Chapter 4
Fox
“Any movement on the fuckers in the PD?” Rider asks, arms crossed over his chest as I belly up to the new bar in the clubhouse.
Renovations are coming along slowly, but that’s probably because every fucking brother here has decided to build cabins like the Tombs’ to live in and the labor is being done by the brothers.
Savage is handy on the tools, but I can’t say the others are much help, which is why it’s taken this long to finally get the old formal dining room closed in for Church.
That wasn’t originally the plan. We were going to keep having church in the dining room, nice and open so the women could join us.
They’re important members of our MC, so it seemed only right that they would join us for all the big decisions we make.
The only problem with that is sometimes the babies and kids would need their moms and you had them wandering in and out and accidentally hearing Chewy’s plans for world domination.
So we decided to put a stop to that and close in Church like the old days.
Along with finishing Church, the brothers have pretty much knocked through the rest of the first floor, now giving us a huge common room with a bar on one side and the kitchen with a new, much larger serving hatch which Mama Debs seems to be making the most of.
The main hall is now a part of the common room, meaning the wide staircase leading to the rooms upstairs is now a main feature of the room.
Looks fucking cool too. We still have a wall on one side of the staircase, and that’s covered in pictures, not just of the Tombs family, but a lot of DRMC pictures that were saved from the rubble of our old clubhouse.
It’s pretty cool, there’s history there and a new beginning, which a lot of us were looking for after doing our time overseas in various shitholes just trying to survive.
“Why do you want to know the PD gossip?” I ask, side eyeing him, “Aw, do you miss me at the garage?”
He rolls his eyes, “Nah, just hoping you don’t come back too soon.” He grins.
Niko rolls his eyes as if he knows Rider is bullshitting him before sliding a beer into my waiting hand.
“How you doing, Niko?”
“Fucking exhausted. When I’m not here I’m either working on the renovation, baby sitting Tess, or worse, keeping an eye on the Big Littles.” He shudders.
“Isn’t that Sage’s job?” Rider asks, brow furrowed.
Niko hits him with a look that would make a lesser man curl into himself.
Or a clever man. Rider is neither of those things.
“First off, just because she’s a woman doesn’t mean that she should be looking after the Big Littles.
Second, she’s working hard for her nursing degree.
Don’t give her shit, she may one day have to sew your other nipple back on.
” He moves to the other end of the bar and starts furiously wiping down the bar top.
“He’s a touchy little thing, ain’t he?” Rider says, a glint in his eye.
“Brother, you know who his mother is. And his siblings. If I were you I’d quit while I was ahead. Elio hears you talking like that he’d probably pull some shit on you.”
“One of them put Nair in my bodywash. I feel smooth as a fucking dolphin now,” Savage grumbles.
Rider turns wide eyes on him. “What the hell did you do to them?”
Savage accepted the beer Niko slides toward him, “ I can’t actually be too sure if I offended them, or my Ol Lady paid them to do it,” he takes a long pull of his beer, his eyes moving around the room until they land on his wife, sitting with the rest of the girl gang.
“I wouldn’t put it past them,” Nitro says, averting his gaze when the girl gang notices our attention on them and gives us finger waves.
“Is it me, or do the brothers in this MC have dubious taste?” Savage asks, turning to us.
“What do you mean?” Tank asks, as he and Judge join us at the bar, the Tombs brothers following close behind.
“All the Ol Ladies are a little, how do I put this delicately, unhinged?”
“Speak for yourselves, my Ol Lady is a fucking angel,” Marx says, mooning at Lovely.
“She runs the new tattoo studio with Mad Dog. Skills we found out she had after tattooing a massive dick on a man.” Wire says drily.
“He deserved it,” Marx mumbles. “Fuck you anyway, it’s time for church.”
He leads the way into Church, the new heavy wooden door hung so as to give us privacy from the kids. Sometimes the women join, other times they like to sit out in the common room and dream up trouble. We take our seats and Marx bangs his fist on the wall, getting us started.
“What have we got going on at the PD?” He fixes his gaze on me and Nitro.
“Moss called us round to his last night after our shift. There’s been some whispers about us being at the PD. Hitchens and his crew are feeling pretty fucking nervous after their shipment was raided. They’re convinced we’re involved, just too dumb to figure out how,” I inform them.
