CHAPTER FIVE
Blaze
Matteo cornered me in the kitchen two mornings after the night at the club.
“Pinning you down for a conversation is like wrestling an oiled pig.” He plopped onto the chair across from me and peeled a banana.
“Do you know that from experience?” I asked.
Matteo grinned. ”Maybe. Now, spill it, Boss.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“You and that blond. Why aren’t you going to make a move on him?”
“I told you: he’s a brat. You should have seen the way he pretended he’d never met me before that day at lunch with Julianne. He totally remembered.”
“And I told you those are the best kind. They get your blood boiling, and before you know it, you’re fucking them into the floor.”
My face heated. The image didn’t turn me off—far from it.
As though he’d read my mind, Matteo said, “It’s not much different than knocking at a woman’s back door, Boss.”
I held up my hand to stop him from saying anything else. “What do you say we shelve this conversation?”
“Not till you tell me what you’re gonna do about the boner you have for your little blond boy.”
“Ew, don’t call him that! He’s far from underage. And he’s not my anything. I barely know him.”
Matteo remained silent, waiting. My aunt Shirley always said he could be ruthless when he “got a bee in his bonnet.” Thankfully, Skitz walked in.
“I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night,” he moaned, scratching at the dark hair on his bare chest. “Fucking Hung and his over-the-top alpha crap. Knocked the picture over the couch off the wall and onto my head twice before I gave up trying to put it back. Every time I thought he was finished, he’d start up again.”
“Man or woman?” Matteo asked.
“A dude. Guy squealed like a damn pig. I swear, Hung has the stamina of an eighteen-year-old. You’d think he’d get enough sex at work, but noooo.”
I shook my head as I got up and threw Matteo’s banana peel in the garbage. “Not the kind he likes best.”
“You could add some restraints and kinkier stuff to the scenes,” Matteo suggested.
“Don’t think Hung hasn’t mentioned that,” I said. “I’m thinking about it. Fuck, the trash stinks. Whose turn is it to take it out?”
“Ax’s.” Skitz took the seat I’d vacated. “And where was he last night? Doubt he was in his bed with all that going on across the room.”
I sighed. “Sometimes I wish we had a bigger clubhouse. Or at least one with thicker walls.” As Skitz talked to Matteo, I slipped out of the kitchen and walked across the backyard to the warehouse. It was spitting snow, the dead grass rapidly disappearing beneath a thin layer of white. The warmth of the inside of the warehouse was a welcome relief.
The scene scheduled to film that day seemed destined to go wrong. The microphones malfunctioned before the clothes even came off, and it took an hour to get them straightened out. Then Misty became sick to her stomach, and I had to find a replacement for her. Angel agreed to do the scene, but then she got the hiccups midway through, and we had to break while everyone gave their advice on how to get rid of them.
By lunch, I was irritated and starving because I hadn’t had anything except coffee for breakfast. Wanting some fresh air, I volunteered to walk to Gio’s deli and pick up sandwiches for everyone. I called in the order and headed outside.
The snow had let up and the sun had broken through the gray clouds, the expanse of whiteness casting a blinding glare everywhere you looked. As I walked, I contemplated the upcoming meeting on Wednesday with Julianne Carpenter. The more I thought about it, the more merging with Steel and Velvet sounded like a good idea. I had a lot of things to talk over with Julianne before I came to a final decision, but I did know I wanted my business to grow and refusing to take chances wasn’t going to make that happen. For some reason, that train of thought sent my mind straight to Lake’s wavy blond hair and guarded green eyes—and I wondered if he’d be at the meeting. Remembering how he’d looked dancing on that pole had my cock twitching in my pants.
Hell, I really was attracted to him, wasn’t I? J hadn’t been my one and only man-crush. What the fuck was I supposed to do with that? I’d been known as a ladies man all my life. I had no idea how to deal with dating another guy.
When I walked into the sub shop, warm air and the delicious aroma of baking bread enveloped me. My stomach immediately rumbled its discontent. I got behind the three people in line to pick up food. Gio, the owner of the deli, waved to me from the back, and I smiled and returned the wave.
“Blaze.” I jolted when I felt hot breath near my ear. I recognized the voice crawling down my spine before I turned to look into copper-colored eyes with dilated pupils that constantly shifted in their sockets like they couldn’t keep still.
“Spoons,” I said, willing myself not to take a step back. The man disgusted me, but I wouldn’t let him make me look weak. I looked around. Four of the Pistons stood off to the side, waiting for their leader. “This isn’t your territory.”
“Hey, man, you wouldn’t deny us Gio’s awesome subs,” Spoons said in a fake conciliatory tone. Under his worn leather jacket, the leader of the Pistons wore a tight, white wife-beater that accentuated the muscles in his arms and his lean, sculpted chest. I had no doubt there was a gun hidden somewhere on the guy, but it was the cocky expression on Spoons’s face that had unease unfurling in my chest.
