It was early, so the clubhouse was deserted when they led Gunner through it. Despite his anxiety, he was still kind of proud and impressed to be in the place he’d dreamt about for most of his life. The emblem on the vest he had worn so proudly was painted on the outside of the cement building and displayed prominently in various places inside. He was led past a bar and what looked like a big game room, into a smaller room where there were wooden tables arranged in a semicircle and he was told to sit and wait. As soon as they left him alone he got up and started looking around at the photos on the wall. They were headshots. Some of them were mug shots, and the first few were in black and white. Each one of the photos had a silver plate across the bottom of the frame with a name and a date. He walked along until he came to one of a man with dark blond hair, a clean-shaven face, and clear blue eyes. Something about him looked familiar and when Gunner looked at the name underneath the photo, he got chills. It said Adonis “Doc” Marshall. Adonis? Was that where his mother got Adán?

“I thought you were told to stay sitting down.” He tried to have a neutral expression on his face when he turned toward Cody’s voice. The old man who was with Cody did a double take when Gunner turned around.

“Holy fuck.”

“That’ll do, Hawk.”

“You see it.”

“Yeah, I see it,” Cody said to the old man. “Sit down,” he said to Gunner.

Gunner sauntered back over to his seat and as he took it he said, “Would someone like to tell me what it is that everyone keeps seeing when they look at me?”

“No—shut up!”

“Jesus, are you always in such a foul mood or…?” The old man chuckled as Cody scowled and he said:

“He usually is, yes.”

“Fuck you, Hawk. Is Dax on his way?”

“Yeah, he’s coming.”

“Did we have to do this at seven freaking a.m.?” A tall guy with dark hair and a vest that said “Vice President” came in the door. The name on the front of his vest said “Handsome.” Gunner tried not to laugh. He wondered if the guy’s mother gave him his biker name, because he really didn’t see it. The guy gave him a disgusted glance and took a seat at the head of the table. The old man, Hawk, sat at the far end of the table and was still eyeballing him. A couple other guys came in, a young Hispanic man and a guy in his mid to late thirties who looked as serious as Jimmy always did. They all talked amongst themselves and the seat in the center of the table remained empty for quite some time. One of the club girls, an older one with platinum blonde hair and huge tits, came in about the same time Jimmy did, with a tray full of muffins and coffee. She didn’t offer Gunner any. She acted like she didn’t even see him. She was gone about ten minutes when a big blond guy came in wearing a vest that clearly read “President” on the patch on the front of it. It dawned on Gunner as soon as he saw him that he looked a lot like the guy in the picture on the wall. He greeted a few of the guys and then took his seat and trained his blue eyes on Gunner. It gave him a chill because he realized why the guy on the wall looked so familiar. This guy and the one in the picture both looked like him, almost exactly. Of course, their coloring was lighter and their hair was blond, but features, eyes, even facial expressions…it was like he was looking into a mirror ten or so years into his future.

“Adam Davis, I presume?” the president said. That must have been the meeting being called to order because everyone stopped talking at once.

“Yes, sir. Gunner.”

“Gunner?”

“Yes, sir.”

The president chuckled. “Dare I ask where you got the name?”

Gunner felt his face go hot, and he was thankful for his dark complexion. “I’d rather not say, sir.”

He cleared his throat and said, “Well, my name is Dax Marshall. I’m the president of the Southside Skulls. This is my executive board. Handsome to the right is my vice president. On the other side of him is Nolan ‘Shady’ Gray. He is our Treasurer these days. On my left, we have Paul ‘Pablo’ Martinez. He’s our secretary. Hawk there at the end…well, he doesn’t have a title. He’s just old and we let him sit in out of respect.” The guys chuckled. “You’ve met Cody, one of my sergeants at arms, and my new road captain Jimmy. This club was started by Hawk and my father, a man named Adonis ‘Doc’ Marshall. Doc died a little over a decade ago, and since then his vest has been hanging on the wall out there in the clubhouse. So, imagine my surprise when a club we sometimes do business with sends me a picture of some kid in a dive bar in Texas wearing his patch. I’ll be honest with you, I just sent the guys out there to find out what was going on and give you a friendly warning that we don’t take kindly to others making themselves comfortable in our colors and patches. But something about you alarmed them and here you are.”

Gunner didn’t know what to say, or if he should even say anything, but they were all staring at him so he finally said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any disrespect.”

“You know people go through a lot of shit to earn the right to wear those patches.”

“Yes, sir, I know.”

“Then I don’t get it. Why would you think you have a right to wear it?” Gunner was trying to concentrate on the matter at hand…why that vest meant so damned much to him, but it was hard since he felt like he was staring into his own eyes. He wondered if Dax could see it. He didn’t show any signs of being able to if he could.

Finally, Gunner said, “Um…shit, is it okay if I just talk freely…sir?” He hadn’t called anyone sir in his life, other than the few peace officers or correctional officers he may have been trying to impress, but something about Dax demanded it. He knew now what Cody meant by facing royalty.

Dax looked like he wanted to smile. Gunner took that as a positive sign. “Freely is the only way we know how to talk around here kid. Talk away.”

Gunner ran a hand through his coarse hair and then forced himself to make eye contact with those eyes that looked so incredibly like his own and said, “My mother was a prostitute. She took a bunch of pills when I was about ten years old. I found her when I got home from school. She was clutching that vest and she left me a note. The note said that the vest belonged to my dad, and he left it for me. My mother wasn’t a complete waste of a person, she just had addiction problems. She did the best she could, with what she had.”

