Chapter Nine
Cam
It was nearly closing time when she finally came up for air. Jen had offered to stay for the rest of the night and manage the bar. Cam’d tried to argue with her, but Jen had insisted.
“I’m going to the clubhouse tonight anyways. I might as well make some money while I wait around for them to finish drinking here,” she’d told Cam.
It’d given Cam the chance to catch up on all the outstanding stuff she’d meant to get done.
“Hey,” Jen greeted her.
Cam smiled at her and grabbed a cup before pouring herself a Coke. “It looks like everyone’s leaving?”
“Yeah…well, going back to the clubhouse.”
Amire came around the corner in the midst of untying his apron.
“Hey, Amire, you’ve been quiet tonight,” Cam said.
He followed her action and grabbed a cup to fill with soda. “The new customers keep me busy. Those guys can eat. Oh, by the way, we’re running low on a few things. ”
“Shit. Make a list, and I’ll try to see if we can get an early delivery.”
She also made a mental note to see if she could afford to hire another person. She didn’t want Amire and Jen to feel like she was working them to death. Plus, if one of them were out sick, there’s no way she’d be able to handle the bar and kitchen alone with as many guys that were here tonight.
“So…I was thinking...” Jen started.
“Oh no,” Amire said before taking a sip of his soda.
Jen stuck her tongue out at him. “I would really like some company tonight…”
“Oh, fuck no. Hugo is your company,” Cam said. There was no way she wanted to spend her night sitting around at a bar across town with the same people who were just here. If she wanted to do that, she would have kept her bar open longer.
“Come on, Cam. You’re going to let me go somewhere alone with a bunch of big motorcycle guys?”
“You want to go!”
Jen puffed out her bottom lip.
“Ha!” Amire said. “Guess that means you’re going. You two have fun. I’m going to finish in the kitchen.”
Amire walked away as Jen continued to stare at her with those big, puppy dog eyes.
“Jen, come on. I want to go home and get some sleep,” she said. Her body was so achy, all she wanted to do was get in a hot shower then curl up under the covers.
“Just come out for a little bit. We don’t have to stay long.”
“You’re not spending the night?” Cam asked, raising an eyebrow at her.
Jen shook her head. “No, I have plans for breakfast with my mom in the morning.”
Jen’s parents lived about an hour outside of town, so she was able to see them often. Jen raised an eyebrow at her waiting for an answer. God, she was tired, but she knew Jen would return the favor if she had asked.
“Fine, but just for a little while.”
Jen squealed and pulled her in for a tight hug. “You are the best! I owe you.”
“Yes, you do. Now, let’s clean up so we can get this over with.”
Jen cleaned behind the bar while Cam took care of the lobby. Amire finished before both of them and left. Once they finished, Cam locked the door and followed Jen out to her car.
“We can get your truck after I get back from breakfast with my mom,” Jen said as they climbed into her small, silver car.
“That’s fine.” She wanted to sleep in tomorrow anyways. Her class didn’t start until eleven o’clock, so that meant if they got out of the bar early enough, she might get seven hours of sleep.
She leaned her head back against the headrest as Jen followed the GPS. If she allowed her eyes to flutter closed, she’d be asleep in a matter of minutes. As they traversed onto a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, her eyes flickered to Jen. “Are you sure this is the right address? There’s nothing out here.”
“This is what Hugo gave me.”
As Jen got closer, Cam realized why she never saw the clubhouse before even though it was huge. The long, sheet metal building stretched across a couple of acres of land. The building wasn’t one color. It looked like pieces of the building had been added on over the years. It was in a valley, so Jen had to turn off the main road and drive down a steep hill to get there. As soon as they pulled up, Cam could hear the music from inside. The same kind of rock music they played out of her jukebox. The front door to what must have been the bar part was wide open, allowing the music to spill out. The entire area was surrounded by tall stadium lights, which probably kept the coyotes and other wild animals away. It would have been impossible to find the place without the stadium lights on. Everything around the clubhouse was pure wilderness.
“Damn, this place is huge,” Jen said as she turned off the car.
