Chapter 6 #2
Warren walked me out of the office and tried to get me to go back to my room, but I needed air, plus that room already held bad memories I didn’t have the mental capacity to deal with.
Warren said as long as I didn’t leave the compound it would be okay.
I wouldn’t get through the gates even if I wanted to.
King dismissed us after his last revelation, even though we still had no more solid information than when we first walked in. My brother would go back and get more with his VP hat on, but for now, I didn’t want to hear anything King had to say. There was enough to get my head around as it was.
I passed the garage that was busy with several bays full of motorcycles and a few cars.
One had been taken apart, and as I looked over, the man leaning in the hood straightened up and stretched.
He held up a hand in greeting. It was a guy I had a crush on when I was around fourteen, before my heart turned its attention to a boy closer to me.
Handlebar was one of the MC’s best mechanics, still a good-looking guy, in his thirties by now, with his overalls unzipped and hanging around his waist, he was wearing a white wife beater covered in grease, which seemed gross, but the overall effect was distracting, considering he had a body anyone would drool over.
I waved back, feeling my cheeks heat then hurried on.
Shit, I had to call Declan. He’d sent a couple of texts this morning to check in. I made a mental note to call as soon as I’d spoken with Rosa. As much as the guys around here kept club business to themselves, Rosa would have more information about my mom.
I needed to know if dad was right about her. Dad wasn’t forthcoming about his feelings, but he’d definitely shown a side of him today neither Warren nor I expected. At the moment, I didn’t know how to feel knowing she was dead.
I didn’t see Hudson anywhere and mentally slapped myself for even wondering. Probably consoling his little slut. Shaking that thought off, I climbed the steps to the veranda of the house.
The front door was unlocked, as usual, so I let myself in and called out for Rosa.
I doubted she could hear me over the sounds of a booming TV.
I passed a door to the left where it sounded like a raucous school had let out for recess, peering inside there was a group of kids, ranging from about nine to fifteen, playing video games on a huge flat screen TV.
Further along was a crafting table where younger kids were busy making art. A couple of older girls were watching them, and some others sat at desks with laptops or notebooks, it looked like they were doing homework. None of them noticed me so I headed further into the house.
The long hallway bypassed the stairs and led to the massive kitchen where two women sat at a large table, while another worked at the counter making what looked like an industrial sized vat of pasta sauce.
I could hear the sounds of kids playing through the open double doors and spotted a few running around with water pistols.
It made me think of when we were kids, playing around the compound, climbing trees, and chasing each other playing tag.
Despite everything that went on here, it had always been family orientated and everyone looked after the kids.
“Well, look who finally showed up.”
I turned to see Rosa coming out of the pantry. She had flour on her top and cheek.
“Just in time for cookies. You always had a nose for them. Come here you little runaway.”
I could have taken offence to the name, but not when it came from Rosa. I didn’t even mind she transferred flour to me when she grabbed me in a tight hug. She was a good few inches shorter than me, but it felt like a bear had me the way she hugged, I’d missed her.
“You remember the girls, right?” she nodded to the table behind me.
I got hellos from everyone. All the older women I remembered well.
The girl at the counter was new and Rosa introduced her as Lily.
She was younger than the others, with bright red hair and a sunny smile.
She looked nothing like a biker’s woman, in her pink summer dress with a tiny white cardigan that covered her arms but barely reached her waist.
“Lily just married one of the new guys, Omen.”
“Omen?” I arched a brow. The names these guys adopted once they joined up sometimes confounded me.
“His given name is Damien,” Lily explained, wiping her hands off on a dish towel. She came around and held out a hand to shake mine. “We met at a church function.”
“And she don’t mean our kind of church either,” Rosa cackled.
“You have a brother who goes to church, church?” I asked.
The irony of his road name and where they met was not lost on me. I snorted a laugh, but Lily didn’t seem to take offence.
“Oh no, he was at a function, his sister baked cakes for the sale, and he helped her bring them along, we got to talking,” Lily explained.
Then she laughed. “I can see this is freaking you out. I may be religious but I’m not from the dark ages.
My parents aren’t even that angry with me for marrying him. He’s a good son-in-law.”
“And why wouldn’t they like him?” Rosa asked, spotting her reflection in the oven door. She wiped at the flour with the back of her hand. “We’re upstanding people just like those God-fearing types,” she winked at me.
Lily patted Rosa’s arm. The other women at the table laughed. Isla, the club secretary’s wife, offered me a coffee which I readily agreed to. It was an entirely different vibe here to the clubhouse, and I had to admit, I welcomed it.
“Come, sit,” Naomi, the wife of dad’s Sergeant-at-Arms pointed to a chair at the table. “Tell us all about where you’ve been and what you’ve done and who you’ve done,” she winked as I joined her at the table.
Naomi gave me the low down on sex when I was nine. You grow up fast around an MC. I didn’t make a habit of hanging around inside the bar or common areas but that didn’t mean I didn’t see things back then.
Connor was a couple of years older than the rest of us, so he’d been eager to report back the things he saw and what they meant. The other boys had been intrigued, I just didn’t get it. Not even when Naomi told me about sex. It was gross, and I swore blind I would never, ever do it.
That sure as hell went out the window when puberty hit.
“Rosa told us about you a little, hope you don’t mind,” Lily said with another smile as she went back to her sauce.
“Depends on what she said,” I told her, thanking Isla when she brought me my coffee. True to her word, Rosa had cookies, and she placed a plate on the table.
“Nothing but the good shit, of course,” Rosa smiled as she took a huge bite out of a cookie.
“Like you stealing your cousins’ bike and joy riding around the compound, or when you and Warren drank a bottle of vodka between you and puked for a whole day, and your dad made you wash all the bikes as punishment. ”
“Oh god, I forgot that. I haven’t been able to smell vodka without feeling queasy since that day.”
Lily was laughing. “How old were you?”
I glanced at Rosa, “fourteen?”
She nodded. “You two were always getting into it. Throw in those two boys and you were complete hooligans. Never seen a group of kids as close.”
I took a sip of coffee and helped myself to a cookie having no response to that. Rosa patted my knee under the table. She’d got carried away reminiscing. I smiled to let her know it was fine.
I told them about college and the bar I managed, then after some serious prodding from Naomi, told them about Declan. She even got me to show her pictures, and they congratulated me on finding myself a hottie.
They filled me in on who had kids, who got married, who got divorced, even though divorces were rare as that was frowned upon, and stories about things that had gone on around the MC we shouldn’t know.
It was all tame stuff. Even if they knew more, they were sensible enough not to run their mouths where little ears were about.
“Well, let’s get the crotch goblins fed and then you and me can have a real catch up, okay?” Rosa eventually broke things up.
We spent the afternoon with the kids, there were way more of them than when I lived here, and the older teenagers were helping with little cajoling. It was nice seeing them all like this.
It wasn’t all sweetness and light, two young boys had to be separated for starting a fight and Rosa took away their video game privileges, not afraid to let them know who was boss, but otherwise, it was a nice couple of hours away from the other shit on my shoulders.
I offered to help clear up, but there was a chore rota for the kids, so it was supervising rather than doing anything, which suited me. Housework was not on my list of priorities right now.
“Come on,” Rosa linked her arm through mine. “We have a lot to catch up on.”