Chapter 15 The Turnaround
Nell
Since Crutch took his job to watch over me in the most literal sense, I ended up parked on a couch in the common area of the clubhouse for more than an hour before I declared that I would go out of my mind if I didn’t have anything to do.
Tilly disappeared for a few minutes and came back with a bunch of printer paper and pencils.
She waved me over to one of the tables in the common area.
It looked like something the men might use when playing poker or simply sitting around to shoot the shit.
I honestly had no clue since I hadn’t been around the club long enough to notice those things.
“What is this for?” I asked when she smiled at me as though she’d just done me the world’s biggest favor.
When I raised an eyebrow as if to emphasize the question I’d just asked, Tilly’s smile fell and her confident demeanor shifted enough that Crutch walked over to check in on us.
“It’s…” She paused a minute and hesitated as her eyes bounced between Crutch and me. “Well, you’re an artist. I thought you might like to draw something.” Her husband laughed and walked away again as I sighed.
“I work with metal,” I admitted at the same time Bigfoot’s son, Hawk, yelled, “Cool, can we draw, too?”
Tilly mouthed, “Sorry,” as Hawk and his friend, Ryan, took a seat on either side of me.
“What do you guys want to draw?” I asked as I doled out paper and pencils to everyone. Tilly took a seat across from us as the boys thought about what they wanted.
“A Harley, like my dad’s,” Hawk answered.
“A house on a lake,” was Ryan’s response.
“Tell you what,” I started to say as Crutch came over with a drink for his ol’ lady and took a seat beside her.
“Hawk can draw a motorcycle and Ryan can draw a house and we’ll go from there.
” It seemed like common sense, but kids sometimes needed to know that their idea was good enough before they started.
“What are you going to draw?” Hawk asked.
“I’m going to draw a motorcycle parked in front of a house by the lake and two really cool boys who I know.”
“She means us,” Hawk announced loudly with his little chest puffed up.
I giggled as my fingers flew across the paper.
My preferred medium was to work with metal and paint, but I drew all of my concepts first as a blueprint of sorts to keep me focused and help me figure out which materials I’d need for each project.
A few times, I had to stop what I was doing and help one of the boys when they weren’t sure how to make something.
After about an hour, they both declared they were done and wanted to do something else.
One of the prospects, Chuck, took the boys outside to run around and play at the playground the club had set up in their residential area.
I continued to work on my drawing and didn’t even realize that Tilly and Crutch had stuck around to watch.
Two hours later, the boys came back along with a woman I hadn’t met yet.
She was introduced as Melissa, Hawk’s mom.
She had come to pick the boys up, since Hawk was going home with her and she was dropping Ryan off with his uncles.
As Melissa made sure the boys had everything, Hawk turned back to say goodbye to his grandparents and noticed me.
“Wait! We never saw your picture.” Hawk ran back over to where I’d been working on my sketch and I grinned as I carefully lifted the paper up to show him.
It was a life-like drawing of the two boys standing in front of two motorcycles with a house to the right and a view of a lake and the mountains in the distance.
The boys were both wearing little cuts of their own in the image as if they were club brothers.
“Holy shit!” Hawk yelled to a round of laughter from everyone close enough to hear him.
“Hawk!” His mother admonished until she looked down and saw my drawing. “Wow!”
“Can I have it?” Hawk asked. I was about to hand it to him when Ryan’s little voice said, “I want it, too, so I can show it to my sister when she gets back.”
Thankfully, Tilly came to the rescue with a plan that would appease everyone. “How about I go make a few copies for you boys and I’ll get a frame so Bigfoot can hang the original somewhere in the clubhouse?”
“Yeah!” Ryan shouted as Hawk said, “Cool, thanks, Grams!”
I tried to hand the image to Tilly but she refused to take it at first. “The artist’s signature is required on this one.”
Once I signed it, she took off and I was shocked to see a few of the men staring at me in awe. “You put the boys in Kings cuts,” Crutch mentioned when he noticed my confused look.
“Was I not supposed to?”
He grinned, as if he was about to let me in on a well-kept secret.
