Chapter 16 #2
“Of course I did!” I laughed. “Kids are soul suckers, Jenna. If you let them, they’ll take all you’ve got.
And we’ll love them all the same, but will we still love ourselves?
We’re not just mums; we’re also human beings.
And we’re allowed to remain ourselves and be a mummy.
There’s no prize at the end for holding our babies more than other mums. It’s just pressure we put on ourselves for no reason.
You’re a damn good mother, don’t ever let self-doubt creep in and make you believe otherwise. Understood? You are the best mummy.”
“Mummy,” Axel repeated, coming over to pat my knees.
“Come here, you!” I grinned at him, picking him up so he was sitting on my knees. He grabbed hold of my T-shirt in his fist as his eyes started to grow heavy.
“There’s no way it’s as easy as that,” Jenna frowned, looking at Trex, then Axel, then back at her baby.
“It’s not always. Some days, there are tears and tantrums when he fights his naps.
Other times he refuses completely, and then sneaks a nap in an hour before bedtime.
Or, there are times like today when he’s happy to drift off in my arms,” I replied, smiling softly at my son, who now had his eyes fully closed, his fist clenching my T-shirt that little bit tighter.
Just like Bee used to do!
She had always wanted to be clinging to me.
It made my heart heavy when I thought back on those times.
But at least I would be able to see her soon.
I had to cling to that, rather than sneaking off to the bathroom and crying to myself when Axel was asleep, like I usually did, drowning in memories of all that I had once lost.
“Trex seems to spend forever being rocked to sleep.”
“Some kids do,” I shrugged. “And then Trex might be the first to crawl, or ahead of his age group with talking. There’s no job in this world turning down potential candidates because they walked at one or eighteen months.
There’s no university turning kids down because they needed rocking to sleep at five months.
These things seem so important at the time, but I promise you, they’re not.
It’s just an unfair way society makes us compare ourselves to others, and there’s no need for it.
So long as you are happy, and the baby is fed, content, and thriving, fuck anything else. ”
“You’re right,” she said softly.
“Say it again, but this time with a little bit more conviction.”
“You’re right,” she said louder, a smile creeping over her face.
“That’s more like it. So, tell me more about the club?” I asked, shuffling my body over so I could lay Axel to sleep on the sofa. “Who are these new members I’ve heard about?”
“No one interesting, trust me. There are the prospects, Bambi, Pivot, Darwin, Mike and Tyler. Then there’s Greg—although he graduated prospect status in the Manchester charter and transferred back here not long after you left.”
“Greg,” I muttered, rolling my eyes. “I can’t believe that little shit came back.
Is he a titled member here as well?” I asked, my stomach clenching at the thought of him being a valued member.
I tried to cast my mind back to who was who, and as far as I could remember, there wasn’t a free space, and the titled guys were long-time members who had more than earned their patches, but that didn’t mean things couldn’t change.
“Nah, just patched. Because of the history between him and Dante, the club took a vote and decided he should repeat his prospect year, just to see how the two can get along. Pivot is due to graduate soon. And then there’s four guys who are campaigning—hang arounds basically, but we’ve started calling them campaigners, because they have to prove themselves before the guys even bother giving out the prospect cuts to them. ”
“Who are they?”
“I’ve no idea,” she shrugged. “They started campaigning just after Trex was born, and I’ve not really taken an interest. There’s been a few campaigners, and none of them have made it. I stop paying attention unless they become prospects. It all gets too confusing otherwise.”
“Fair enough. I don’t think I could be bothered, either.”
“Oh, but you don’t get that luxury,” she grinned at me. “With Mama more or less out of commission, you’re the reigning supreme.”
“Give up,” I half scoffed, half laughed.
“Deny it all you want, but it's true. The guys will be looking to you to be the new mama. You do know that, don’t you?”
I stared at her blankly.
“Oh, come on!” she laughed with a small shake of her head.
“These guys might pretend they’re the big, the bad, and the ugly, but we know better.
That’s the whole reason we set up sin in the first place, remember?
It was to plot and scheme on how to keep the men in their place.
They always need the guiding hand of a woman, and there’s no woman higher up than the old lady of the president. ”
“Shit,” I breathed.
“Shit indeed. And as the old lady's best mate, I’m looking forward to you becoming… what was it you called Mama? The loudmouth whore behind the bar?”
“Who relies on the muscles of her sons… I remember,” I laughed back. “I think we’ve got a few years yet before I can rely on Axel for any of that.”
“Stick some steroids in his bottle. He’ll be the next Schwarzenegger in no time.”
I almost spat my brew out at her comment, but caught myself just in time. “Oh, God, Axel’s girlfriends are going to hate me as much as I hate Kitty, aren’t they?”
“Probably more so. You’re an acquired taste,” she smiled.
“Brilliant. Thanks for that.”
“Do you want me to start lying to you? I think you’re great but… you’re a bit… rough around the edges, shall we say?”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“Well then. Make your peace with it whilst you have time. Because before you know it, there will be some mouthy blonde calling you a whore and throwing things at you.”
“Hey,” I laughed. “I never threw anything at Kitty!”
“You killed her son, though.”
“Damn. We’re gonna need to hold more sin meetings if this happens. Speaking of which, now that the boring stuff is out of the way, let’s get down to what really matters. Old ladies. Who’s still here, who’s new, and who is sleeping with the milkman?”
Jenna caught me up on the latest. Gemma was still with Ant, Sasha was still with Sunshine, the birds with Chicken and Rooster, and Imogen with Trent.
Nothing new there. The birds were trying for children, which made Vienna build a huge nest in their back garden over the space of a month.
He filled it with boiled eggs, and when the birds got pissed off with him, he set it alight.