“How big is this crew?”
Nitro clears his throat. “Three that we’re certain of. Hitchens, Norton and Ryan.” Nitro glances at me, “And I have my reservations about one of the receptionists.”
“Not Barb!” My head snaps in his direction. Not my lovely old Barb. For a few smiles and a wink here and there I get all the office gossip.
“Fuck no, it’s the young one. The blonde,” Nitro replies.
I roll my eyes, because of course he doesn’t know her fucking name. Why would he? She’s a thin blonde, the opposite of what he usually goes for. “Sammy,” I answer for him.
“Got a surname on this Sammy?” Wire asks, eyes on his laptop, fingers poised.
“Sammy Cosgrove,”
Wire grunts once, then I notice the smirk on Remy’s face, then Chewy’s. Looks like the race is on. We all watch as the glow of their laptops light up their faces from below.
“Found her!” Chewy yells out in triumph, then fist bumps Pops who is peering over her shoulder.
“Samantha “Sammy” Cosgrove is twenty-seven, is separated from a douche bag husband, and seems to like older men.” She frowns at the screen.
“How much older?” I ask, intrigued.
“Twenty years older. Seems she’s been sending and receiving texts from someone named… Matthew Thompson?” Wire says, Remy looking over his shoulder, brows pinched.
“Huh,” I tilt my head, catching Nitro’s eye, holding his gaze. That’s a name we both know, and up until now, weren’t worried about.
“What’s that ‘huh’ for? You know him?”
“Not sure if it’s the same one, but Matthew Thompson was a CO for one of the other fire teams when we were deployed. Ruthless bastard, and shady as fuck.”
“I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him,” Nitro growls.
“I’ll look into him,” Wire says, eyes not leaving his laptop screen.
“How deep do these messages go?” Judge asks, hands resting on Kaia’s waist as she leans against his chest.
Rider leans over to read Wire’s screen, eyes widening. “Well, about as deep as his average cock can go I’d say judging by the texts and the pictures of said cock posed next to a coke can,” he snorts, face lighting up with glee.
“Well, I guess that leaves you, Fox, to try and get on her good side. Find out what she knows.” Marx says, voice like gravel.
I stare at him in confusion. “Why me?”
“Because Nitro doesn’t have the same charm,” Mira answers, as if it’s obvious.
Catching the glances of the brothers she sighs, and gets comfortable on Tank’s lap.
“Nitro is the bad boy of the two of you. Dark, broody, growly. While sexy, it’s a threatening kind of sexy.
You, on the other hand, are the light, fun one.
You lure the ladies in with your charm. Then you both romance the ladies, Nitro all dirty and dangerous, you smoothing the way.
Then you all fall in love with some amazing woman who can handle the two of you and can soothe both of your personalities and bam!
We have another Ol Lady!” She claps her hands excitedly.
“Oh, but not this Sammy woman, she sounds like a baddy.”
I stare at her, before looking at my Pres. “See? Simple,” Marx says with a shit eating grin.
I swallow. “I’ll see what I can do.”
I look at Nitro who smirks back. “As long as you keep your dick in your pants and come home to me I aint got a problem on how you get info out of Sammy.”
I nod, ignoring the jeers of my brothers and the laughter of the Ol Ladies. Home. That is what Nitro is to me, and I will make sure that with all that I am I will be home to him too. Me and Jazz. Once I win them both over, of course.
Jasmine
“And then, those lovely DRMC boys, the ones that you work with, Moss? They helped me with all of my shopping. Such lovely boys! Without them we wouldn’t have this delicious meal, with all our family gathered.” Mom beams at us all around the table and I try to ignore my father’s eyeroll.
We’ve been having big family meals, every Sunday, just like this since I was born. I’m pretty certain Mom could have handled her shopping just fine without those two do- gooding hotties.
“AND, there are two of them. And I have two very beautiful, very single daughters right here at this table!” Mom claps and grins scarily wide at me and Lily.
Lil shakes her head so vigorously she has to be dizzy. “Oh no, don’t look at me. I have, um, study and, ah, other things to concentrate on.” I turn to stare at her and I’m sure I’m not the only person who can see the flush on her tan cheeks.