“Nah, that was fine, darlin’. My son is going to cherish the fuck out of the image of his boy as a member.
” He knocked his knuckles on the table. “Pretty sure Sammy’s going to lose it when she sees you included her little brother, too.
Kid’s been through a lot lately.” He glanced over to where the boys had followed Tilly into an office.
“You made him look like family when he was having a hard time believing anyone loved him. Means a lot how you blended them all together. Even if you didn’t know how important it was when you did it. ”
I did know, though. I’d heard whispers about Ryan, and since then, Rick had explained a bit about what happened with Sammy’s family and why she wanted to keep her brother close.
The poor boy’s whole identity had been made up to scam Sammy’s dad, who ended up abandoning the boy once he found out Ryan wasn’t his son.
I still hadn’t been able to spend any time getting to know Bigfoot’s ol’ lady, since they were still off on their honeymoon.
Considering she was willing to take the boy and make sure he continued to live a good life with the only family he’d ever known, despite what those test results said, I couldn’t wait to get to know her.
I would have worried that Ryan’s uncles might be as crappy as Sammy’s dad was, but I’d already met Brady and he had stood up for me when I was still a stranger.
It made me feel better about the fact that the little boy was being dropped off at the Morton compound, as everyone kept calling it.
By the time Tilly showed up again, the boys had already left with their copies of my drawings waving proudly behind them.
My attention shifted back to the woman who had given me a hard time when I first arrived at the clubhouse with Baffle.
I knew she understood the dynamics after they’d been explained to her, and had done a good job of trying to be a better person to me, but I still felt a bit stiff and stilted around the woman.
She had judged and treated me accordingly without even asking for my name and that wasn’t something I could easily overlook.
I wanted to because she was like a second mom to my husband, but it was something that would have to be worked out over time.
As she walked toward our table, I noticed that she had something in her hands.
As soon as Tilly took the same seat she’d been in earlier, she finally looked up at me and swatted a tear away.
“Now that the boys are gone, I have a bone to pick with you,” she said.
Crutch tensed up and dropped one of his giant hands overtop of Tilly’s as if to warn her not to do whatever it was she had planned.
She pulled her hand free and swatted at him playfully before turning her focus back on me.
“When I got that paper out earlier, you said you worked with metal as an artist and I thought I messed up again.” She shook her head and grinned as her fingers tapped on the glass of the picture frame that she set on the table between us.
I laughed as realization hit. “I wasn’t lying.
While I can hold my own when sketching, I’m not the best artist on paper.
I can work miracles with my metal sculptures, though.
” There was no point in trying to be humble about it.
I loved the work I created even if there was always that niggling doubt in the back of my mind that the people closest to me wouldn’t agree.
My roommate had never wanted to see what I created because she, “didn’t want to be disappointed and have to fake it with me” as she told me when I asked once.
That should have been my clue to find a different roommate.
Tilly held up the framed sketch I created of the boys and said, “Are you kidding me?” She huffed out a somewhat frustrated sigh and looked toward her husband for help.
“This looks like someone snapped a photograph of Hawk and Ryan.” She pointed to their chests, where they wore those leather cuts.
“You even have Hawk and Ry written on name tape that look just like they were stitched on, just the same as the club members wear.”
My face heated and I was saved from forming a response as Baffle, Knuckles, Grunt, and Grease all came into the clubhouse and made their way over to us.
“Holy shit, Nelly-Girl, you fuckin’ knocked us on our asses with that project you’re working on,” Knuckles said as he swooped in and scooped me out of my chair. The man pulled me into his well-muscled frame and squeezed as he rocked us back and forth and then spun me around.
“Put my wife down, asshole!” Rick had a giant smile on his face even as he popped his fist into Knuckle’s shoulder.
“Baffle doesn’t want us bugging you, but fair warning, when you get time, we’re commissioning a Harley version of what you’re working on.” Knuckles sat me back down in my chair and backed up a step to level me with a meaningful stare. He was serious.
“Except you need to use our club code instead of the sins,” Grunt added to what Knuckles requested.
“Supply the parts, and when I’m done with Classic Sin, I’d be happy to work on something for the club.” I had no problem agreeing to take that on.
