23. Carefree
23
CAREFREE
Hugger
Hugger moved out of the shadows at the side of Di’s grandma’s house when he heard the front door open and the two women saying goodbye.
It was Tuesday after their epic weekend of shit stuff and great stuff, and Di felt the need to check in on her grandmother. Hugger took her, but he thought it best they have some alone time, therefore he kept watch outside while they had a glass of wine.
He met the women on the stoop.
“ Oh , now you’re here, you should come in for a quick drink, Harlan ,” Shannon invited.
She didn’t know he wasn’t there for a pickup, he’d been there the whole time, because she didn’t know he wasn’t just Di’s boyfriend, but also her bodyguard.
“’ Preciate it, Shannon , but it’s getting late, and I need to get my woman home so she can relax. She’s got work tomorrow,” Hugger replied.
“ Such a good boy,” Shannon muttered, and Hugger nearly smiled.
He hadn’t been called a boy in a very long time.
He didn’t smile because he wasn’t a big fan of the expression on either woman’s face.
Di went in for a hug from her gram, Hugger gave the woman his hand, and Shannon took it but did not shake it. She patted it, and never having a grandma himself, so never feeling anything like what came through her touch, he couldn’t deny those pats felt sweet.
When the woman let him go, he slung his arm around Di’s shoulders, felt hers snake along his waist, and they walked to his bike.
It was nine thirty, eighty degrees outside, deep in September , and there’d been no weather at all since he’d been down there that would keep him off the back of his bike.
Maybe Phoenix wasn’t going to be so bad, even in the shitty months.
He stopped her at his bike and turned her to his front.
He was going to speak, but she got there before him. “ I see what Dutch meant about the dark.”
“ Come again?”
“ You materialized out of the night like a shadow taking shape. So I see what Dutch meant. I’m impressed.”
She was teasing, but he wasn’t buying it.
So instead of replying to what she said, he asked, “ How’d that go?”
It took her a beat before she shook her head, planted her face in his chest a second, pressing the rest of her to him with both arms rounding him, and then she tipped her head back.
That was something he hadn’t felt before either, or he hadn’t let it penetrate.
And , damn, it felt good to stand strong when his woman needed to lean on him.
“ She’s called Mom to chat every day since the incident,” she told him. “ Even when Mom was still in town. Mom’s ghosting her.”
Christ , that woman was a total bitch.
He didn’t say that.
“ You think she’ll cave?” he asked.
“ I don’t know. No one has ever called Mom on her shit in that grand of a fashion. We’re in uncharted territory.”
His phone at his ass vibrated, he ignored it, and kept his attention on his woman.
He did this because they hadn’t had a lot of time in, but he still knew his woman.
“ You gonna wade into that?”
She bit her lip.
Just as he suspected, Di giving everything to everybody else, sometimes at the expense of herself.
She didn’t know it, but her mother played a part in Di being like that. Diana had been dancing attendance on that woman since she’d taken her first breath, it was all she knew.
It was good that Di could twist it so it could be worthwhile for people who mattered.
And it was good she had him now, so he could make sure she didn’t use herself up.
“ Di —”
“ Ugh ,” she grunted. “ I can’t. No contact means no contact. And seriously, Mom’s so good at her games, she might be doing this to Gram for the sole purpose of making me wade in.”
“ Yeah ,” he agreed.
“ So I can’t.”
“ Yeah ,” he agreed a lot more firmly.
“ Ugh ,” she repeated.
Hugger bent to touch his lips to hers, and when he moved away, murmured, “ Let’s get you home.”
“’ Kay ,” she mumbled.
They let go, he got on his bike, she swung on behind him, plastered herself to his back with her arms around his stomach, chin to his shoulder, and that didn’t feel as good as her leaning on him, but it still felt damn good.
They took off, and like he felt it, she probably felt his phone vibrating at his ass again.
When they stopped at a red light, he yelled over the pipes, “ Grab that, will you?”
Di shifted enough to reach into his back pocket and get his phone after the call had ended.
“ Dutch ,” she said in his ear.
“ Show it my face, then call him,” he ordered, reminding himself to give her his passcode later.
She activated his phone, pointed it at his face, and kept hold with one arm around him as he took off when the light went green.
