Chapter Eight #2
I blinked at him and he grinned. “Motorcycle club. MC. I’m with Phoenix, here in town.
” I did know that, didn’t I? Lenore had mentioned it, and that guy who came here with Lissa wore a leather waistcoat with a large phoenix patch on it.
Nate’s was different. The patch was there, but the word ‘prospect’ showed beneath it.
He wasn’t wearing it right now, but I remembered wondering what the hell it meant. Why was he a prospect again?
“Uh yeah…”
“So with them, I don’t go by Nate. I have a different name. You’ll hear it from them almost exclusively, and I don’t answer to my real name much now, not even at work.”
Oh. Despite myself, I felt the urge to mess with him a little.
“Prospect? That’s what they call you now?”
He grimaced, his shoulders slumping a little. “I mean, no, but also kinda yeah, for now. I’m prospecting for three months. Well, two and a bit now. No. They call me Henley. That’s been my road name for years with other clubs.”
“Henley? Like the clothes?”
He stared down at his shirt and jeans and frowned back at me, clearly not on the same page as me. I was guessing that wasn’t the reason for the name then.
“I don’t get it.”
“Yeah, Henley is a clothing brand. If you read, well, I guess if you read romance, almost every book has the main character wearing a Henley. I had to look them up.”
Nate just stared back at me, utterly bemused, and I guess this was a pointless conversation really.
“Doesn’t matter. It was just a… why Henley, then? Do I have to call you that too?”
Nate, or Henley, I guess, just grinned.
“Sweetheart, I was born there, remember? Henley-On-Thames. I guess because they think I’m posh, it just kinda happened. I like it. I’ve never heard of clothes named that though. Can’t be very popular among real people. Maybe they made it up for the books.”
I shrugged. “Irrelevant. Anyway, do I have to call you that?”
“Around them you might, just because most of them don’t know my real name.” Huh. Awkward.
Later that evening, I had my first real opportunity to see that happen. Out of the blue, several of his biker brothers showed up with their wives. Apparently they call their wives old ladies. Kinda offensive if you’re young, but these ladies didn’t look like it bothered them.
“Glory, this is Has-Been, Ryder, Torch, and you’ve met Ice, right?
That’s Harley, and Rocket too. You might remember him from the other day, you know when he promised you puppy hugs and never delivered.
” The guy glared at him, then offered me an apologetic smile, but I suspected he’d changed his plans when we had to get help for me instead.
Weird ass names for sure. I’d forgotten them already, so I just shrugged, and offered them a little wave.
“Henley’s going to entertain them, while you show us his man cave!” One of the women said, holding up a couple of bottles of wine. Oh wait, no, a few of them were doing that. Oh hell. Girly night activated.
“It’s this way.” I led them to the room and opened the door, wondering if Nate minded all these people knowing about the room.
“It’s so fucking cool,” the guy called Ice was saying loudly, leading the men along behind us. Okay. Apparently we were all going down there.
We reached the bottom of the stairs, and the women, who’d already done the ‘oooh’ thing when the lights switched themselves on, were already wandering around the room, checking out the bar and the various forms of entertainment.
“You need to see what’s behind that door,” Ice was saying to the others, while Nate groaned and shook his head.
“Come on, man. We’re family,” one guy said, a creepy kind of guy with a shaved head and a tattoo of a skull on it. A back to front skull, so really unnerving. It was like having eyes in the back of his head, only eye sockets instead.
“Don’t worry about him, he’s mine and he’s a pussycat.”
“Who are you calling a pussy anything, baby?”
There were too many of them. None of these men were small or diminutive, and I was starting to feel a little penned in with so many people here, even though the downstairs was huge. It wasn’t quite the size of the full house, but that was because of that metal door Ice was tapping his fingers on.
“Can we not? It’s not exactly a fucking sideshow!”
“Come on, Henley. We’re brothers. I wanna see.”
“Wait until Grease knows about this. You’ll have to watch him, or he’ll be fondling them like extra dicks.”
Oh god.
A hand folded around my elbow and tugged me away from the men, and onto the sofa, beside a dark haired woman who had curled up in the corner and hugged a cushion.
“Sit with Caroline, you two can hide together.”
“Tori, that’s kinda rude.”
I tried tuning out the noise and all the people and that’s when I realised the girl beside me was trying to speak to me. And it wasn’t a cushion she held, but an adorable puppy. The little sweetheart squirmed in her arms, flicking her tongue at my fingers when I reached them toward her.
“Sorry. It’s so loud in here. This is Nixie, by the way.” I tickled the pup’s ear as she introduced her to me.
“SHUT IT, you lot!” The noise in the room lowered a little at the shout from the woman standing with the one called Tori.
