Chapter 7 #2
Because if anyone is making sure Lucy gets home, it ought to be me.
And because that thought alone is enough reason not to do it.
I don’t do entanglements. Finding her would mean connection.
That doesn’t work in my world. For some, they can have the old lady and family.
I’m not them. That shit is reserved for men like Chux and Riot.
Not me. Had a woman once, my lifestyle drove her crazy, literally.
I won’t put another person through that.
Looney studies me, but he lets it drop. “Suit yourself.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out and glance at the screen. Prez.
Of course. I answer. “Yeah.”
“You break Crystal’s table?” Straight to it.
I lean back on the stool and stare at the stained ceiling. “News travels fast.”
“You in a small town too close to home and wearin’ a patch. News travels before the dust settles.”
That earns another grin from Looney, who can somehow know both sides of a conversation without actually hearing a damn thing.
“There was a problem,” I state.
“There usually is when you’re involved.”
“A man got handsy.”
A beat of silence. Chux’s tone changes. Hardens. “Woman okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You?”
I huff a laugh. “I’m not the one that went through furniture.”
“Pity.” Another beat from Chux. “You coming back tonight?”
“Soon.”
“Try not to wreck any more property on the way.” He hangs up. I slide the phone back into my pocket.
Looney raises his brows. “Chux mad?”
“No.”
He studies me, “disappointed?”
“No.”
“Proud?”
I look at him. The kind of look that says my answer isn’t changing without me saying the words.
He shrugs. “Thought I’d keep guessing.”
I push off the stool. “I’m heading out.”
Grit snorts. “Quick change of your mind. To the clubhouse?”
I grab my cut at the edges pulling it close around me a reminder I never ride alone anymore. “Eventually.”
“Want company?” Grit asks and I shake my head. Grit tips his bottle toward me. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
That almost gets a smile out of me. “With what?”
“The woman.” Looney and Stunt answer in unison.
I bark a laugh and head for the door before anyone can say anything else.
Outside, the night air is heavy with Gulf moisture and the smell of gasoline. My bike sits under the lot light, black paint dull under a layer of road dust. She needs a wash. So do I. I swing a leg over the seat but don’t start the engine.
Instead, I sit here a moment with both hands on the bars, staring at the stretch of dark road leading out from the Black Rose Tavern.
Lucy.
The bartender said her name once, and somehow it stuck. I don’t do this. Don’t sit around wondering about women I meet in bars. Don’t replay the look on their face when I get close enough for them to smell danger on me. Don’t think about what they might be driving home to.
But she mentioned a daughter.
That hit harder than it should’ve. A kid changes things. Means responsibility. Means roots. Means some asshole ex doesn’t just get to fade off into history because he’s inconvenient. Means any trouble aimed at the mother splashes on the child too.
I don’t know why that sits so wrong in my chest, only that it does.
Maybe because kids deserve better than chaos at home.
Maybe because a woman shouldn’t have to face some drunken piece of shit alone while the rest of the room watches.
Maybe because a woman shouldn’t experience any fear at the hands of a man, but especially not at home or on a regular basis.
Maybe because she looked at me like I was both terrifying and safe, and I don’t know what the hell to do with that.
I start the bike. The engine rumbles to life under me, low and steady.
Normally the sound settles me. Tonight it just gives my thoughts a soundtrack.
I pull out of the lot and onto the highway, taking the long way back toward the clubhouse.
The road curves along the dark edge of marsh and pine, salt air mixing with the smell of hot engine.
Freedom Falls at night is all hush between bursts of life—porch lights on isolated houses, bait shops gone dark, neon beer signs glowing in windows of places like the Black Rose.
I know every inch of these roads now.
Didn’t always.
I left Alabama young and stayed gone longer than anyone expected.
Put miles between me and everybody who knew my name.
Rode through cities too loud to sleep in and deserts empty enough to hear yourself think.
Took jobs where I found them. Picked fights I should’ve walked away from.
Collected scars and stories and enough bad habits to build a personality out of. Still wound up back here.
Freedom Falls gets in your blood even when you think you’ve bled out enough of it to leave.
The Kings helped with that when I was out in California. When I made my way back here, met up with Chux, I missed club life. Together we built the Freedom Falls Kings of Anarchy MC and it’s settled me at a soul deep level.
I wasn’t the best at following rules before the Kings but meeting Big Daddy years ago gave me a moral compass to live by.
A code of my own. It made sense when laws didn’t.
It comes with judgement, living this one percenter life style.
Hell, in towns like this everybody does it, jumps to conclusions.
Some people call us criminals. Some call us guardians.
Truth of it lies somewhere in the middle.
We protect what’s ours. Sometimes the law lines up with that. Sometimes it doesn’t.
Either way, folks know there are rules. And if word gets out that some drunken asshole put hands on a woman in Crystal’s place and walked away without a scratch, it sends the wrong message.
Maybe that’s all tonight was. Maybe that’s the story I’ll stick with.
The clubhouse comes into view twenty minutes later, sitting back from the road on a spread of land edged by pines and bad decisions. Floodlights throw pale circles across the gravel lot. Bikes everywhere. Music drifting from inside. Laughter. The low thump of bass.
Home.
I kill the engine and head in.
The main room is alive the way it always is this time of night—brothers at the bar, a card game going in the corner, a couple club girls laughing too loudly near the jukebox. Smoke fogs up under the lights. Somebody’s grilling out back. The whole place smells like whiskey, leather, and trouble.
Chux is at the big table near the far wall with Riot and Shaft, going over paperwork that never seems to end running a port. He lifts his chin when he sees me.