He heard her shouted conversation with Dutch , so he already guessed what was coming before she ended the call and said loudly in his ear, “ He wants you at the crash pad as soon as you can get there. He says I can come too.”
Hugger changed lanes.
Something else to be said about Phoenix , a city that was built nearly entirely on a grid system with numbered avenues (west) and streets (east) with a central road dividing the two called Central made learning the way around super fucking easy.
Twenty minutes later, he rolled up the driveway behind several other bikes, and he felt his eyes narrow on them because it wasn’t just Dutch , Jagger and Coe’s bikes and Big Petey’s trike, and one or two of them should be on Armitage , Eight and Muzzle’s bikes were there, and parked at the curb was one of the NI & S SUVs , a flashy truck, and a sleek Jaguar .
Diana swung off, he came off after her and stopped when he caught her look.
“ What ?” he asked.
“ This is a crash pad?” she asked back, tossing her arm to the long ranch house on the side of a hill that had a fantastic view of the Valley . It also had four bedrooms, four and a half baths, a swimming pool with a waterfall into a Jacuzzi and an air hockey table.
“ Resurrection owns some dispensaries in Denver ,” he explained. “ They got cake.”
She just stared at him.
So he continued, “ And Ride’s got shops and garages all over Colorado . They do good trade, even better now after the millennials and Gen Z decided it was important to shop local. And our custom builds sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
“ So as well as playing bodyguards and part-time vigilantes, you’re all biker entrepreneurs,” she noted.
He slung an arm around her shoulders again and muttered, “ Something like that.”
He led her inside and immediately saw all the players.
Yes , Eight and Muzz were back. Also there were Mace and Cap Jackson , another member of the NI & S team, and Sylvie and Tucker Creed , two local PIs with ties to Denver seeing as Sylvie used to work for Knight Sebring , an ally of Chaos . And last, a woman he met at their only other Phoenix meeting, a meeting that all of these folks drifted in and out of, providing information and advice, which was why that meet had lasted so long.
She was called Sixx . She was gorgeous, he had no idea what her occupation was, but whatever it was, it was badass, and if he were anybody else other than him, she’d scare the shit out of him.
He didn’t get the chance to introduce his woman to the new people, because Diana cried, “ Oh my God ! Guys !” and dashed straight to Muzzle .
She gave him a big hug, and Muzz , being part asshole, held her close and gave her a visible squeeze at the same time he gave Hugger a smirk.
Fucker .
Hugger just crossed his arms on his chest and watched.
Di moved to Eight , and Eight didn’t bust his balls, but he did give her a tight hug.
When she popped away from Eight , she asked, “ What are you guys doing back?”
“ That’s what we gotta talk about,” Eight said.
This commenced Di getting intros to Cap , Sylvie , Tucker and Sixx .
After that, Mace said to her, “ Hang with the guys for a few while we steal your man?”
Di , not stupid in the slightest, Hugger already knew had figured shit with the Babi?s had or was coming to a head.
But she didn’t argue as Jagger approached and said, “ Your choice. Beer or air hockey.”
“ I only get one?” Di returned.
Yup , that was his woman.
“ C’mon , darlin’,” Big Petey urged, holding a hand Di’s way. “ We’ll get a game started while Jag sets us up.”
Di headed toward Big Petey and the air hockey table as Jag went to the fridge.
Hugger followed Eight and Mace to the den situated at the front of the crib. Sylvie , Tucker , Cap and Sixx followed them.
Cap closed the door behind them.
Eight took a tablet from the desk in there, woke it up, and handed it to Hugger .
Hugger looked at the picture on it and sucked in a sharp breath.
The picture showed three men on their asses on the ground, backs propped up against a wall, but still falling into each other.
That was because they were filled with holes, covered in blood and very dead.
Resting on their laps were two big pieces of paper. One said I’m and the other said Done .
One of the men was Esad Babi? . The other two were his bros.
“ This is what the Costa Rican authorities found when they caught up with Esad ,” Mace shared.
Hugger locked eyes with Eight .
Eight shook his head. “ Not us. We were down there, working with some connections to procure firearms, but we were too late. Heard word the deed was done, got back to the States late this afternoon.”
“ So who?” Hugger asked. “ And what does ‘ I’m done’ mean?”