“Can’t get ‘em on the south side, you know,” Spoons said, still talking about Gio’s subs. “Besides, you guys are guilty of stepping over to our stomping ground now and then. I’ve seen Foghorn over on 6th street plenty.”
We’d all hoped none of the Pistons had noticed Foghorn picking up his uncle after work the couple of weeks the man had been without a car. Obviously, they had.
“His uncle owns the dry cleaners there,” I said.
“Tit for tat. Speaking of which…” Spoons’s eyeballs moved faster in his head, which was freaky as hell and seemed to grow more intense as the man got worked up. “You may have managed it so the dancer’s safe from retribution for now, but you owe us. A life for a life, Harrington. You know that.” The last three words were delivered almost gently, but the threat was clear.
I hadn’t been foolish enough to imagine Spoons would forget about his girlfriend dying on the back of J’s bike, but I had hoped the steps we’d taken to keep him at bay would hold up. So far they had, but maybe something had changed I didn’t know about. I’d have to get Tony on it.
“We lost J,” I said.
Spoons’ thin nostrils flared, the only outward sign I was making him angry. That and his eyeballs dancing a jig in their sockets.
“Wentworth convinced Van to get on his bike. He killed her.”
I fought to turn down the heat under the anger boiling inside me. Spoons was known to be volatile, and I didn’t want to stir up trouble we didn’t need. As a rule, the Hedonists avoided the Pistons, but J’s affair with Spoons’ old lady had made that impossible. I realized with a touch of surprise I was still angry about that. My resolve to keep my club the way my brother had wanted it was bowing under the weight of the ramifications of J’s lapse of judgment. Or was it a disregard for how it would affect his MC? I should have put my foot down. If I had, J would still be here.
“Come on, man,” I said, softening my tone with difficulty. “You know nobody could make Vanessa do anything she didn’t want to do.”
Now that Spoons was noticeably agitated, his guys straightened their stance near the far wall, cracking their knuckles like a bad 50’s movie. I wished I had some backup of my own, but I’d hardly expected to need any at the local deli.
“Hey! I don’t want no trouble in my shop!” Gio hollered from behind the counter. The big Italian pointed his finger at Spoons. “If you can’t keep your dogs on leashes, don’t come in here.”
Spoons clenched his teeth but motioned for his guys to chill. They pulled out chairs at a table and sat like good little dumbasses.
Turning his attention back to me, Spoons said quietly, “Van was my girl. She loved me. I fucking told her not to work for you, but she insisted she wanted to be a star and needed the extra money for her mother. But Wentworth wouldn’t leave her alone. He fooled her into going somewhere with him and then crashed his bike into a fucking tree, killing the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Not for the first time, I wondered if J had been involved with Vanessa before she started working for Hard Time. I didn’t like to believe it, but it was certainly the way it looked in hindsight.
“Blaze, your food’s up,” Gio called to me. I glanced that way to find the Italian watching us, muscles in his biceps bulging as he leaned against the counter.
I stepped closer to Spoons, forcing him back against the wall behind him.
“Don’t mess with my club,” I said, threat evident in my voice. When Tim had been president of the Hedonists, he’d kept us all safe without resorting to the kind of bloodshed many other MCs participated in, and I’d be damned if this fucker and his gang of rats would lead us down the path my brother had managed to avoid. However, Tim had taught me that sometimes brute force was a necessary evil, and Spoons wasn’t going to hurt my family.
“You harm any of ours, and we go straight to the Hogs with what we know,” I said. “Being behind bars won’t keep Sniper from slicing your ears off, along with a few other body parts you’re probably pretty fond of.”
The slow smile that curved along Spoons’s face at the mention of the Hogs’ leader hadn’t been what I was going for. The information we were holding over the Pistons’ heads had been keeping J’s brother Morgan safe, and if it stopped working, we were all fucked.
I kept my gaze steady, though, as we stared each other down for a long, tense moment. The room had fallen quiet, and I was sure Gio was unhappy about the standoff in his deli, but hell if I’d be the one to look away first. Finally, Spoons turned his back on me, and only then did I move to pay for my order. I could feel Spoons’s eyes on me as I collected my change. When I passed him on the way to the door, the man’s crazy, bouncing eyes pierced me with a look of hate.
“Don’t come ‘round here again,” I said, putting all my quiet anger behind the words. “Next time, I won’t be so understanding.”
I left the shop, the bell above the door tinkling behind me. I kept my back stiff and head up as I walked the four blocks to the clubhouse, half expecting the group to follow me. The quiet made the hairs stand on the back of my neck.
