Chapter 2

When a woman starts laughing during an argument, you should probably shield yourself, because she’s just flipped her psycho switch.

-Words of wisdom

Jessie

“Kick some ass, boy,” I said to my son. “Call me with the score once you’re done.”

And he would. He never missed a chance to tell me since he started playing over ten years ago.

“Will do, Pop. Love you.”

It’d been two weeks since the night I’d read Linc’s paper, and today was the first game between his football team and their biggest rivals in the district.

“Love you too, kid,” I rumbled. “Watch the feet.”

Linc laughed as he hung up. I was grinning, too, at the inside joke.

When I started him in our city’s pee-wee league, I had to have a long discussion with a then six-year-old Linc about kicking people when they were down.

And it’d been something I’d said to him each and every time he started a game. A superstition of sorts. One that he thought was paramount to whether he threw a good game or not.

“Yo.” I looked over to the man that was leaning up against the railing beside me, and nodded.

“Yo,” I said right back. “Whatcha doin’ out here all by yourself?”

I knew why I was out here. It was too loud in there, and it literally took everything I had not to go into hyperventilation mode when it came to stuffed spaces.

“My head’s killing me.”

I eyed the cigar that Big Papa had lit before retuning my eyes to him.

“Maybe you should stop smoking,” I offered up my two cents.

Big Papa, the president of the Dixie Wardens MC, only grunted.

My eyes strayed to the door where a woman was laughing and cursing at the same time. A man had his hands on her hips, holding her up by the strength in his arms alone.

And I was lost.

I’d know that ass anywhere.

That long hair had a first-place spot in my thoughts, and I often wandered there when I least expected it, even fourteen years later.

That laugh, though. That laugh was the place of my dreams.

When I was feeling down or out of sorts, I’d close my eyes and let my mind drift to those long-ago days where it was only me and her.

And now, I was at a club party. A club that I wanted to be a member of about as bad as I wanted to draw my next breath.

I needed a place to heal. I needed the support. And this place was it.

It had to be it.

Because, if I didn’t have this place, if I didn’t gain their trust, when I was gone, my son would be left all alone.

I wasn't stupid. The job I did wasn’t a young man’s job. Soon—in a few years—I’d be too old to work. By that time I’d probably be dead from a heart attack as I tried to pay off all my bills.

I’d watched these men from afar. Noticed how they interacted with everyone and everything for six months before I’d decided that it was time to stop being a loner and find a home—a family—for my kid. I knew they were all a loyal bunch of bikers, though rough around the edges, who were family oriented and watched out for their own.

And now that I had a better paying job that allowed me the time and ability to actually put forth the effort to become one of them, I wouldn’t be fucking it up now.

Even if the woman that still held my heart had her arm around some other man.

A man who was a fully patched member of The Dixie Wardens MC—the very same MC I was trying to become a member of; that is, if I didn’t want to kill myself by the time the process was over.

“What are you looking at?”

That was Fender, another prospect.

When did he get here?

“Nothing,” I rumbled. “What’s that?”

The distraction worked, and a smile grew on Fender’s face as he got a load of what was coming at us.

“Hey, baby. You want to come for a ride on the Fender train?”

I rolled my eyes to the dark, night sky and wondered if that pick-up line actually worked. Surely not.

I was proved wrong moments later when Fender walked away, his hand on the small of the woman’s back. He didn’t bother flashing his smug grin in my direction before he took off. He didn’t have to. He knew I was watching with surprise in my eyes.

“Hey, baby.”

I looked up, grimaced, and then walked away without bothering to reply to the woman.

I didn’t have time for this shit.

My son was about thirty minutes from his first game, and I was stuck here, dealing with bullshit, while my son got ready for one of the biggest days of his short life.

“We don’t want to keep you from your family event, you know,” Big Papa said quietly. “If you had a prior engagement, you only needed to say something. This party was for y’all, anyway.”

I didn’t bother to reply.

“Who’s he playing?”

My shoulders loosened. “Wildcats.”

Big Papa grunted. “Kid of yours is pretty good, isn’t he?”

Best in the state, for sure. He was exactly like me in so many ways that it physically hurt sometimes.

“Yeah. Better than good,” I commented. “They really won’t mind if I leave?”

“No,” Big Papa confirmed. “We only needed an excuse to drink. It being six months since you arrived was the only thing we came up with to have a party.”

Something inside of my chest loosened.

The idea of getting out of here right now, going somewhere that would calm me down, was definitely on the highest position of my list of priorities.

Normally, this place made me feel comfortable, but when people I didn’t know, and couldn’t vouch for, started to enter, I started to lose my ability to think rationally.

But I couldn’t lie to myself completely. I likely would’ve been a lot more comfortable staying here had I not just had a blast from my past knock me upside my head with a goddamn two-by-four.

Though, the woman always did have the power to bring me to my knees.

“I’m going to head out, then,” I said to Big Papa. “What time is the ride out on Saturday?”

Big Papa pulled out his phone, checked something on the calendar, and then showed me. “Says eight o’clock in the morning. You should probably get there about eight thirty.”

I laughed, “That sounds about right.”

I’d be there at eight, though, if not before.

I hated being late. If you were late, then you were pretty much signing the death warrant on the rest of your day. You’d never be on time for anything else again, because lateness had a cumulative effect.

“Have a good night, JJ.”

The tension from my shoulders lessened the further away from the back deck I got, but I did stop right at the edge of the property line to take one more longing glance back and wished I hadn’t.

Because she was there, laughing, not realizing that she was ripping my heart out while she did it.

I should’ve known, really.

***

I was standing at the railing, the railing that had a sign on it that said ‘no standing’, and waited for the kick off to the third quarter.

The Wildcats were winning by three points, but the Wolves had the ball, and a damn fine quarterback who didn’t believe in losing.

I had no doubt in my mind that this was about to get very interesting.

And I was proved right five minutes later when something caught my eye.

Turning, I froze at the sight behind me.