“No,” Baffle jumped in and shook his head adamantly. “The club will pay you for the time and artistry you put in.”
I rolled my eyes. “We’ll call it a wedding present then because those pieces are ridiculously expensive and I’m not going to take that kind of money from the club.”
“Just how expensive are we talking?” Knuckles asked.
I didn’t bother to hide how much I made on them because there were articles online that showcased my work and what it went for, if you knew the name I signed my pieces under.
They must have known that much since they had to pack up all my paperwork from my old studio, too.
“Just the twenty percent down payment was a hefty five figures.” I was being paid $360,000 for the piece, though I thought it was uncouth to throw that number out.
Plus, I didn’t want to discourage them from accepting the installation they requested from me for free.
Something the size of a Harley wouldn’t go for nearly as much as the Chevy since the latter was much larger, but I still didn’t want to send them into sticker shock.
“Fuck, lady!” Grunt grumbled and walked away to grab a drink at the bar.
“Worth it,” Knuckles said before he followed.
Baffle appeared speechless as he stood there staring like he couldn’t quite figure me out.
We hadn’t really discussed my art in depth or any financials at all.
Come to think of it, that was probably weird considering we were married.
Then again, I guess those are things that had to play catch up when you entered into a whirlwind Vegas marriage.
“After seeing what Nell drew today, I think I speak for everyone when I say that we really want to see what you guys are talking about,” Tilly mentioned.
“What did you draw, today, sweetheart?” Rick asked as he glanced between Tilly and myself. I know he saw the framed piece sketch on the table but he wanted me to give him permission to look.
“It wasn’t anything really,” I mumbled as my ears heated.
I don’t know why I felt the most self conscious when Baffle talked about my artwork.
It was almost like I was afraid of letting him down.
It made no sense because he’d never given any indication that he’d treat me like my roommate had, or my parents.
The latter of which had never encouraged my artistry.
Then again, they wanted to sell me off to be some middle-aged asshole’s teenage broodmare, so I guess they felt I didn’t need to exercise my talent.
Tilly handed over the framed sketch. “No denying that’s Hawk and Ryan,” my husband said as the other guys huddled in closer to get a look, too. “What made you draw this?”
“Hawk wanted to draw a motorcycle, Ryan wanted to do a house by a lake. I figured I’d blend their ideas with them in the picture to make it all stick together.” I shrugged my shoulders as if the concept was a given because to me it was.
“I made copies, so the boys could each take one home, but I just know Bigfoot will want this hung up in here somewhere,” Tilly gushed.
“Pick a spot, Mom,” Rick told her. “You’re right. He’ll want that displayed.”
My heart was ready to burst as my husband picked me up and then sat down in my seat and pulled me into his lap. “We got you a new studio to work out of. I’ll take you over to see it tomorrow.”
“Seriously?” I bounced on his lap excitedly as I clapped my hands.
“Yeah,” Rick chuckled. “Can’t be there without an escort for now, because it’s off club property, but it’s at the Morton compound, so it won’t be too far away.
I had no clue where the Morton compound was but I was ready to get there.
“I’ll take you tomorrow,” my husband offered again as he popped my thigh with his hand.
“Now, stop bouncing before I take you somewhere private and explain in detail exactly what you’re doing to me.
” He kissed my ear where he’d whispered the last bit so only I’d hear the threat I hoped he followed through with.
“Come on woman,” Crutch demanded as he stood and held a hand out to Tilly. “Let’s get Nell’s vision of the future hung so we can go home. I’ve been coming up with all kinds of ideas for the best way to get you out of those hot-as-fuck pants and it’s about damn time I get to test them out.”
Tilly glanced from me to her husband and back to Rick.
“Here, son. You pick a good spot to showcase your woman’s talent.
” She handed over the framed sketch and ran for the clubhouse’s front door.
Crutch took off after her. Rick shook his head and stood only to deposit my ass back into the chair all alone.
“After I get this hung, I have some ideas about your pants, too.”
It no longer mattered what happened when I first showed up at the clubhouse. This would be the day I remembered as my official welcome to the club and Rick’s family.