I didn’t relax until I entered the clubhouse yard. In the warehouse, I passed the food out to the crew and actors before motioning for Tony and Cane to follow me. They’d been sitting at a table together but not speaking, Tony gazing into space and Cane scrolling through his phone with an almost visible wall of tension between them. Definitely something weird going on there, but any attempts I’d made to suss the situation out had been met with hostility from Cane and silence from Tony.
I felt their curiosity as they followed me across the backyard toward the clubhouse. Man, I wanted a cigarette. I fumbled in my pocket for a piece of gum before calling Matteo on my cell.
“Emergency meeting. Gather the troops.”
Once inside, I let out a long, shrill whistle.
The bathroom door opened, and Hung walked out dripping, a towel wrapped around his waist. “Something happen, Boss?”
“Put some pants on and join us in the dining room,” I said and began unloading sandwiches onto the table.
“What’s going on?” Matteo asked when he walked in from the garage a few moments later, Skitz and Ax at his heels.
“Wait until everyone’s here.” I glanced at Ax. “Where’ve you been?”
“Spent the night at Swish and Dante’s,” he said. I was aware the guys were all exchanging questioning looks, but I didn’t want to have to say it all twice so waited for the others to arrive and busied myself getting drinks.
I heard the back door open and close and turned to see Zeke. He took one of the six packs of cola from me and headed for the dining room just as Hung returned, dressed and with his wet hair combed off his face. They took seats at the table.
Matteo’s cell phone buzzed.
“Dante’s on his way, but he’s driving in from Henry. Foghorn’s out of town with the wife,” he reported after reading the text message.
Hung reached for a pastrami on rye. “Another comrade lost to domesticated bliss.”
I shed the wrapping on my sandwich and took a bite of fresh bread, salami, and peppers. Everyone else dug in, resigned to wait for Dante before they got anything out of me.
“Think your dick’s this big?” Matteo held up his foot-long sub in front of Hung.
Hung grinned around a mouthful of chips. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
Matteo rolled his eyes. “Not everyone wants your cock, Jeovanni.”
The guys all “Oohed” at that.
“You sayin’ you haven’t watched any of Hung’s stuff on the website?” Ax asked.
“Why would I?”
Hung pretended to pout. “That’s cold, man. I thought we were friends.”
By the time Dante arrived, I was finished with my food.
“Help yourself,” I said to Dante, gesturing to the three remaining sandwiches.
“No, thanks. I’ve eaten.” He swung a chair around and sat on it backward then cracked open a drink. “What’s going on?”
I looked around at my friends.
“Spoons was at Gio’s with a few of his members standing guard. He started up about J and Vanessa. I reminded him about what we know, but he seemed unfazed by the threat. That worries me.”
I looked at Tony who said, “I’ll see what I can find out.”
“He pissed me off, and I told him to stay out of our territory, or else. We’re gonna have to stand behind that threat.” I looked at each of my club brothers to make sure they understood before continuing. “They’d noticed Foghorn picking up his uncle, so we’d better warn him about that. You guys see any of the Pistons around, you tell me. We’ll have to act on it fast. I don’t want them thinking they’ve got the upper hand.”
Hung sucked mustard off his thumb. “Spoons is a crazy sonovabitch,” he muttered.
“Tell me about it. His eyes were bouncing around like flies in a jar. Creepy as fuck.” I shook my head.
“Shit.” Ax balled up his paper napkin and threw it on the table. “Why the hell would the thought of the Hogs hearing the Pistons squealed on ‘em suddenly not be enough to make them crap their pants?
“Guess it was too much to hope Spoons would just let it all go,” Skitz said.
“He’s not gonna want Sniper to know he’s the reason he’s doing time. That can’t have changed.” Zeke looked worried, and we all knew he was thinking of Morgan. Sniper was the president of the Hogs, even meaner than Spoons but minus the crazy, and currently doing time in state prison because of the Pistons.
“He’s probably just popping off,” I said with more conviction than I felt. I didn’t want my club brothers to panic. “Be vigilant; that’s all I’m saying.”
“Sure, Bossman,” voices echoed around the table.
I knocked the wood with my knuckles to signal we were done with club business and stood up.
“I’m gonna visit my Aunt Shirley. It’s been a while. See you guys later.”
Cane caught me at the door.
“I’ve got some…skills that might come in handy,” he said in a low voice. “If you need me, yell.”
I met the man’s dark eyes. I didn’t know a lot about him—nobody did—but he’d proved his fealty to me and to the club more than once, and I trusted him. I wasn’t sure what he meant by “skills,” but I filed away the information.
“Thanks, man.” I slapped his back and headed outside.
***
Aunt Shirley lived in a lower-class neighborhood north of Clinton Hills called Angel Heights. Her small, two-bedroom house always smelled like heaven from her marvelous cooking. Even better, she had the ability to calm me down, and right then I needed that. My mind was churning. Not only was I confused in my personal life, but I also had the added stress of my club possibly being in danger.