Sixx came closer. “ Imran hasn’t left Bolivia . That doesn’t mean Imran can’t call a hit. And word is, Imran called three hits from his hacienda in Bolivia .”
Hugger was shocked as shit. “ He gave the order to have his own son whacked?”
“ Imran is a lunatic,” Sylvie chimed in, “but he’s a shrewd businessman. Cops and Feds have been all over his properties here in the Valley , and elsewhere. They found nothing to tie him to anything but his legit dealings. Imran’s problem was they had Esad’s phone, which was a big get. Though , when they searched Esad’s house, they found his laptop, something the moron left behind, which was an even bigger one. It held a wealth of information, not only about the crap he’d been doing, but about his dad’s interests. They also got Esad’s car, with his address history in his navigation system. Led them to known and unknown stash houses, safehouses and warehouses of the Babi? empire. There was quite a bit of connecting the dots of shell companies and known associates, still more to do, but all of it so far, with all the shit in it, has been connected to Imran .” She paused and finished, “ They’re cooked.”
“ As in ‘done,’” Tucker added.
Hugger couldn’t believe this. “ His boy programmed stash houses and safehouses in his satnav?”
“ Yep ,” Tucker confirmed.
Christ , that guy was one stupid motherfucker.
“ Cops and Feds have rounded up most of Imran’s army,” Mace put in. “ Not all of them, but most of them. None of them are talking. Either because of their code, or because they’re terrified of Babi? , considering he’d call a hit on his own son, and the aforementioned fact he’s a lunatic.”
Cap took it from there, “ Some of his soldiers are still breathing free, but they’ve scattered. A few of them headed to Bolivia . Most of them crossed the border into Mexico .”
“ In the wind?” Hugger asked.
“ For now,” Cap answered.
“ There’s more,” Sixx said.
“ What’s that?” Hugger prompted when that was all she said.
“ Babi? got word to someone who would get word to me,” she replied. “ This was so I could tell Mace , Sylvie , Tucker or someone who would get that word to you boys since he didn’t know we’d been introduced. He shared he has no beef with either Nolan or Diana Armitage , and he never did.”
His son dead at his order, Hugger thought this was too good to be true.
“ We believe that?” Hugger pushed.
“ We do,” Sixx said.
“ There a reason he didn’t just tell Buck this info when Buck tried to reach out ten fuckin’ times?” Hugger groused.
“ Unfortunately , there is,” Sixx told him. “ He thought it was hilarious, how much effort you all were putting into keeping safe two people he didn’t give a shit about.”
What an asshole.
But that was something he could believe about this guy, and at least it meant Di and Nolan were safe, and Dutch , Jag and Coe could go home.
He was sticking in Phoenix , at least for a while.
“ And Maddy ?” Hugger kept at Sixx .
“ Maddy isn’t his problem,” Sixx replied. “ She was, when he was trying to keep his son from tanking himself and the family business. She’s not anymore. There’s nothing that links Imran Babi? with that trafficking ring. And the Feds have decimated it. They have the testimony of a good number of women, not to mention several players who are making deals. Madison might not even have to testify.”
Well , that was a huge fucking relief.
Hugger turned to Eight . “ Any word on what his gig is with the clubs?”
Eight’s eyes darkened and he said, “ Yeah . Back in Denver , Core and Brain got hold of an informant, that bein’ an informant of Babi?’s . They did their work and found out that somehow, Babi? learned about the situation with Chaos and Resurrection and Benito Valenzuela .”
Valenzuela was a name out of Chaos’s history books, just like Hugger’s bio-father was.
And like Hugger’s bio-father, the story wasn’t a fun one.
Therefore , Hugger didn’t have a good feeling about this.
“ So what?”
“ So , seems like Babi? got it in his head he didn’t like the fact that two motorcycle clubs bested one of his kind,” Eight informed him. “ For shits and grins, because this guy is one twisted motherfucker, thought he’d bump up against us and see how that shook out.”
Fucking hell.
Hugger studied Eight closely. “ How much he know about Valenzuela ?”
Eight’s voice went low. “ Enough , but not any of that. No one knows anything about any of that.”
Hugger relaxed.
Only slightly.
