Brooks (Henchmen MC: Next Generation #11)

Chapter One

Brooks

“Hey, Prez,” I called, waiting for Fallon to turn from where he was talking to Nave, one of the legacy kids, at the bar.

“What’s up?” Fallon asked, finishing his beer. It was almost eleven. I didn’t expect him to be around this late. Or for much longer for that matter.

“I need a couple of personal days off,” I said, gut twisting at having to make that request. I never took days off. Not in all the years I’d been a part of the club. Because, let’s face it, the prospects would go buck-fucking-wild without someone to keep an eye on them. Hell, they went buckwild even when I was around to try to rein them in.

“Personal days, ey?” Sully asked, glancing over at me from over his fanned hand of cards. A pile of chips sat in disarray in front of him, explaining the slumped shoulders of Callow and Dezi on the other sides of the table. “Didn’t know you had a personal life, man,” he teased. Lighthearted, easy-going.

Still, my gut twisted.

It wasn’t his fault.

He didn’t know.

None of them did.

I played my cards close to my vest.

And I didn’t plan on changing that anytime soon.

One, my past was no one’s business.

Two, it was easier to get respect out of the prospects when they didn’t know much about you.

Or, at least, that was what I told myself. Because it was easier than admitting that it was just too fucking hard to open up.

“Yeah, of course, man,” Fallon said, the line between his brows suggesting he was just as surprised as Sully was. “Everything okay?” he pressed.

Not remotely.

But that wasn’t his problem.

“It is what it is,” I said, shrugging.

“You got a set amount of time, or you just want to let me know when you’ll be back?” Fallon asked, picking up on something in my tone or posture.

No one in this club actually knew me.

But Fallon was as close as someone could get. As I would let anyone. Still, it wasn’t like we chatted about our hopes and dreams over cups of tea. I just spent more time talking to him than anyone else, so he knew when something was off about me where others might not pick up on anything.

“Definitely gonna need three days. Might need more than that.”

“Done,” Fallon said, nodding. “You need more, don’t sweat it. We have shit covered around here.”

“Thanks,” I said, nodding.

He nodded at Nave, then reached to put a hand on my shoulder as he led me out of the common room, leading us out into the balmy early summer night. “You need anything?” he asked.

“No, I’m fine,” I said.

“It’s an open-ended offer,” Fallon insisted. “Even if you just want someone to share a beer with.”

“Appreciate it,” I said, nodding.

“You heading out tonight?” he asked.

“First thing in the morning,” I said, not sure why I was pushing it off. It wasn’t like I was going to be able to sleep anyway.

Shit felt heavy enough.

Adding the weight of the night onto the situation just felt like it was going to make it worse.

“Okay. You got my number if you need anything. Don’t sweat shit around here.”

“Thanks,” I said, getting another nod from him before he moved off to his bike, still eager to get home to his woman and kids.

I watched him pull off, then stood there for a moment, staring off at the moonless sky for who knew how long. Until, suddenly, a car was pulling up to the curb out front, and a quartet of women spilled out. Short skirts, tight dresses, lots of pretty.

Club girls.

All smiles and giggles.

Eager to see what antics Sully was going to create.

All their happy contrasted with the hole that was punched in my chest, a vacuous thing, sucking in all the good, leaving nothing but the blackness and emptiness behind.

“Is this where you tell us to behave?” one of the girls, the strawberry blonde who had sparkly pink eye shadow, a skintight black dress, and a pair of busted-up sneakers, asked as she got closer.

“Know better than that,” I said, getting a big smile from her as she brushed past me in a haze of after-sun lotion and one too many spritzes of a fruity perfume.

“Never behaved a day in my life,” she agreed, walking backward, still shooting me that megawatt smile as her friends trailed behind her, all pretty in their own right, but unfortunately falling into the shadow of their sunshiny ringleader.

“Ladies!” Sully declared, whipping the door open, arms thrown wide, making his usual Hawaiian shirt—this one featuring an array of colorful parrots—pull open, revealing a sliver of skin down his center, something all the girls seemed to clock in unison. “Did we remember our swimsuits this time?” he asked. “Or are we skinny dipping?”

“You show me yours, I’ll show you mine,” the strawberry blonde said, reaching out to grab the sides of Sully’s shirt, then using it to pull him inside with her, leaving her friends to move in behind them.

I know the guys at the club, especially the extroverts like Sully, thought of me as a killjoy. And, yeah, I was usually the one putting an end to harebrained schemes. But it wasn’t that I begrudged them their good time. In truth, sometimes I was envious. I just… didn’t know how to loosen up. Easy and fun had never come naturally to me. So, at some point, I stopped trying.

