck was even tight-lipped when he had an entire handle of vodka in his system.
So Roan having some information on him was intriguing, to say the least.
"Did you invite her to your fight?" Maze asked, smiling big, a little too eager to be going herself. She had been too pregnant then breast-feeding in the past, and this was going to be her first one. In fact, all Henchmen old ladies were showing up for once, having made some kind of deal with their other girls club members to deal with the ankle-biters for the night so they could get out.
"Do you think that was a good idea?" Laz added, coming in out of nowhere. "You do realize she fucking ran when she saw you pounding into that idiot during the open house. And that shit was tame compared to you in the ring. Especially after being benched for so long."
"Yeah, I mean, I couldn't watch your fight," Bethany added, immediately getting wrapped up by Laz because they were in love and shit like that.
"Girl is wound like a top," I said, trying to shrug off the completely unfamiliar twinge of insecurity. That wasn't me. I didn't give a shit what people thought. My entire goddamn life was a testament to that fact. "She'll be six cocktails deep before I step in the ring. By then, it won't matter how much of Slate is leaking out of him."
"Nice visual," Bethany said, face scrunching up.
"So tell us about this Kennedy girl," Penny demanded as she sat down next to Cy.
"Don't get attached," I warned her.
"Right, because when one of these guys," Maze said, waving a hand around, "starts getting those puppy dog eyes like you have, history has totally shown that he fucks her and dumps her."
"Jesus fuck," I growled, tipping up my beer and draining it. "I need something stronger than this to put up with this shit."
Fact of the matter was, I wasn't a relationship guy. Not once. Never. Fuck, I wasn't even sure I had ever taken a woman to dinner. That just wasn't the kind of life I led. I couldn't even make a commitment to keeping a pet; I damn sure wasn't going to shackle myself to another person.
People could accuse me, rightly, of being a lot of things: violent, reckless, outspoken, filter-free, foolhardy, cocky, impulsive, blunt.
But no one would ever accuse me of being steady.
And likewise, no one could say I made promises I didn't keep.
So since my life consisted of cage-fighting, gun-running, ATV-crashing, plane-jumping, car-racing, drinking, and any number of other stupidly dangerous things, getting myself a nice, steady woman was fucked up.
Not because I thought there was anything inherently wrong with how I lived my life, but because it was not the kind of shit a decent woman wanted to settle down with. And while I was fine reaching for a clubwhore or some chick in the bar when the mood struck, which was often, those were not the kinds of women I could ever see myself wanting more than one night with. Maybe that made me a dick, but that was just how it was.
There were one-night kind of girls, and there were settling down kind of girls.
The former loved my lifestyle. It was hot, scary, dangerous, sexy, but safe because they knew none of it would ever actually touch them. I would just be the story they told their girlfriends when they were old, sitting around a cheap dining room table drinking Starbucks, and discussing the good old days before the shitty husband, and three bratty kids, and the life that was eating away at their souls. I was that spark of fun. I was that outlaw biker who fucked them until they saw the face of God back in the day.
Nothing more, nothing less.
The latter, though, were the kind to look at the package that I presented to them and say 'no fucking way.'
Kennedy though, it was painfully clear she wasn't some one-night girl, despite the fact that she let me finger fuck her in an alley at a crowded party. She probably would have let me do more too. But that wasn't who she was, how she was. That was the product of what was obviously a shitty interaction with some rich asshole who wanted to fuck her and whose touch she wanted to forget about. It also likely had a fuckuva lot to do with the fact that, as her co-worker implied, she hadn't gotten any in a long time.
But in need of a fuck or not, she was quality.
She had a business it was clear she put a lot of herself into.
She apparently came from the wrong side of the tracks, but didn't show that in any of her mannerisms, speech, or style.
She had, obviously, been the metaphorical 'pulling yourself up by your bootstraps' kind of person.
You had to admire that.
The fact that I was even thinking about shit like her merits as a person instead of her tits and ass was really saying something, though.
It was saying I was interested.
And not just interested in seeing all the dirty ways she would let me have her.
I was interested in her as a goddamn person.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
"First time you caught feelings?" Roan asked, it maybe being the first time he addressed me directly before. And the strange mix of accents, all too varied to place as any one in particular, was even more prominent.
"I don't even know the woman," I half-denied. It was true enough.
"Had a compound full of women after she ran off on you last week." I knew where he was going. "Didn't see you take any back to your bed."
That was true.
Granted, I wasn't a man who needed to fuck every single night, though what man didn't want that? But I generally didn't go a week unless I was laid up with some kind of serious injury. Not many qualified. Broken leg? She could ride. Busted ribs? Blow job and ride my face.
You get it. I fuck a lot.
And I literally couldn't remember the last time I went over a week without when it was all around, freely offered.
My cock apparently had a one-track mind.
