Chapter 5 #2
Emmett moved back to the other side of the table to see it better.
In big, bold black lettering, someone had painted the words Devil’s Hands’ Canned Food Drive with smaller words beneath stating Thank you for your donation!
There were a bunch of different kinds of canned foods around the words, creating a border.
They were so detailed, Emmett thought for a second someone had printed a bunch of pictures and glued them on.
“Wow. Who made this?”
“CJ,” Kenneth said, sounding proud. “Isn’t it great?”
“You’re so talented,” Emmett said, then felt dumb for stating the obvious. When he glanced at CJ though, he was blushing and smiling.
“Thanks, Emmett. I thought it turned out pretty well.” He cleared his throat and gestured at him and Kenneth. “You two haven’t actually met, right?”
“Oh, no.” Kenneth turned and held a hand out to him. “I’ve heard about the famous Emmett though. It’s so nice to officially meet you.”
He was shaking his hand before the words sank in. “Famous? I don’t know about that…”
CJ laughed. “Between Ollie, Viper, and now Rooster, I think everyone in the club has heard about how sweet and adorable you are.”
“Oh god.” He covered his face and groaned. “How embarrassing.”
“No, it’s cute!” Kenneth corrected him, giving his arm a squeeze. “Before I started dating Houston, all anyone knew about me was I was a terrible roommate.”
“What?” He dragged his hands down enough to peer at Kenneth. “I’m sure that’s not true.”
“No, it is,” CJ said, chuckling. “But it turned out that he’s actually awesome, so I forgave him.”
There was definitely more to that story, but before he could decide if he should press his luck and ask for more details, the bar door opened, and someone came in carrying a plastic bag with canned food.
He scurried behind the table, making room for her to come forward, and Kenneth hurried toward her, taking the bag from her and leading the way.
CJ handled chatting with her for a few minutes, answering her borderline-rude questions about why a motorcycle club was running a food drive and thanking her profusely for her donation. Once she was gone, he turned and huffed at him and Kenneth.
“Seriously, Ollie needs to get Six’s dick out of his ass and get out here to deal with people.”
Emmett choked on his spit.
“Shit, sorry,” CJ said, laughing and patting him on the back. “I just know basically everyone who brings something in is going to ask about the club or make snide comments, and I’m not equipped with the necessary customer service experience to deal.”
“You handled that perfectly,” Kenneth assured him, looking through the items in the bag. He made a disgruntled noise, pulling a can out. “This is expired. Shit. Hang on.”
Kenneth started pulling everything out of the bag and lining the cans up on the table, separating them into two groups. When he finished, they were about equal, the ten cans split in half.
“These—” He waved a hand over the pile on the right. “—are expired.”
“That sucks,” CJ said, turning and grabbing an empty box. “Put them in here, and let’s label this box so we don’t mix them up.”
Seeing Emmett’s confusion, Kenneth said, “The food pantry can’t give away anything expired. Even by a day. They can lose their funding.”
“Which we made very clear on the flyers around town.” CJ pulled a marker from out of his pocket and wrote EXPIRED across the front of the box as Kenneth loaded the cans inside. “Here, can you put this over on the bar? I don’t want to risk someone grabbing it by mistake at the end of the drive.”
Kenneth nodded and hefted the box across the room, explaining to Houston the problem when he set it on top of the bar. Houston shook his head, scowling. “Don’t worry,” he called over to him and CJ, “the club will replace any cans that can’t be donated.”
“Thanks, Houston,” CJ said, sighing when Kenneth slipped behind the bar instead of coming back over to them. “We may be down to just you and me for a while.”
Emmett couldn’t stop his giggle. “You might be right.”
CJ winked at him, and then they quickly put the cans that could be donated into another box, put a few more together, and then sat in the chairs behind the table.
“How did the club end up hosting a food drive?” Emmett asked, after a few other people had come in and left their donations.
One elderly couple had handed over a dozen cans of green beans and a check for a hundred dollars.
He thought he might cry when he’d accepted it, the woman explaining in a creaky voice how they’d struggled when their kids were young and were grateful they had the means to give back now.
“It was my idea, actually,” Ollie said, plopping down next to Emmett and scaring the crap out of him. “The club does other philanthropic work, but the food pantry reached out recently, asking for help.”
“Where did you—”
His green hair was disheveled, tight shirt mussed, and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead.
