“Seriously, how the fuck do these guys always go through so much mayonnaise? We’re going to have to get someone out here to do heart screenings for the lot of them. This jar was full two days ago when I checked, and now there isn’t enough for the potato salad.”
I walked into the big, commercial-looking kitchen at the Disciples’ clubhouse to hear Deni voicing that complaint. The room was probably better equipped than the diner—not that that was saying a whole lot. Though, apparently, they went through comparable amounts of mayonnaise.
“That would be Daz’s bad,” Avery piped in from across the room where she was doing something at a stand mixer. “There’s been two in there for a while because he opened a new one after a half-assed attempt to see if there was one in there. I moved the full one back on the second shelf, trying to get them to use that jar first.”
Deni ducked back into the refrigerator while Daz, who I noticed was not helping, replied, “How the fuck is you hiding the full jar my fault?”
I was going to wait for them to finish their conversation—or argument, whatever—but Cami noticed me coming in and called, “Hey, Evie!” which led to a chorus of the same from the women and men assembled.
I waved, feeling a little awkward. Stone had been called away by a man who introduced himself as Roadrunner. If I remembered correctly, that was Ember’s dad. He’d offered to escort me to the kitchen, but I told them to go discuss whatever needed discussing.
We were there because someone called Hook, who I hadn’t met yet, was going from being a “prospect” to a full member of the club. This, to the Disciples, meant it was time to party.
“Hi, guys,” I greeted. “What can I do to help?”
“First, come here and meet everyone,” Ember called from a table where she was cradling her baby.
Unable to resist the pull of that little bundle, I went right over. Ember was a little less dressed up, but the bright red t-shirt she had on fit like a glove and matched perfectly with the red bandana she had tied around her head a la Rosie the Riveter.
“Do you always look that good?” I blurted.
“Yes,” Max called in response. She was closing up a cooler that was filled with bottles and ice while Ham waited to carry it for her. “She even looked good right after giving birth. It was fucking crazy.”
Ember rolled her eyes before saying with a tilt of her head toward the men standing around right beside us, “That’s Slick, Gauge, and Jager.” I looked at the men who I knew to be Deni, Cami, and Ember’s men. Slick and Gauge both nodded with smiles at their names. Jager just gave a jerk of his chin. He was intimidating to say the least. Ember, seeming to not even notice the serious scary vibes he gave off just standing there, went on, “And this is Jamie.”
She lifted her arms away from her chest, an offer I took her up on right away. I carefully took the pink-clad bundle of cute from her. Even from the corner of my eye, I saw Jager take a step forward when his daughter was transferred into my arms.
“Back off, you brute,” Ember warned. “She’s a freaking nurse. She’s got it.” That wasn’t strictly true. At the moment, I was still a waitress. I wasn’t about to correct her right then, though.
Since the thought that unfriendly Jager was less than pleased that someone he didn’t really know was holding his baby terrified me, I decided to focus on the adorable pudgy face looking up at me with bright blue eyes.
“And another one bites the dust,” Daz sang.
There were chuckles all around, and they weren’t wrong. I loved babies. I’d always loved babies. It was why, when I’d spent all those nights imagining what it would be like to pursue nursing, it was never a question that the neonatal unit was where I wanted to be.
Ember, ignoring Daz beyond a grin, commented, “She likes you. She’s usually fussy when other people hold her. Even me sometimes,” she muttered the last, side-eyeing Jager. “If you can get her to sleep, I’m going to kidnap you when he’s not there to put her down.”
“I’m actually a cuddler when I have the spare time,” I told her.
“A what?” Gauge asked.
“A cuddler. In the neonatal intensive care unit, they have volunteers hold the babies that can be held, or just be close to and speak soothingly to the ones that can’t. Research shows the connection is beneficial, so they have volunteers to give that to babies whose parents need a break to get some sleep, or those poor little ones who have been abandoned or orphaned.”
Something tense filled the room, so I looked up from little Jamie’s drooping eyelids to see Ember’s attention on Gauge. I turned my head that way, too, and saw his expression was giving nothing away. He took a few steps toward me, putting a big, heavy hand on my shoulder before walking past. He paused briefly at Cami to kiss her, then left the room.
“What did I say?” I asked Ember quietly.
Cami, though I didn’t think she could have heard me, explained. “Levi, our son, he isn’t mine. Not by blood. He was an accident before Gauge and I got together. Levi’s birth mom took off before they even left the hospital. Gauge was there for the birth, but he wasn’t at the hospital when she ran off. Levi was never really alone, but it’s a sore spot for him.”
“I’m so sorry.”
She smiled. “Babe, he was overwhelmed because you’re the type of woman that would go comfort those babies that were alone. There’s not one thing for you to be sorry for.” As punctuation to her point, she got right back to work on whatever food she was prepping, not going after him.
Things settled again, pockets of conversation popping up as I stayed focused on rocking at the rhythm Jamie seemed to like. It was then Stone came in, strolling right to me even as people greeted him with his name and “Pres.”
He came to me, a smile in his eyes even if it was only a tip of his lips. Stepping up to my side and putting a hand around my waist, he kissed my temple and looked down at my adorable burden.
“You look good holding a baby,” he said. There was still light in his eyes, but no teasing. He meant that, and he meant it in all the ways I could take it.