“Like a cult,” Cam grumbled.
Jen laughed. “I heard that. It’s not a cult; it’s a club.”
“Tomayto. Tomahto.”
They got out of the car, and she followed behind Jen into the clubhouse. Cam’s short cowboy boots thudded against the wooden porch. As they walked inside, she noticed the whole place was wood. It looked like an actual cabin. She imagined it would be a beautiful place to sit by the fire in the winter. The bar was double the size of Cam’s, and she wondered again why they would come all the way out to her bar to drink.
“Let’s get a drink,” Jen said, looping her arm through Cam’s and steered her to the bar. She was surprised to see that not only were there other women in the bar, but also, they were all half-naked. Most of them wore short halter tops and denim skirts with flip-flops. Their makeup was heavily applied. A blonde haired woman gave them a dirty look as she and Jen sat down at a stool.
“What can I get for you, ladies?” the guy behind the bar asked. He looked like he was barely eighteen. Not old enough to be bartending.
“Can I get a gin and tonic?” Jen asked.
“Coming up, and for you?” the boy asked.
“Just a Coke,” she said.
“Got it. One gin and tonic and one rum and Coke."
“Oh no, I--”
He walked to the other end of the bar before she could correct him. Whatever, she probably needed a drink anyway to get through the next hour or so since she was going to be stuck at this place .
“It’s crazy how big this place is,” Jen said.
“Yeah, it’s so far out too.” The location of the clubhouse made her suspicious. As if maybe the motorcycle gang wanted to keep themselves hidden. As she looked around the bar area, she started to wonder what they did. Were they really just a group of guys who liked to ride motorcycles together? The way Kit called them his brothers the first night she met him made her think it was more than that.
“Hugo said they all have bedrooms here, and there is a car repair shop on the corner that Kit owns.”
Two drinks were placed in front of them. Cam took a sip, feeling the burn as it went down her throat. There was way more rum than Coke in the drink, and she made a mental note not to order a second one.
“Oh, there’s Hugo. I’ll be right back,” Jen said before hopping off from the stool and taking her drink with her.
Cam sighed and took another sip of her drink.
“You don’t look too happy to be here,” the young bartender said. He placed both hands on the bar top and leaned against them. He was a cute kid with chubby cheeks and messy brown hair.
“Between you and me, my friend dragged me here.”
“Ah.”
“How old are you?” she asked him. Her curiosity was getting the best of her.
He smiled, showing off a dimple on the left side of his face. “Depends, are you a cop?”
“Nope, but if I were, I probably wouldn’t tell you.” She took another sip of her drink.
He laughed. “Fair enough. I’m seventeen.”
She coughed, nearly choking on her drink. “What the hell are you doing bartending?”
“I’m prospecting.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Um, what?”
“You’re new to this whole motorcycle thing, aren’t you?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t call it that. I’m just here with a friend.”
He nodded. “Well, a prospect is someone who wants to be patched. Like, be a member of the Savage Spades. Basically, you have to do a lot of shitty jobs and put up with a bunch of bullshit until Gunner and everyone else thinks you’re ready to be an official member.”
“Wow, you guys take this thing seriously.”
“Well, yeah, it’s a lot of work to be a part of the Savage Spades. The club is much bigger than just here in North Carolina. There are chapters everywhere.”
She tilted her head to the side. “And why do you want to be a part of the motorcycle gang again?”
He grabbed a towel and started to wipe down the bar. “It’s not a gang; it’s a club. A lot of members don’t have a real family. The Savage Spades is the only family they know. We take care of each other. Even if I’m stuck doing the dirty work, I know it’ll pay off when I get patched.”
She took a sip of her drink as she processed the information. It still didn’t make sense to her. Why would a seventeen-year-old kid want to do a bunch of shit for a group of grown men just so they would accept him into a club?
“Aren’t you in high school?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Dropped out last semester. That’s when I found the Savage Spades. According to Gunner, I need to re-enroll by the end of this month if I want to think about getting patched.”
At least they were making him go back to school. Does that cancel out the fact that they also had him bartending at seventeen?