I’d never known my mother, who’d died when I was born. My dad had passed from a heart attack a few months before my brother Tim had been killed, leaving Aunt Shirley as my only blood relative other than her son, Elvin. As he was serving two life sentences without the possibility for parole for murdering two cops, Shirley and I only had each other. We were close, and I was ashamed at having let a couple months go by without visiting her.
“It’s good to see you,” Aunt Shirley said after she’d hugged me senseless. “You’re just in time to eat some of these sugar cookies hot from the oven. Have a seat, and I’ll bring them in.”
I wandered over to the bookcase and looked at the picture of my father, then the one of me and Tim standing out in the dirt field where we used to play baseball. Next to it was one of me, J, and Matteo at a family barbecue several years ago. We looked happy, and it occurred to me it’d been a long time since I’d felt as good as I had at that time in my life.
“I love that picture” Shirley said, returning with a plate full of cookies balanced on one of two tall glasses of milk.
“Seems like forever ago.” I took the plate from her and sat down on the couch. “These smell great.” I wasn’t hungry after the sub, but I couldn’t resist Aunt Shirley’s cookies, and I knew watching me enjoy them would please her.
“Mmm.” Just the right consistency, the bite melted in my mouth. I took a long drink of milk and set the glass down.
Shirley laughed. “You have a milk mustache.”
I wiped my mouth with a napkin and smiled. It felt good to be there with her.
“Still seeing Megan?” Shirley got right to the point about my love life.
“Madeline, and no. I’m not seeing anyone at the moment.”
“Oh, yeah, Maddy. She wasn’t the one you were dating the last time you were here, though. You sure there wasn’t a Megan?”
I was pretty sure, but hell, their names were fading fast. I didn’t want to talk about how I went through girlfriends like most people went through socks, but I knew Shirley wouldn’t let up on the subject until she was satisfied.
“I’m enjoying being single right now.”
Shirley’s hair was dark like mine, but her eyes were a silvery gray that had come from my grandmother. She looked at me like she could read my mind. “You date these girls for months and then break up with them. Something you want to talk about?”
“They always want a commitment, and I’m not ready for that.” I picked up another cookie and nibbled at the edge.
“You’re not in your twenties anymore, dear. You can’t hide out with your club buddies forever. Why don’t you want to settle down?”
I let out a breath. Why didn’t I?
When I didn’t answer right away, Shirley prompted. “You must be attracted to these women to date them, and you seem happy enough when you’re with them, though I’ve yet to meet one I thought you’d fallen for.”
“That’s because I haven’t.”
“Maybe you should take a break for a while.” She studied me a moment with those sharp eyes that missed nothing. “Or look for a different type of person. One with more…testosterone.”
I stopped chewing my cookie and stared.
My aunt laughed. “Don’t look so shocked. I know you, Blaze. You and Tim were always like sons to me, more than my own son was, if I’m honest. I’ve just always gotten the idea you might swing both ways. Do they still call it that?”
“I have no idea.” I could feel my cheeks heating, but I didn’t try to deny it. Not to Shirley. I shouldn’t have been surprised she’d figured me out before I had. “But, yeah. I think I do. I might, that is.” I shook my head. “I do.”
Shirley leaned forward for a cookie. “And?”
I cleared my throat, mind going to Lake. “I recently met someone.”
Shirley’s smile widened. “A guy?”
I nodded. “There’s something about him, but a part of me is afraid it would be a big mistake to try with him.”
I put the rest of my cookie on my napkin and leaned back into the plump cushions on the couch.
“Why is that?”
“Well, he kind of has an attitude. I’m not even sure he likes me, to be honest.”
“Sounds like he won’t be boring.”
I had to chuckle at that. “Matteo pretty much said the same thing. And I agree—I don’t think Lake could ever be boring.” I shook my head. “I don’t know. It’s different enough for me to start seeing guys. Do I really want to start something with someone who’s probably going to be a pain in the ass?”
My face heated even more when Shirley looked like she wanted to make an innuendo out of that statement, but thankfully she passed on it.
“If you’re attracted to him, you should go for it. What have you got to lose? A lot of the guys in your motorcycle club are either bi or gay, right? It’s not like they’re going to judge you.”
I nodded. “Matteo’s been riding me about it.”
Shirley smiled. “That boy. He’s single-minded.”
Our conversation turned to her cats, two of which sat on the top of the couch behind my head. They were fat Persians, one gray and one white. Her tabby cat, Juno, was curled up on the cushioned rocker in the corner. Shirley related her last phone call with Elvin who was incarcerated at New Netherlands Penitentiary. Shirley always got sad when she talked about her son who had turned to drugs at an early age before falling in with a gang. Hating to see her down, I stayed late and went home with several plastic containers full of food for the guys, promising to let her know when I got a date with Lake.
I felt better after having talked to her, but I wasn’t sure I was going to follow her advice.