Chapter 8
Rooster felt weird sitting in the clubhouse, pretending to read a book as he watched the door, but he was tired of Knuckles dodging him. They were going to have their conversation because he was really starting to get worried.
When he’d arrived an hour ago, he texted Viper—his barely willing spy—and she’d let him know that Knuckles was working on a piece for one of his regulars but shouldn’t be too much longer. He didn’t mind waiting.
Emmett had gone to get his hair cut after work, and then he and Ollie were going to meet up with CJ and Kenneth for dinner, so he had nothing better to do than sit and wait for his friend to return and then interrogate him. For his own good. Even if Knuckles didn’t see it that way.
He got a couple of strange looks from people as they passed by, but he mostly ignored them, waving a hello or upnodding anyone who acknowledged him, but keeping most of his focus above the pages of his book and on the main entrance to the clubhouse.
His patience won out in the end, Viper giving him a heads-up that Knuckles had just headed out of the shop. A few minutes later, his prey arrived. Knuckles was on his phone, a deep furrow between his dark brows, and he didn’t notice Rooster throwing aside his paperback and jumping to his feet.
In fact, he didn’t notice Rooster until he was about five feet away, his head jerking up and eyes widening before darting around the room like he could find an escape.
But Rooster was on him before he could make a decision on where to run. “Hey, man. Let’s chat.”
He didn’t slow his steps, clapping a hand on the back of Knuckles’s neck and forcefully steering him across the room toward the stairs in the back that led up to the second level.
There were bedrooms for people to crash in up there, but then there were also rooms for anyone who wanted to stay longer.
Six had been living at the clubhouse for years, and now Ollie had joined him, the two of them seeming perfectly content in their tiny one-room home.
Knuckles was a frequent flyer who’d been staying more frequently lately, instead of staying with whatever woman he was dating at the time. As far as Rooster knew, he’d been sleeping full-time on the second floor for months. That alone was unusual and potentially troubling behavior.
“What’s happening right now?” Knuckles asked.
He tried giving Rooster a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Rooster couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen him smile for real. Knuckles had always been the kind of guy with a quick smile or an easy joke, someone who didn’t mind being the center of attention, who thrived on it, in fact.
But for the last year, he’d gotten… quiet.
Rooster had almost cornered him last spring. He’d noticed Knuckles losing weight with bags under his eyes and no real interest in club activities. The medic in him had gotten damn worried. But before he’d had a chance to confront him about it, he’d seemed to start getting better.
But then he stalled out. Things hadn’t gone back to as bad as they had been, but he also was still nowhere near his normal self. Something was bothering him, eating away at their happy-go-lucky friend, and Rooster was going to find out what it was before the man pierced anything else on his body.
“We’re going to have a conversation,” Rooster said, his voice gruff. He kept his eyes forward, even when Knuckles jerked his head around to stare at him, stumbling a little on a step.
“About what? I don’t know what I could have done to piss you off,” Knuckles said, trying to grind to a halt.
Rooster kneed him in the back of one of his thighs, making him grunt as he stumbled up a few more steps.
“Dude, what the fuck?” Knuckles yelled, his agitation rising. He tried to twist out of Rooster’s hold, but he just tightened his grip.
“Stop fighting me, and this will be a lot easier.”
“I don’t know what you think I did, but it didn’t happen. I haven’t been mean to Emmett or anything, so what the hell, man?”
Rooster almost laughed. It was a good guess. If Rooster was actually mad at him, then it probably would have been because of something happening with his boy, but that wasn’t the case, and this was serious.
When they reached the bedroom Knuckles had been staying in, Rooster threw the door open and shoved him inside, finally releasing his hold.
“Jesus Christ.” Knuckles almost tripped over what looked like a small mountain of dirty clothes, catching himself with his hands on the end of his unmade bed.
Rooster closed the door and leaned back against it. Technically, Knuckles could make a run for it through the bathroom the room shared with another, but he was confident he could catch him if he tried.
Knuckles spun around, face red and blue eyes furious. “What the fuck is your problem?”
“I don’t have a problem,” Rooster said evenly. He took one step away from the door, pointing a finger at Knuckles. “Sit down.”