“I’m Oscar, by the way.” He stuck out his hand for her to shake.
“Cam,” she said, placing her hand in his.
A man at the end of the bar said something to the kid. She couldn’t make out his words.
“I’ll see you around, Cam,” he said before dropping the towel and heading towards the end of the bar.
Cam sipped her rum and Coke and turned on the stool to look out on the small dance floor. Jen swayed back and forth with Hugo even though it was a fast-paced song. Although Cam was annoyed that Jen had dragged her here, at least she was happy .
After spending the next hour playing on her phone and talking on and off with Oscar as he worked, she got up to find Jen. The bar was starting to quiet down. She’d watched a few of the guys leave with a barely-clothed woman on their arm. She found Jen in a corner booth snuggled up next to Hugo.
“Cam!” Jen exclaimed.
Oh shit.
“I was looking everywhere for you!” Jen shouted.
Cam turned to Hugo. “How much did she drink?”
Hugo was the biggest of all the guys she’d seen at the clubhouse so far. He also had a tattoos on his neck, which made him intimating, but his face was that of a big teddy bear.
“A lot,” he admitted.
“Fuck, she was supposed to drive me home.”
“I heard Kit say he was about to head out. I’m sure he’d give you a ride,” Hugo suggested.
“Oh no--”
“Hey, Kit,” Hugo yelled across the room.
Heat traveled up her neck to her cheeks as embarrassment took hold. She hadn’t seen Kit since leaving her bar. She turned around to see him coming out of a room.
“What’s up?” he asked Hugo as he approached the table. His eyes flickered to hers briefly. He was probably wondering what the hell she was doing there .
“You leaving? Jen can’t drive, and Cam rode with her,” Hugo explained.
Kit looked at her, a smug grin on his face.
“She told me we’d be here for an hour or so. She was supposed to drive me home,” Cam said.
“Mmm, so you couldn't get enough of us.”
“You know what, forget this,” she said. She turned on her heels and walked to the exit. She’d find some other way to get home. Fresh air hit her face as she walked out onto the porch.
“Come on, I was just messing with you,” Kit said from behind her.
She turned around and crossed her arms over her chest. She didn’t know why she was so embarrassed by being stranded in Savage Spade territory, but she was.
“Come on. My truck is parked on the other side of the clubhouse. Unless you wanna get on the back of my Harley?”
The thought of pressing her tits into Kit’s back as they drove through these dirt roads had her clenching her thighs together. He walked past her, giving her no choice but to follow behind him. They rounded the big building to a darker part of the clubhouse.
“So really, why did you agree to come out here?” he asked her.
“Jen begged me to go with her because she wanted to see Hugo. She didn’t want to come alone.”
“Ah, I’m a little disappointed. I thought you missed me so much you couldn’t stay away.”
She snorted. “In your dreams.”
But as she looked over at him, she couldn’t help being impressed. He wasn’t wearing his leather cut like usual. Instead, he was in a pair of gray sweatpants and a black t-shirt. He was the only guy besides Jason Momoa that could pull off a man-bun like that. When they got to his truck, she opened the passenger door and realized the truck sat a lot higher than Big Blue. It took her two tries to get inside all while Kit sat in the driver’s seat and laughed.
She flipped him the bird once she was finally in the seat.
“I was going to help you, but you got it.”
“Yeah right.”
“Give me your phone,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m putting my number in it. In case something like this happens again.”
“It won’t.” There was no way she was coming out here with Jen again. Jen owed her for this one.
“Would you just give me your phone?”
Reluctantly, she handed over her shitty, out-of-date iPhone. He typed in his information and then handed it back.
“I can give you a ride if you ever need one. I own the car shop, so I work when I want.”
She nodded and tucked the phone back into her pocket. “Thanks. So why do you guys come to my bar to drink if you have a bar right here?”
“Most of us are at the compound too often. It’s nice to get out and take a short ride sometimes.” He shot her a half-smile. “Besides, maybe we just like to bother the towns people every once in awhile.”
He started the engine and drove back towards town.