The entire compound stunk like eggs for weeks.
Dante made Vienna clean it up, but his version of cleaning it up was to fill the birds' cars up with the entire burnt mess. Dante had paid the bill to get them cleaned and docked Vienna’s club wages for a week.
Nothing ever changed with Vienna! I thought with a roll of my eyes.
Tools was in a relationship with a woman named Jade, although she was not an official old lady as of yet.
They were hoping for the official riding ceremony to take place in a month’s time.
I smiled to myself when I thought back to mine and Dante’s riding ceremony—something we had taken far too literally, and then caught myself, forcing a stern expression to my face.
What the fuck was I thinking, smiling like a love-struck teenager? Six months, and I’m out of here!
Chris and Hacksaw were a couple now, having revealed their secret around a year ago. No one was surprised.
“And then there’s a lass called Steph. She’s Monster’s old lady.”
“ Monster ? He finally managed to get a woman?”
“Looks like it. She’s lovely. She’s always got a smile on her face, or her head in a book. But, believe me, she knows how to push Dante’s buttons.”
“Oh?” I asked, liking her already.
“Yeah. She’s a vegetarian—absolutely adores animals. She helps Monster with the dogs a lot. You’ll probably see her soon, she stops by on her lunch break every day to walk them.”
“All of them?!”
“Yep,” Jenna said with a wide-eyed nod. “I don’t know how she does it, but they all behave for her.
Anyway, she keeps trying to bring in animals.
First of all, she wanted some rabbits. Monster bought her some rabbits.
Dante wasn’t happy about it, but they kept Bee entertained, and they’re in Monster’s garden, so there’s not really much he can do about it, you know?
Then she wanted some guinea pigs. But their garden wasn’t big enough, so she asked Dante if they could have them at one of the pubs.
She pestered him for weeks on end, until he finally agreed.
He avoids those pubs like the plague anyway.
He’d much rather be in the clubhouse. But then Steph pushed her luck and said she wanted some birds in the shops as well.
Dante said, and I quote, ‘this isn’t a fucking petting zoo, and you’re not fucking snow white.
Piss off before I cook up your rabbits, tie you to a chair and force you to eat the lot of them. ’”
“Well…” I muttered, not quite knowing what to say.
“Oh, wait, it gets better. So in retaliation for not letting her have her animals, she snuck in one day when he was out on club business.”
“Snuck in where? His house?”
“Yep,” she said, popping the P. “She had ordered thousands of these little plastic animals. And when I say thousands, I mean thousands. She planted them everywhere. Shark told me that Dante has been finding them in the strangest places. At first, it was obvious. On top of the coffee table, resting on the armchair, that sort of thing. But you quickly run out of space, and when you’ve got thousands, you need to be creative.
She’s made it a game. For every five he brings her, she’ll give him the location of one more.
By her count, there’s over nine hundred left to find.
And yes, she kept a written record of them all.
It was actually one of the agendas at a club meeting.
Dante ordered Monster to find the diary she has with all the locations in, but wherever she’s hidden it, it’s hidden as well as those plastic animals.
He tipped the house upside down and Steph didn’t even utter a word of complaint.
She just picked up the bag of already collected animals and stuck them to Dante’s motorbike with a note saying, ‘nice try’. ”
“I like her more and more,” I grinned, picturing Dante as he grew angrier and angrier over these stupid plastic animals that were causing him such grief.
“I thought you might. If you happen to find one, just put it right back where you found it. Don’t make his life easier.”
“Please,” I scoffed. “Since when has that ever been my goal?”
“Fair point. So… You’ve heard the good stuff. Are you ready to hear about the last new addition?”
“Oh, God…” I flinched, imagining the worse.
“Indeed. You ready?”
I nodded.
“Greg has an old lady. Can you guess who it is?”
“Who?” I breathed, trying to rack my brain and picture someone I didn’t like—but let’s face it, the list was endless.
“None other than Beth.”
“No! Diner Beth? The woman that runs The Greasy Spoon?”
“One and the same. It’s made her sister—you remember Spunky, don’t you?” She paused as I raised my hand and shook it from side to side in a way that meant ‘vaguely.’ “Well, it’s made her insufferable. She was the one shouting abuse, calling you a lawyer when you arrived here that very first day.”
“Delightful. So I’ve got a nice little team of haters on my hands: Greg, Beth and Spunky. Fucking fantastic.”
“Reigning supreme, sweetheart. Reigning. Supreme. None of them can touch you,” she said with a satisfied smirk.
“It’s not touching me I’m worried about. It’s that damn contract.”
“What contract?” She asked.
I quickly caught her up on the details, watching as her face went from amused, to angry, to amused again.
“I’m sorry, Rachel. I really had no idea.”
“It’s not your fault. And even if you did know, what could you have done?”
“I’d have given Shark hell, that’s what. You know we almost broke up when you left?”
“What?” I almost gasped, feeling genuinely shocked. As different as they appeared on the outside—her with her piercings and purple hair, and Shark with his clean cut good looks, and his only tattoo being the club patch—but they had always appeared to be the most stable of couples here.
“I heard about what happened on the boat,” she said quietly, unable to meet my eye all of a sudden.
“Oh. For what it’s worth, Shark looked pretty horrified.”
“Shark should have intervened. But yeah… that’s pretty much the story he told as well.”
“It’s in the past. There’s no point dwelling on it. And look at you now,” I nodded my head in the direction of her son, who was just beginning to stir from his nap.
“And look at you now,” she grinned once more, the seriousness of our previous words forgotten. “Locked into a contract that says you can’t argue, and three enemies at your back who would love nothing more than to see you lose your shit. This is going to be a fun six months.”