“One daughter Mom,” Violet interrupts, staring at her daughter as she feeds her a bite of Mom’s “mild” chilli. Truth be told, Juno is doing a fine job on it. She even looks less grumpy than usual.
“What do you mean, mija?” Mom tilts her head to the side.
“Fox and Nitro are together, together. But I know that they also like to, ah, spend time with women together.” Violet shifts in her seat and I catch Jules’ lips roll between his teeth, clearly amused by his fiance’s discomfort.
“Oh! They’re polyamorous! How wonderful!” Mom gushes while we turned shocked eyes on her. “Well then, I think they would be perfect for one of my daughters.” Mom’s large, dark eyes land on me.
“Why are you looking at me?” I scowl at them.
“Well, you’re the oldest, and probably closest in age,” Violet points out.
“And I feel like you had chemistry with the both of them on Saturday night.” I give Lily the angry eyes to keep her fat mouth shut, but the table has already gone quiet.
“Oh, and what were you doing on Saturday night, mija?” Mom asks, a twinkle in her eye.
My clothes feel too tight. Is it hot in here?
“Oh, I imagine Lily means when Fox and Nitro had to escort our little Jazz out of the club and take her statement about assaulting some guy,” Moss casually lets slip as he takes a huge bite of tamale, his cheeks puffing out as he smiles wide.
One of those filthy, rat bastards snitched!
“You what?!” my mother screeches.
“He called Lily fat!” A collective gasp goes around the table and nonexistent pearls are clutched as heads whip toward Lily.
“That scoundrel!” my dad growls at the same time my mother calls him a motherfucker under her breath.
Which sums up their relationship perfectly. My sweet, lovely dad and my fiery mother. Us kids all fall on a spectrum between the two. Lily is the most like our father, which means she is to be protected at all costs.
“Ok, let’s cool our jets,” Moss placates while Jules watches everything going on with a smirk on his face. “The guy was a dick and Jazz broke his nose.”
My mother nods and reaches out for my hand. “Good work, baby. But how’s your hand? Are your meds working?”
I knew we would circle back around to this at some stage. Sunday dinner is always a chaotic event where we eat Mom’s delicious food and catch up. And it’s also the once a week check in where I let everyone know that yes, I’m taking my meds, yes they are working, and yes, I’m feeling well.
10 years ago
Lupus. That’s why I’ve been feeling like shit for months now.
Going up and down stairs was getting harder and harder, my ankles and knees killing me by the end of the day.
My hands were so sore, swollen fingers, and that wasn’t even the worst of it.
I was exhausted. Fatigue nipping at my heels no matter how much sleep I got.
“So I take it you went to the Dr then? What is it?” Gavin asks, sounding slightly impatient.
“It’s um, Lupus. No cure, but with medication and lifestyle changes we can manage it.”
He scrubs his hands down his face, looking away for a moment.
“Look, it’s not that I don’t love you or anything, but there’s no ‘we’ in this.
We’re young and at college. You can’t go to parties anymore or do much of anything.
We can’t even bone like we used to because you’re tired or nauseous or something hurts.
I’m sorry, babe, but I’m out. I’ll grab my stuff later, yeah? ”
I’m snapped out of my thoughts by the sound of Heath and Reed yelling “Nads! Nads!” to get my attention.
“When do you think they’ll get over that? I really do not want to be known as Nads for the rest of my life.”
“Look, I don’t call the shots, they’ve dubbed you Nads, therefore, from now until death that’s how you should be known,” Moss says with a shit eating grin.
I stare him down, then return one of my own. “You still on for tomorrow with my kids?”
“Bring it on, little sister.”
I narrow my eyes at Moss, ignoring mom’s sniffles, “Aw, look at you all, my family gathered around the table, Violet with her little family, Moss, minus Whorecules, with his beautiful boys, and my girls. Beautiful Lily and Jazz. Hopefully next weekend you’ll have two new suitors to bring with you.
” Mom dabs at fake tears while dad presses a gentle kiss to her temple.
I ache for someone to love me like that, but that’s not in the cards for me.
No man wants to take on a sick woman and I’m not going to waste my time with men who think they do only to be dumped when they realize it’s not all roses.
No, my life is full enough with my family and the kids at school.
If I tell myself that enough times I’m sure I’ll believe it one of these days.