Hawke
Entering Black Panthers, I scan the room looking for my brothers. The strip joint is packed tonight with men getting lap dances, the dancers happy with all the money being thrown their way. Before Luisa, I loved coming out to see the strippers, even sometimes taking one back to the private rooms and getting laid. But now all I see is women making a buck.
I see a hand sticking up from the crowd, waving me over. It’s Quill, and he’s surrounded by three women. One’s on his lap straddling him, the other behind him running her hands through his hair, the third to his side licking his neck. The boys are surrounding him, pissing themselves laughing as they throw money at the women. When I reach Quill, I can see he needs my help. The look he gives me says, “Get me the fuck out of here.” I laugh as he continues to stare daggers at me while I watch on.
I let it go for a few more minutes, and then tap the shoulder of the stripper on his lap. I hand her a few dollars and point to Gunner, letting her know she can give him a lap dance instead. Gunner can’t help but yell, “hell yes!” As she walks over to where he’s seated, she turns so her back is to him, leaning down and touching the floor and giving him a good view of her barely covered pussy. Gunner’s so drunk he can barely sit straight in his chair. The other two ladies are now rubbing their hands down Quill’s thighs and I point my thumb at them to step away. The one with big breasts and long, blonde hair, seductively moves over to me and trails her hand from my chest to my groin. I smirk at her and lean in, whispering in her ear, “Maybe later, doll. Right now I gotta talk to my boy.”
“That’s too bad,” she replies walking away, her hand sliding around my body to my ass. There’s no fucking way there will be a later but a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do.
“Thanks, man, you’re a lifesaver,” Quill says as he takes a swig of his beer.
A topless waitress approaches me and I give her my order before turning back to Quill. “Why did you agree to this if it’s not what you wanted?” I ask.
“Have you seen the boys? Look at them.”
I look over his head and see Trigger, Blaze, Gunner, and the other boys drinking and enjoying the show, big smiles on their faces. I sit back in my chair and sigh. “Yeah, I got it. You’re a good man,” I state as I grip Quill’s shoulder, and he smiles. “Sometimes we gotta put the club and pussy before our needs,” I add smirking.
“So, you saw Luisa before you came here?” Quill asks taking another swig of his beer.
“Yeah.” I run my hands through my hair, trying to calm myself the fuck down. “Not happy Luisa’s out looking hot as hell without me.”
“You don’t need to tell me, brother. My woman is pregnant, and out dancing with God knows who trying to touch what is mine. She may be showing but she’s still hot as hell. Thank fuck I have the prospects watching out for them tonight. Jasmine wasn’t happy but I don’t give a fuck. I’m not taking any chances of any fucker trying to get into her pants.”
“I had to ask Luisa to change. You should have seen the dress she had on, there was no way any man wasn’t gonna feast his eyes on her.”
Quill begins to laugh and I narrow my eyes at him. “What’s so funny?”
“Man, I never thought I’d see the day you were hung up on a chick again. Especially after being burnt by Josie.”
“Yeah, well, Luisa’s different. She accepts me for who I am. Why? I don’t fucking know, but she understands the club means a lot to me, and she’s fine with that.”
Taking a swig of my beer once the waitress hands it to me, I sit back in my chair as the strip club’s MC announces that Harmony, the next stripper, will be taking the floor. The lights dim and cheers sound throughout the club as she makes her way onto the stage. The song “Good for you” by Selena Gomez plays loudly, and Harmony moves her hips seductively to the music. She has long, blonde hair and is wearing a nurse outfit. The dress is short, revealing white suspenders, and her cleavage spills out the top of her dress. She leaves nothing to the imagination when she accidently drops her medicine bag and leans down to pick it up, giving us a good glimpse of her white G-string.
She continues to dance and when she steps forward to the edge of the stage, her eyes widen when she takes in Quill and I. There’s something familiar about this woman but I can’t quite put my finger on it. She freezes for a moment and I see her swallow hard. For a second I think she’s going to run off the stage, but then she continues her slow dance, moving seductively to the music. Those eyes, I know those fucking eyes.
For the rest of the song I notice she doesn’t pay me and my boys much attention, although that doesn’t stop my brothers from throwing cash at her. Inch by inch, she unzips the front of her dress, letting it fall to the floor, leaving her breasts bare and standing in nothing other than her lacy thong. My eyes zone in on a tattoo that’s sitting just above her pubic bone, and I feel all the breath in my lungs vanish. There’s all the proof I need that the woman standing practically naked in front of me and my boys is my ex, Josie. The tattoo I’m still staring at says Reece. Josie got it as a birthday present for me one year, and I’d fucking loved that she’d had me branded on her body. Reece is my given name, Razor, our old Prez, giving me my road name, Hawke, when I joined the Blood Brothers MC. But I’d always loved that Josie called me by my real name.
My eyes travel further up her body and our eyes lock. It’s her, it’s fucking Josie. I grind my teeth, anger washing through me.
Quill must notice something’s up by the way I’m gripping my beer bottle. “Man, you all right? You look as if you wanna hit something.”
I snap my head over to Quill. “It’s fucking Josie up there, man,” I growl.
Quill’s eyebrows raise and he looks back up at the stage just as Josie’s performance ends. She’s picking up all the dollar bills she earned from the floor. Her blonde hair doesn’t make sense, but then it hits me that she’s most likely wearing a wig. I jump up from my seat and walk to the front of the stage. She must sense me because she slowly raises her eyes until they meet mine.
“Josie, what the fuck?”