His friend sat practically before the words were out of his mouth.
“Now you’re going to tell me what’s bothering you so that we can figure out how to fix it together. And neither one of us are leaving until we do that.” He crossed his arms over his chest, raising an unimpressed brow when Knuckles rolled his eyes. “I’m 100 percent serious.”
Knuckles muttered something under his breath and scrubbed at his face, then said, “Are you gonna fuckin’ lay in bed with me too?”
That drew Rooster up short. “What?”
Knuckles waved a hand in the air. “Never mind. This conversation is just causing some major déjà vu.”
That had to mean that someone else had already talked to him. Rooster figured it had to have been earlier in the year. Someone else must have noticed what Rooster had, how gaunt Knuckles had started to get with dark smudges under his eyes.
“I’m worried about you,” Rooster said, trying a different tack. “A lot of us are. You haven’t been yourself for a while, and we just want to help.”
Shoulders sagging, most of the anger seemed to seep out of Knuckles. He rested his forearms on his thighs, staring down at his shoes. “It’s nothing anyone can help with. I just… I need to figure some stuff out. That’s all.”
“Talk to me, man,” Rooster said, grabbing a chair from across the room, dumping the dirty clothes on the seat onto the floor, and dragging it over.
He spun it so the back was facing Knuckles, only a couple of feet from where he was still staring at the ground, and straddled it, resting his arms on the tall back.
“Whatever you’re trying to work out, you don’t have to do it alone.
It’s kind of the whole point of being in a club. ”
Knuckles snorted, rubbed at his eyes again.
He didn’t say anything for a long moment, and Rooster decided to wait to see if he could pull the truth from him with patience and a little silence.
It used to be the best way to get information out of him.
Knuckles never could stand silence for long, eventually filling it with useless chatter.
This time, his jaw tightened, a stubbornness stealing over him that Rooster wasn’t used to.
“Hey, Knuckles, look at me,” Rooster said softly, waiting until those brilliant blue eyes were holding his own. “I love you, brother. Please let me in.”
All that foreign obstinance leaked out. Knuckles swallowed before glancing away and saying softly, “I chickened out.”
“About what?”
“A few months ago, I talked to Houston, and I thought maybe I might be, you know…” His eyes darted toward Rooster and then away again. “…a sub.”
Rooster was very careful not to react. Of all the things that he thought might be bothering his friend, this hadn’t even been on the list. “What exactly did you chicken out about?”
Knuckles shrugged. “I thought I would, you know, maybe try it out at one of our classes.”
“But?” Rooster prodded.
“I don’t know, man. It just didn’t feel right,” Knuckles muttered. “There weren’t that many Dommes who came to the classes. Most of the women were subs themselves and came with other club members.”
Rooster nodded, even though Knuckles wasn’t looking at him still.
That was true. The classes had been more about preparing those in the club who were interested in the lifestyle for parties Houston wanted to host. There hadn’t been a lot of community members at the classes, so he could see how that would be discouraging for someone just beginning to figure themselves out.
But he still could have learned about what it meant to be a sub, the different aspects of the lifestyle, types of play.
Instead, Rooster was pretty sure he’d stopped coming a few months ago.
He hadn’t exactly been keeping track of who was and wasn’t there, but he didn’t remember seeing him at the last few classes.
“Did you want to try something else?” he asked, keeping his tone neutral.
“Like what?” Knuckles asked, glancing at him again.
“I don’t know, like an app or maybe going to Zachary’s club.”
At the mention of Houston’s friend, a Dom he’d known for years who helped teach the classes, Knuckles flinched, his eyes widening just a little, and he shook his head quickly. “No. That guy creeps me out.”
Rooster frowned. “Has he been inappropriate with you?”
Knuckles ducked his face down again. “No, nothing like that. I just… I don’t know. He stares at me a lot.”
Rooster pressed his lips together to keep his smile from breaking free.
He was pretty sure, based on the things Zachary had shared when he’d led the classes or demonstrated equipment, the man was some flavor of queer.
And Knuckles… he was hot. Like, the kind of good-looking that people did double takes of on the street.
Even with all the holes he’d put in his face over the last year, Rooster could understand why the Dom had a problem keeping his eyes to himself.