“That’s my cousin, V. She’s so confident,” the girl beside me said, and from the low volume of her voice, I found myself settling with a kindred spirit. Once upon a time I’d have been the loud one shushing them like that, but now I was the one hiding from the noise.
“I’m Caroline,” she said next, and I forced myself to focus on her, and not the rumble of multiple voices arguing by the metal door, or the women popping open bottles of wine and laughing together.
“I’m Glor… Gloria.” I groaned. “No, fuck that. I’m Glory. I will… I will be.”
I must have sounded like a headcase, but she just smiled.
“You will be. You are. You’re Glory.”
“Ah, but is she also Ben?”
Another woman sat beside us, and at our blank looks, she groaned. “Not Buffy fans? Never mind.”
She rolled her eyes, and we both smiled. I actually was, but I’d been surprised by anyone making that reference.
“Is everyone here really stoned?” I replied, and the woman started giggling.
“I’m Elise, and thank god you got that reference. I figured I’d just made a real bellend of myself.”
The other women sat down with us, and wine was passed around, but once I had mine in my hand all eyes were on me, and I felt trapped and overwhelmed by the attention.
Caroline leaned forward, pointing to each woman in turn, while the pup tried to squirm out of her lap once more.
“So yeah, like I said, that’s V, my cousin, and she’s with Rocket. That’s Grace, she’s with Torch. Elise is with Has-Been. Tori is with Ryder. Oh, and I’m with Harley. I think you know Lissa already, and Ice.”
Oh god. They knew.
“Does… does everyone know I’m such a headcase I’m in therapy then?”
Stunned silence followed my words, and Lissa edged forward on her seat.
“Not at all. I just mentioned that we’d already met, that’s all.”
“So I just told everyone that. Great.”
Elise smiled at me. “If it helps, I have sessions with Lissa too.”
“Me too,” Caroline said, and Tori groaned, nodding at me.
“Yes, yes, I’m in therapy too. We should probably have fucking badges or something. Look at me, I’m in therapy. Oh god.” She facepalmed as a few of the women giggled.
“You rhymed, babe.”
She glared at the pretty dark haired woman called Grace.
“Bite me.”
I sipped the red wine, and mentally calculated the fact that I hadn’t had wine in almost five years. I wasn’t about to admit that, but it’d probably go to my head pretty quickly if I wasn’t careful.
“Girl, whatever you’re going through, don’t go dissing yourself for needing help with the aftermath. Some of my sisterwives have been through the worst hells, and they’re not ashamed to need help to cope with that.”
“Sisterwives?”
Tori groaned, shaking her head and jabbing a finger at Grace.
“You started this, dammit. I was okay with just being the old ladies, but noooo, you had to make it weird.”
I darted a quick look at Caroline, who was smiling, but still hugging that cute little pup for dear life.
“Are they always like this?”
She nodded vigorously. “It was intimidating at first, but I’m getting used to it.
The old ladies, sorry,” she held a hand up, “sisterwives, are amazing. It’s like a ready-made family, and they’re so supportive.
This is all you need right here, although…
” She glanced at the men who were gathered around the open doorway that Nate had been refusing to open for them. I guess he gave in.
“They help too,” she finished, smiling over at them, although their focus was entirely on what was in that room. Tori suddenly gasped and lunged up from the sofa.
“You’re kidding! I need to see this!” She was gone, over by the men, who parted to let her through like she was a queen.
“Wow… she really commands the space, huh?”
Caroline nodded. “She’s terrifying, but with who her dad is, I’m not surprised.”
“It’s not just that,” Elise added, leaning over the back of the sofa with us, all of us now kneeling and watching the group who were blocking our view of that room.
“It’s not?”
“No. Nobody touches Tori. It’s literally the law. Don’t touch her. Only Ryder touches her.”
Oh. The possessive man thing. I was starting to think that was universal across all beings with a damn penis.
“I get it. She’s his, so touch her and die.”
Lissa sighed, shaking her head as I leaned back to look at her.
“Trauma, babe. I can’t tell you her story, but there are bigger reasons for her being untouchable.”
“Mafia dad doesn’t hurt though,” Grace murmured. Mafia? My god. What the hell was Nate getting me into?
“M… mafia?”
They all shrugged. “Not as bad as they seem. Grease is great, and you’d never know now that he’s ex mafia.”
“Shhh! That’s not supposed to be common knowledge.”
I lost track of who was saying what, because my mind was whirling with so much information being dumped on me at once.
“I just figured it out!” Elise said triumphantly, shocking me out of my inner turmoil with a gasp.
“What?”
“Guns. He has guns!” She was up off the sofa next, heading for the gaggle of bikers, with their Phoenix patches all facing us right now.
“Guns?” Nate has a room full of guns? My god. I was starting to realise I didn’t know a damn thing about him anymore.
“Nate!!”