My brain went into hyperdrive, imagining up a future where I held our little bundle while he held me. A future where our child had the unconditional love I knew both of us would give, and the love of a huge, supportive family in the form of the Disciples if everyone I knew thus far was any indication.
Just the thought of it all took my breath away.
Unfortunately, it also distracted me from my bouncing, and Jamie was not thrilled. The sweet baby that she was, she didn’t scream out and make a fuss. She just whimpered a bit. Of course, perhaps she had learned that more volume wasn’t necessary since her daddy was right there taking her in his prominently muscled arms the moment she did.
Ember gave me an apologetic look, but I just smiled. Jamie was a lucky girl to have that fierce love from a man that I guessed didn’t give that easily. And Ember had that, too, something I knew for a fact meant the world to her even if he exasperated her at times.
With my arms free, Stone grabbed my hand. “Come on,” he said, leading me out. “I want to introduce you to the rest of the club.”
“Oh, but I was going to help out,” I protested. Slick had gotten to work shaping burger patties next to his wife who was elbow deep in what looked to be a punch bowl sized vessel full of potato salad. Cami was chopping vegetables. Meanwhile, Avery was still more efficient than anyone prepping whatever she was making, while Daz tried to sneak around her and get his fingers in the mixer bowl. I heard her snap something low about him being a “fucking cretin” to which he responded by slapping her butt.
“You can meet the rest of the kids,” Stone pointed out, and the crinkles around his eyes told me he knew he had me with that.
“Okay, let’s go.” I tried to sound put out, but I knew I didn’t quite succeed.
I had Stone at my side, my chair angled into his so my legs were slung across his, and Ash’s one-year-old daughter, Evangeline, asleep in my lap. A few hours had passed since we’d arrived, and already I felt like I’d been a part of these people’s lives for years.
The brothers, whether out of respect to Stone or because most of them had women I’d spent the night with a few days ago who had good things to say, had welcomed me with open arms—at least, Jager and the honoree of the night, Hook, did so to the degree I thought they were capable of.
Over the last hour, a variety of other folks had started arriving. I’d been warned that it would get crazier as the evening went on and more of those “hang arounds” showed, but it was still a calm barbecue atmosphere at the moment.
At least, that was the vibe until a shaggy-looking blond man came around into the clubhouse yard. Almost as one, the brothers near me seemed to go on alert, and then the outright aggression was so startling I was shocked Evangeline didn’t wake.
Stone muttered to no one in particular, “Get that motherfucker off our property.”
Ham, Gauge, and Tank—Cami’s dad—took off without hesitation. I tracked them as they made it across the yard and circled the man. He didn’t look particularly keen to leave, which I thought—what with the way Ham stood there staring him down with arms crossed over his chest—was not a wise decision at all.
“Um…” I hesitated, not knowing if it was my business, but asked anyway, “what was that?”
There were a couple throats cleared before Stone answered me. “That guy, he was seeing one of the dancers at Candy Shop a while back when we first bought it.” He paused for a long moment while I just watched him staring across the yard where the guy had been muscled away. “She came in with a black eye one night. She tried to deny it but eventually told Daz the asshole hit her. We sent a couple brothers to show him how we felt about that. He knew he was not welcome anywhere near the club again. Not ever. No motherfucker that would take his hands to a woman is.”
Those words, the vehemence and underlying violence to them, shook me right to my core. Stone wasn’t looking my way, but I stared at his hard profile, feeling my chin start to tremble, my throat getting tight.
“Evie, you okay?” I think it might have been Ash that asked, but I wasn’t sure.
Her calling my name brought Stone’s attention to me. “Bunny?”
“That’s…it…it’s good you believed her,” I stuttered out.
“Of course we did. Would have even if she didn’t have a bruise,” he said, his face concerned.
“Not everyone would.”
I felt his eyes on me, but my focus was all on Stone. He shifted forward in his chair, leaning toward me. “Sweetheart?”
“I was engaged,” I blurted. Why? I didn’t know. Once I’d said that, though, I had to keep going. Stone’s face had shown a flash of surprise and then locked down. I didn’t know what that meant, but I couldn’t let him believe for a minute that there was someone else that meant what he did in my life because there hadn’t been. “Well, I don’t know. Maybe betrothed is a better word? He didn’t propose to me as much as shake hands with my father and agree to get me and my father’s job when he stepped down.” Stone was the only one who understood what that job was, but I also wasn’t telling anyone else this story. It was for him; I’d just put myself in the uncomfortable position of telling him when we had an audience. “I didn’t know him well, and I didn’t like him, but it was my place. So, we started dating, sort of. And he…he wanted…to take liberties.” I felt ridiculous saying it that way around a bunch of bikers, but I couldn’t quite break that ingrained mentality to not speak of such things. “When I refused, he backhanded me.”
If I thought the feel had been electric before, I was grossly mistaken. The pure lightning that came from Stone now was otherworldly. His face was tense to the point his jaw ticked, and his eyes were blazing.
“It was just the once. I barely knew him, and I didn’t like him. With that, I was done. I went to my parents to tell them I wouldn’t marry him. They didn’t agree.”
I heard a muttered, “What the fuck?”
Stone didn’t say a thing, but he looked ready to rip the world apart, such was his rage.
Then, there was a loud snap and my eyes flew to the shattered arm of the lawn chair that was held between his two hands.
“Honey,” I whispered in shock.
But before either of us could say anything else, we heard a roar from inside the clubhouse and a yelled, “Call a fucking ambulance!”