Water pools in her eyes and she gets up off her knees, rushing off to the back of the stage through a black curtain. Without thinking, I jump up on the stage and follow her. Two men, both dark-skinned with shaved heads and arms bigger than my thighs, appear. They hold me back, each grabbing one of my arms and securing it behind me. I try to break free but these men look like they could lift a ten-ton truck.
“You better take your ass off this stage before I throw you out of this club,” the one to my left says, and I can’t for the life of me understand why he’s wearing shades in a club that’s already fucking dark.
“We got a problem here boys?” Quill says, my brothers behind him.
The security men immediately let go of my arms and curse. “Look, boys, we don’t want any trouble here. Your friend here is breaking the rules,” the one with shades says.
“Let my boy here out back and we won’t have a problem. You got me, brother?” Quill replies.
They both move aside and I take that as a green light.
I move past them, pushing aside the black curtain, and make my way down the hallway, coming face-to-face with a closed door. The sign on it says “Bitches.”
I push open the door and women are everywhere. Some shield their bodies, and others smile, turning toward me, not bothered that they practically have nothing on in the way of clothing.
“Ladies,” I say smiling.
“Can we help you?” one woman says, trying to conceal her breasts with her hands but not doing a very good job of it.
“Yeah, you can. I’m looking for Harmony.”
“The cute ones always want Harmony,” a redhead says standing before me naked, raking her eyes over me. She’s cute, but not my type.
“Where is she?” I repeat, growling.
“Down there to the left,” she responds, and points. I head further into the room and freeze when I turn the corner. There, with her blonde wig off and injecting what could only be drugs into her arm, is Josie.
“What the fuck, Josie?”
Josie ignores me and continues what she’s doing. She arches her head back and closes her eyes, inhaling deeply as whatever she’s pushing into her vein enters her bloodstream.
I move forward and kneel in front of her, shaking her, trying to get her to focus on me.
She opens her eyes, and her once lively brown eyes are bare of emotion. She looks at me with a blank stare and I tap her lightly on her cheek, trying to get some kind of reaction from her.
“Josie, it’s me, Hawke. What are you doing to yourself?” I ask, removing her hair from her face and pulling it back behind her shoulders.
“Hawke?” she whispers. “I thought it was you out there. What are you doing here?” she asks, giggling this time.
“You’re fucking high as a kite. What the fuck happened to you?” I question, shaking her shoulders.
She stares straight into my eyes and whispers, “You left me, Hawke, that’s what happened. You were my life, and just like that you walked out on me.” She’s clicking her fingers as she talks, her eyes glazed over by the drugs.
I feel winded, like someone just hit me straight in my gut. “Me? I’m the cause of this?” I growl, and pause to take a deep breath. It’s not worth getting upset. She’s high and won’t remember this conversation tomorrow. Right now, my head is saying fuck her, she did this to herself. But the good man inside of me needs to make sure she’s okay.
“Hey, man, everything good?”
I turn around at the familiar voice, finding Quill standing nearby with his arms crossed. His eyes then narrow in on Josie and he exhales loudly. “Fuck, man, she doesn’t look too good?” he mumbles, looking at the needle that has just fallen to the floor.
“Oh, look. It’s the big man himself,” Josie says, looking over at Quill with a lazy smile. “I saw you out there, I heard bikers were coming tonight, that it was someone’s bachelor party. You wouldn’t believe my surprise when I was told his name was Quill, and that I was to pay him ‘special attention.’” She starts laughing out loud. “Quill, getting married, now there’s a fucking joke,” she says, falling forward and swaying in her seat.
I hold her up and push her back against her chair. “You watch your mouth, Josie. He’s my boy and no one talks about any of my brothers that way. Now, why the fuck are you here?”
“Oh, Hawke, baby,” she says, running her hand down my cheek. Then she sobers. “I loved you, Hawke, and maybe I still do. When you left you took everything with you, including my heart. I lost everything because of you.” Tears start pooling in her eyes again, and she rests her head against my chest as she begins to sob.
My eyes flick to Quill, and just like he can read my thoughts, he says, “Take her home, man. It’s cool, don’t worry about me. I’m gonna check on Jasmine, then I think we’ll move this party back to the club.”
I nod my head once at him and pick Josie up bridal-style, grabbing her bag from the back of her chair. Looks like we’ll be taking her car if she has one; she’s in no condition to be on the back of my bike. Her head sinks into my neck and I feel her tongue lick me there. I pull away from her prying mouth and stop in front of Quill. “Thanks, man. I’ll take her home then meet you back at the club. Get one of the brothers to drop my bike off at her apartment. And Quill?” I state adjusting Josie in my arms, “no word to Luisa about this, you got me, brother?” I look Quill straight in his questioning eyes.
“Sure thing, man. Does Luisa know about your past?” he asks running a hand through his hair.
“No, she doesn’t. I plan on telling her soon, I just need to find the right time.”
“Don’t wait too long, brother, secrets always come to the surface.”
‘Will do,” I reply, and pass by Quill with Josie lying comfortably in my arms.
“Where are you taking me?” Josie croaks.
I look down at her, noticing her pupils are now dilated. Fuck me, I don’t need this shit right now.
“Home, that’s where,” I reply, walking out the room and back out to the front part of the club. My brothers are still there drinking, and cheering on the next dancer. They don’t even notice me walking out with Josie and that’s the way I like it. I don’t need any questions right now. I just need to get Josie home, and then I’ll leave her there and head back to the club.