"Just need to fuck her out of my system," I said, shrugging, wondering the truth in that.
"This one of those 'if I say it enough, maybe it will be true' type of things?" he shot back, smirking, brow raised.
I snorted, shaking my head. "Take your old-man wisdom and bestow it on the other probies, brother."
"Women who fuck with your head like this," he said, ducking his head, making those freaky eyes of his all the more piercing, "they don't come around often. Trust me. Just something to keep in mind."
And with that, he was gone out the back door.
"Jstorm and Alex checked into him," Laz said, answering my unasked question as I watched the door slam. "The fuck really was a goddamn spy. He got burned and had to try to rebuild his life. Apparently, when they do that shit, they freeze your accounts and trash your credit. Act like you have had no work history for however long you work for them. Crazy fucking shit that leaves someone with that very unique set of illegal skills with nothing else to do but go into crime."
"Hence... Roan," Maze said, waving a hand toward him. "I think it's cool. Very mysterious. I'd watch a show based on him."
"You have a man," Cyrus reminded her with a smirk.
"What? I said I'd want to watch a show based on him, not fuck him. Geez."
Feeling slightly better at being on safe topics like the future of the club, something that had you told me a year before I'd be interested in, I'd have fucking scoffed. I wasn't, by nature, a 'joiner.' I didn't do sports teams. I didn't have clubs. I liked answering to no one, except maybe Ward. And that was only when I was in the ring anyway.
But, oddly enough, finding The Henchmen had been a tipping point in my life. It made me part of something bigger for maybe the first time ever. It made me responsible for something other than myself and whatever whim I wanted to pursue. It was, in a way, somewhat grounding.
And, whether any of us would have the balls to admit it or not, it was nice to belong, to have brothers to fall back on, sisters to dote on you or make fun of you. For chrissakes, one time after a fight, Penny had been so upset about cleaning up the cuts on my hands that she cleaned them out with her own goddamn tears.
That shit was nice.
I was man enough to admit that.
"What about the other guys?" I asked, hoping to keep the conversation off Kennedy and me for as long as possible. "The MC ones."
"Virgin and Sugar," Penny mused, lips twitching.
"Was I the only one," Maze said, smiling too, "when they met Sugar and he said his name like he does- Suga - had to fight from bursting out 'how you get so fly?' Because it was physically painful to keep that in."
"Me too!" Penny agreed, laughing. "I didn't want to say anything with him being all scarred and scary-looking, but I totally Baby Bash'd inside my head."
Cyrus shot me a look, lips tipped up ever-so-slightly. It was a look I was familiar with with him whenever the girls were around and bullshitting. An amused big brother type of look. I figured maybe it had something to do with his sister who was never around for him to spend time with.
"Anyway, yeah, it all rang true when they looked into them," Maze went on. "Their MC had a raid when they were on a job in PA, and the cops found like a kilo of cocaine there. Given that half the people there were on parole for one thing or another, they all got hauled in. Down went the Twisted Roadsters."
"Well, with a lame ass name like that, they needed to disappear," I agreed with a chuckle. "And Roderick?"
"Mm," Maze said, sending Penny a look that said they both thought he was hot shit.
"Hey," Cyrus said, small-eyeing them. "I'm the pretty one here, damnit. Don't be going googly eyes because he has those Spanish genes."
"Yes, very pretty," Maze agreed, stroking his arm.
"So pretty," Penny added, patting his other hand.
"Anyway, they can't find him, believe it or not."
"No shit?"
"I know, right? It's driving them up a friggen wall. You know how obsessive they get. Wolf said Janie hasn't slept in three nights. I heard him barking 'woman' at her at like three this morning."
Then, like we had summoned them, the front door burst open, bringing the guys in from the gym, clothes still slick with sweat, gym bags over their shoulders or in their hands.
"Keep it in your pants, ladies," Cy said under his breath, making Penny blush and look over at Duke, and Maze give him the finger.
"Hey," Roderick said, stopping a few feet from me, jerking his chin. "We heard you're the one to fuck shit up with."
Well, my reputation certainly proceeded me.
"That'd be me."
"Heard a rumor about you having a whole shitton of ATVs and a disposition that makes you like to get drunk and crash them."
Again, true.
"Yep."
"The fuck we still doing here then?" Roderick asked, waving a hand out.
"You know what? Fuck yeah," I agreed.
I needed a distraction.
Because this fucking Kennedy-every-other-thought shit was whacked.
So then we got shitfaced and crashed ATVs.
Laz came, being a good DD, picked us up, brought us back to the compound, and we continued the party until we all were so fucking drunk, we passed out all around the common room.
A hungover fight.
Those were usually my best ones.
Even as that thought formed, so did one about wondering what Kennedy would wear cage-side.
Fucking Christ.