“You done redecorating bars for the evening?” Chux asks with a cocky smirk.
I shrug my shoulders, “For now.”
Shaft, our sergeant-at-arms, grins without looking up from the ledger in front of him. “Heard it was a good hit.”
“Would’ve been better outside,” I share my real feelings.
Prez leans back in his chair. “Name?”
“Didn’t get it.”
“Local?”
“Didn’t ask.”
That gets all three of them looking at me now.
I know what they hear in that. The lack of clarity in the moment.
Usually I gather details without thinking.
Not because I’m sentimental. Because information matters.
Because if trouble’s in our town, I want to know where it came from and where it’s headed next.
It’s my instincts that override my brain.
Tonight, all I noticed was her. I don’t love that realization. In fact, it crawls under my skin.
Riot smirks. “Woman must’ve been pretty.”
I don’t answer.
His smirk widens. “Ah, so she was.”
“Drop it,” I state.
“Touchy.”
Chux studies me another second, then nods toward the kitchen. “Go eat something before you pick a fight with your own shadow.”
I almost tell him I’m not hungry. Then my stomach reminds me I skipped dinner. That is Chux and how he operates. The motherfucker can read any brother in the club with one gaze.
I head into the kitchen and find a tray of brisket, potato salad, and a stack of white bread. I make a plate and take it out to the back porch where it’s quieter. The night wraps around me, thick and humid, grasshoppers and frogs making their own music in the night.
I sit on the top step and eat in silence.
Halfway through, the screen door creaks and Chux steps out, a beer in hand. He doesn’t say anything at first. Just takes the post beside the stairs and leans his shoulder into it.
Finally, he speaks, “You all right?”
I snort. “Everybody keeps asking me that.”
“That usually means something’s off.”
I tear off a piece of bread. “Guy got what he had coming.”
“Didn’t ask about him.”
I look out over the dark yard. “He grabbed her wrist.”
Chux waits. I don’t know why I keep talking, but the words come anyway. “She froze.” My jaw flexes. “Didn’t yell. Didn’t fight. Just shut down for a second. Like she left her body.”
He nods once, slow. “That kind of fear ain’t new.”
“No.”
He nods understanding exactly why this eats at me. “Woman you know?”
“No.”
“But you want to.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “Everybody a damn mind reader tonight?”
“No. You’re just obvious when something matters.”
I hate that. Mostly because he’s right. I shove the empty plate aside and brace my forearms on my knees. “She’s got a kid.”
“A daughter?”
I glance at him. “How’d you know?”
“You got a different look when you said it.”
I drag a hand down my face feeling the stumble of my unshaved state thinking I will definitely clean up tomorrow morning.
He takes a pull from his beer. “Single mom?”
“Seems like it.”
“Then whatever’s got her on edge is probably bigger than one drunk in a bar.”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“And nothing.”
Chux says nothing for a while. Crickets fill the silence.
Then he shrugs. “You gonna leave it alone, leave it alone. You gonna check into it, do it smart. But don’t stalk the woman, Mellow. Women tend not to love that.”
That almost gets a real laugh out of me. “Wasn’t planning to.”
“Mm-hm.”
He pushes off the post. “You know where the line is.”
I do. Most days.
When he heads back inside, I stay where I am, staring into the dark. Thinking about a pale wrist with a red mark on it. Thinking about a small voice saying, I’m actually leaving. Thinking about the way she looked at me when I told the bastard to let go.
Like she wanted to believe somebody would save her.
I sit there until my food is gone and the night settles deeper.
Then I finally stand, toss the plate, and head for my room in the back hall.
The clubhouse has a handful of private rooms for patched members who stay over instead of riding home.
Mine’s simple—bed, dresser, chair, old lamp, one window looking out at the shipyard.
I peel off my cut and shirt, wash the blood from my knuckles in the small bathroom sink, and watch pink water swirl down the drain. His blood. Not mine. Should’ve hurt him more. I dry my hands and head back into the room, dropping onto the edge of the bed with my phone in hand.
Stupid. I know it before I do it.
But I open the browser anyway and pull up the Freedom Falls community page. There’s always somebody tagging the diner, the elementary school, the church bake sale, the softball games, every damn thing that happens in this town.
I type Lucy into the search bar. A couple seconds later, a profile pops up with a picture matching the woman from tonight. No privacy settings worth a damn.
Profile picture tells far too much, blonde woman with a little girl on her hip, both smiling into the sun. The kid can’t be more than five. Same eyes as her mama. Same light hair. The caption on one photo says Quinn’s first day of kindergarten.
I stare at it longer than I should.
Lucy’s smiling in the picture, but there’s that same guardedness around her eyes I noticed in person. Like happiness for her always comes with one shoulder braced for impact.
Something hot and ugly curls in my gut. I scroll enough to confirm what I already guessed. Works at the diner some mornings, picks up extra shifts at the party store during festival season, no husband in sight, no man in any photos.
Then I stop. Because this is the line Chux mentioned. And because I don’t need to know more tonight. I toss the phone onto the bed beside me and lie back, one forearm over my eyes.
Sleep should come easy. It usually does after a ride, a drink, and a fistfight. But every time I close my eyes, I see her turning toward me in that bar.
Scared. Then relieved. Then wary all over again.
I don’t know what the hell that means. Only that tomorrow, when morning hits Freedom Falls and folks start talking about the fool who got put through a table at the Black Rose, I’ll probably hear more about Lucy Coe whether I want to or not.
And the real problem? I want to.
More than I should.