“We’re not here to judge your mom, kid. We’ve all got our skeletons.”

Gunner nodded. “The thing is, a lot of times she tried to make things seem better than they were to me because she felt guilty. The note—well, I always wanted to believe she knew who my father was, but there was a part of me that always just figured she thought pointing me in the direction of a guy that might be my father would make the fact that my mother was now dead less traumatic or something. Her head didn’t really work right.”

“Where were you born, kid?” That question came from the old guy, Hawk.

“San Antonio, I guess. I don’t remember living anywhere other than that piece-of-shit apartment we were in when she died. After she was gone I moved out to Lincoln where I met Patty, and I stay away from the city as much as possible.” Now, anyways. It had taken Gunner a while to realize the streets he grew up on bred nothing but trouble and heartache. “Anyways, I never saw my birth certificate.”

“We were in Texas a few times back in the late 90s, early 2000s,” Hawk said to Dax. “Tank, Toolie…those guys would remember. We were doing some business with a club that called themselves Mayan Maniacs or some shit—they broke up a few years back, but anyways, your dad had this…” Dax shook his head at Hawk, almost imperceptibly, but the old man stopped talking. The club president looked back at Gunner and said:

“Cody says you’ve been driving all night. He’s going to take you out to the kitchen, and the girls will get you something to eat and then show you where you can bed down for a few hours before he goes and gets some sleep himself. We’ll pick this up after lunch.”

Gunner looked at Cody. He didn’t look any too happy about being assigned as babysitter, but he didn’t argue with Dax. He pushed his chair back and stood up, so Gunner stood up too. He looked at Dax and then the rest of the guys who were all staring at him. “Thank you.” He wasn’t sure exactly what he was thanking them for. So far he’d been beaten up, taken from his home against his will, and not really told shit about what was going to happen to him, but respect seemed like the thing to hang onto at the moment, so that’s what he was going with. Dax just nodded at him and Cody jerked his head toward the door. He didn’t say a word to him as he led him through the now semi-busy great room and into the kitchen. There were four girls, all dressed in skin-tight jeans and some sort of t-shirt that showed off lots of cleavage, tending to whatever was cooking. It smelled great, and Gunner’s stomach started to rumble as soon as he got a whiff.

“Kay,” Cody said. A short, curvy brunette with a pixie cut and too much blue eye-shadow turned away from the counter and smiled at Cody.

“Hey there, Cody! How’s the little man?”

For the first time since Gunner met Cody the other man genuinely smiled. It reached his eyes and his whole face lit up. “He’s amazing. Three months old today and he’s already trying to sit up on his own.”

“Awesome, he’s strong like his daddy.”

“Nah, he got all that from Mama. She’s the kick-ass one.” He caught sight of Gunner and the smile fell from his face again. “Hey, Kay, this is Adam.” Gunner wondered if Cody refused to call him Gunner just because he thought it pissed him off. He didn’t give a shit. Billy called him Adam all the time. Gunner was a name he’d earned by making a fool out of himself and it had stuck as a fighting name, but he wasn’t going to go into any of that with Cody. “Dax wants you all to fix him up with some breakfast and then show him to one of the empty rooms upstairs.”

The girl looked at Gunner. She’d glanced at him when she first turned to look at Cody, but this time she let her eyes take him in. She had the strangest-colored eyes that Gunner had ever seen. They were blue, he supposed, but so dark blue that they looked purple. “Hey, Adam,” she said. Then before he had a chance to respond she told Cody, “I’ll take care of him. Let Harley know I’m available to watch the baby this week if she needs me.”

“Thanks, Kay, I will.” Cody turned to Gunner then and said, “Behave yourself. It’s two miles to the road in any direction and if you decide to bail, I’m not chasing your ass.” He patted his vest like maybe he was packing. Gunner rolled his eyes. Cody stepped up into his face and Gunner stood his ground. They stood eye to eye; Cody was just a hell of a lot bulkier. “For the record, I’m about sick of you. I don’t know why Dax is fucking with you, but that’s not my call. What is my call is not taking any unnecessary shit off you, so you better start showing some respect, little man, you got that?”

Gunner was hungry and he was tired, and as much as he knew he could probably take Cody one-on-one in a fair fight, he doubted the guys out in the great room would let that happen, so he choked on every sarcastic reply that tried to bubble its way to the surface and said, “Yes, sir.” Cody still gave him a suspicious look, but he stepped off and looked back at Kay.

“Let me know if he gives you any shit. I’m going home to sleep for a while and see my family.”

She watched him go and then turned a thousand-watt smile on Gunner. “He’s really a nice guy. He’s probably just tired. Go ahead and have a seat, hon, and we’ll get you something to eat. This is Callie.” A slim blonde gave him a wave as she pulled the milk out of the refrigerator. “Linda.” A middle-aged woman, with a Black Sabbath t-shirt and earrings that hung to her shoulders, smiled at him. “And that’s Mary.” Mary didn’t look more than sixteen or seventeen years old. She gave him a shy smile and went back to whatever she was stirring on the stove.

“Nice to meet you ladies. Whatever y’all are cooking sure does smell good.”

Kay brought over a bowl of oatmeal and sat it down in front of him. She leaned down close, and he wasn’t sure if the sweet cinnamon fragrance was coming from her or the oatmeal, but his dick twitched nonetheless. “To get you started,” she told him and winked. “We’ll fill your belly and then I’ll take you upstairs and we’ll make sure you’re nice and comfy.” Another twitch. This might just turn out to be a good day after all.