He grabbed Emmett’s glass of water Houston had sent over to them via Kenneth before the two had disappeared behind a door with the MC’s logo on it on the other end of the room.
After chugging half of it down, he sighed and set it back down in front of Emmett.
“Sorry, had to get the taste of come out of my mouth.”
“Gross.” Emmett pushed the glass back toward him, wrinkling his nose. “You can keep that.”
CJ snickered, hopping up and hurrying over to the bar. He returned a second later with a new glass for Emmett. “Here, babe.”
“Thank you.”
A shadow fell over their table, and Emmett looked up—and up—until he locked eyes with the club Enforcer. His mouth dried up at the way the man stared at him for a long second, then extended a hand. “Six.”
He just sat there for a moment, frozen, then scrambled up and took his hand. “Emmett.” He almost called him sir, just barely biting back the word. He was just so intense, it felt appropriate.
“I know. Rooster’s boy.” Six studied him for a few more seconds and then said, “You ever need anything and can’t reach him, you call me. Understood?”
“Um, yes?”
Six narrowed his mismatched eyes.
“I mean, yes, I understand. Thank you.”
Nodding once, he turned to Ollie, and his face softened, not a lot, and Emmett would have missed it if he hadn’t been looking right at him. “Behave yourself. I’ll be back later.”
“Yes, Daddy. Love you.”
“Love you more.” Six said it so easily, no hesitation. He obviously didn’t give a rat’s behind who heard him say it or if it ruined his “tough guy” image.
The tiny bit of unease left inside Emmett dissolved, and he grinned, sharing a glance with CJ as he sat back down. He had no doubt Six could be scary as heck when need be, but there was obviously a gentle side to him too, one he didn’t show many people.
As soon as Six disappeared, Ollie turned to him and CJ. “So? How are we doing?”
CJ explained about the expired cans, pointing at the box on the bar. Luckily, they’d only received two more that they’d been forced to separate from the donations. He also pulled out the small cash box and showed the money and checks they’d been given as well.
“Not bad for our first time,” Ollie said, rubbing his hands together. “And we’ve still got another hour.”
Not long after Ollie returned, Kenneth slunk back into the main bar area, looking just as ruffled.
CJ and Ollie teased him for a minute but then let it go, none of them caring any longer.
Emmett chatted with them but mostly let them carry the conversation as he contemplated what CJ had said after Ollie had first disappeared.
You can ask about us, you know.
Could he really? He’d never had anyone to talk to about being a sub. Sure, Roni knew, and he’d told her about being a little, but they didn’t really talk about it. And he’d told Rooster about what he was interested in, and they’d discussed all kinds of kink-related things, but he was a daddy.
Ollie and the others were subs—or at least close enough that they’d probably understand in a way Roni and Rooster couldn’t.
He didn’t get a little vibe from Ollie, but he and Six still had some sort of daddy/boy relationship.
And the way Houston watched Kenneth, touching him whenever he got near…
he wouldn’t be surprised if there was something there too.
As for CJ, he wasn’t sure, but he had been the one to say he could ask them about their relationships.
After a harried-looking mom and her two kids, who both appeared to be under the age of three, left, Emmett cleared his throat lightly and stared at his hands under the table. The other three fell silent, and he could feel them looking at him.
“So, um… CJ mentioned I could maybe, uh, ask you guys some questions?”
A light tan hand snuck under the table and gripped his twisting ones. “Of course you can,” Kenneth said softly.
Emmett had learned he was the oldest of four siblings, his brother staying with him and Houston when he was on breaks from the university.
From what little he’d said about it, Emmett had still gotten the impression Kenneth had done a lot of the raising of his siblings and cared about them deeply.
His heart hurt, wondering what that would have felt like, growing up with an older sibling who loved and cared for him when his parents ignored him.
“I’m a literal open book,” Ollie piped up, leaning against Emmett’s shoulder. “These two know everything about me. From my favorite color to the size and shape of my balls.”
“Jesus,” CJ muttered, rubbing his face.
“Am I wrong?” Ollie challenged, sticking his tongue out and catching the tip of Emmett’s chin. “Whoops, sorry. Nonconsensual licking isn’t cool.”
“I swear to god, Ollie,” Kenneth groaned.
“What? Why are you guys always so uptight? Emmett is cool, remember?”
“That doesn’t mean he wants to hear about your balls,” CJ hissed, leaning around Kenneth and Emmett to frown at Ollie.
“He needs to get used to them if he’s going to join us on waxing nights.”