Inside the clubhouse, the music changed from the chill shit that had been on while the guys played cards to something that the girls could dance around to.

By the time I walked around the side of the building, the skunky scent of weed was wafting out from the cracked window.

And for just a moment, I debated going in. Getting a drink. Taking a hit. If there was ever a night when I wanted to feel dull and detached, this was it.

The only thing that made me keep walking around the back of the building—past the pool Sully had championed so hard for, then beyond the field of mint plants one of the princesses had planted years ago that refused to die no matter how many times we dug it out, and toward the trees where I could disappear into the shadows, dropping down onto the rope hammock someone had put up at some point—was the fact that I needed to be sharp in the morning.

The problem with not indulging much, or at all, was that your tolerance was shit when you did smoke or drink.

So I sat on the hammock, letting it sway slightly, creating a breeze to cut the thickness in the air, listening to the distant sound of music, then the squeals, laughs, and splashes as the party moved outside into the pool.

And tried not to think.

Not to dwell on the phone call that had come in just an hour before.

Telling me that my name was found on some documents.

That I needed to come and clean out an apartment.

Belonging to my old best friend.

Who, apparently, had just died a few weeks before.

No one had even told me.

I didn’t even know how it happened.

When the service was.

Or why the hell my name was on important documents in his apartment when we hadn’t been in contact for years.

It wasn’t one of those situations where you had some major blow up that destroyed decades of closeness.

If anything, it was just… you know… life. How everyone bends and grows in different directions until, suddenly, they aren’t in the same place anymore. And sometimes it seemed like that distance was too insurmountable to make your way back. So you don’t even try.

That was what had happened with Clay and me.

We just… drifted apart after I joined the club.

And one day, we just… never saw each other again.

I guess I always figured we would find our way back.

That was how it worked a lot of the time with old friends. You went months or years without speaking. Then one random Tuesday, you both end up at the same grocery store or coffee shop, catch each other’s attention, walk over, say hi, catch up. And it was like no time at all had passed. Then you picked up exactly where you left off.

I always pictured a future with Clay. Sitting around, shooting the shit, sharing both an emotional depth and a surface lightheartedness.

Because he was the only person I had from my old life.

I couldn’t imagine a future that didn’t involve that bond.

But now?

Now the chance of that was ripped away from me.

And, yeah, I wasn’t coping as well with it as I was portraying to the club.

A voice cleared from behind me, making me jolt upright, my head whipping to the side as my hand slipped toward my waist. But I didn’t have my gun.

“Just me,” a voice said, calm, casual.

Squinting into the dark, I could just barely make out the outline of someone sitting on top of one of the ancient cars that one of the OG members left in the back, a car I was pretty sure every member of the club had christened with a chick. Except for me.

My eyes adjusted to the dark, finding one of the newest legacy prospects sitting there, a beer bottle dangling from his fingers.

Croft.

One of the twins.

The younger one. By four minutes.

Both twins were tall and fit with golden skin, dark eyes, sharp jaws, and dimples. But where Rune had two, Croft only had one.

Not that he was smiling now.

He wasn’t.

If anything, his gaze was far away, detached.

“What are you doing back here?” I asked, hearing the sounds of the party getting louder.

“Same as you, I imagine,” Croft said, sucking in a deep breath. “Looking for a couple minutes of peace. Some space to think.”

“Don’t let me interrupt then,” I said.

“Want one?” Croft asked, reaching down to the roof to pull another bottle of beer, holding it out.

“Sure,” I said, watching as Croft jumped down to hand me one. “Thanks.”

To that, he nodded.

Then I watched as he sucked in a deep breath, rocking his head side-to-side, like he was working out a crick, then huffing out a breath, and plastering on a smile that no one would know wasn’t real. Except for me. Before making his way toward the party.

That was… interesting.

Everyone was having a hard time getting a read on the twins. They’d been out of the area for a long time. And it seemed like no one but their family had kept in contact with them as they lived and did fuck-knew what down in Puerto Rico.

They didn’t talk about their time there, but Fallon and I both surmised that the guys hadn’t exactly just been soaking up the sun and peeling off bikinis while they were there.

They both projected a pretty easy-going exterior most of the time.

But, clearly, still waters ran deep in this case.

Because that smile Croft so easily doled out to everyone was clearly a mask.

I made a mental note to try to pay more attention to the two of them moving forward.

After I was back from my leave.

After, I hoped, some time took the sharp edge off my grief.

“Gonna miss you, man,” I said, cracking open the beer as I looked up at the sky.

I didn’t know at the time, though, that Clay had left me something a lot fucking more valuable than his apartment and possessions…