“ His army decimated, his business in ruins, is he maybe rethinking making that play?” Hugger asked.
“ Would be hard,” Mace said. “ Unless he smuggles himself back into the country, any point of entry he tried, he’d be arrested immediately. He could call the shots from South America , but without any soldiers left, not sure who he could trust that he’d reach out to for an operation that would have to be intricate and well-managed.”
“ Men like him find their way to get around,” Hugger pointed out.
No one had a response to that.
“ He’d also have to rebuild,” Cap added. “ We suspect he’s living off hidden money, but he had bank accounts here, all of them healthy, now all of them are frozen, and as those wheels turn, no doubt they’re gonna get seized, along with all his property. So he doesn’t have near the resources he used to.”
“ Not to mention, he made a mistake picking Bolivia ,” Mace put in. “ The extradition treaty we signed with them hasn’t been fruitful for the US , to the point it’s like it’s not there. Last person they allowed extradited was in the mid-nineties. They’re not fans of extraditing Bolivian nationals. But he’s not a Bolivian national. He got American citizenship in 1998. They’ve been made aware he’s there, the US government is in talks with them about extricating him, so he might need to make another move and do it soon.”
“ So he’s gonna be on the run,” Hugger deduced.
“ Maybe preoccupied with that, you boys are in the clear. Maybe his message of ‘ I’m done,’ is bullshit to take you off your guard. But at least for now, he’s not going to be an immediate problem,” Sylvie said.
This meant they weren’t assured the Babi? situation was sorted, but Nolan and Di were safe, and they had some breathing room and a warning they were on the radar of a lunatic who had the urge to dick with them.
“ We’ll keep an ear out,” Tucker added.
“ Bottom line for now, Di and her dad are good,” Eight stated.
“ You goin’ back to Denver ?” Hugger asked him.
“ Linus is already headed up there, tomorrow Muzz and me will too. Roscoe is going with us. We got this house until the end of the month, so apparently, Georgie and Archie are coming down for the weekend before the Black brothers head back.”
That’d be good, Di could meet them.
“ So this is done,” Hugger summed up.
“ For now,” Eight said.
Yeah .
For now.
But he’d take that with knowing Di was safe.
The rest, they’d see.
* * *
After talking to her dad to let him know all was good with Babi? , Hugger saw her enter her bedroom.
He was stretched out in her bed with a book he pulled from her shelf ( Mother Daughter Murder Night , sounded up his alley, even if he’d never been a reader—he was trying new things, and since Di had a big bookshelf filled with books in her living room, he’d helped himself).
He watched her walk to him in her tight cropped tee and loose drawstring shorts.
He quickly put the book aside as she collapsed on top of him.
“ Your dad good?” he asked.
She nodded. “ He wants to throw a pool party on Saturday , since Georgie and Archie will be here.”
Hugger hadn’t owned a pair of swimming trunks since he was at least eight.
“ I’ll have to warn Dutch and Arch so the women can pack suits.”
“ Okay .”
“ And we’ll have to go out and get me some trunks.”
She grinned at the idea of shopping. “ Okay .”
He dug his fingers into the hems of her shorts and up into her panties. “ Why the fuck you put on pajamas?”
Di assumed a fake severe expression. “ Excuse me, Harlan ‘ Hugger ’ McCain , you have the wrong impression about me. I am not easy.”
That was when he grinned, flipped her to the back and proved her wrong.
* * *
Hugger was doing Di on all fours, curled over her, one hand to the bed, one hand between her legs, finger to her clit.
And he was almost there, so she needed to fucking get there.
On that thought, her head, which had been bent, flashed back, slammed into his shoulder, her soft hair coasting all over his face and tangling in his beard, making his balls draw up in warning, and she came…loud.
Thank fucking God .
He glided his finger away, wrapped his arm around her hips, held her stationary for his thrusts, and eventually shoved his face in her neck, shot his load, and as usual with Diana , he did it hard.
He was still using condoms. She had a doctor’s appointment the next week. He had one the week after up in Denver .
He cruised slow inside her as he lost the hard, then pulled out, kissed her shoulder, lifted up, gently pushed her to her side in the bed, and he left her there, flicking the covers over her as he moved to get rid of the rubber.
When he got back, he stretched out beside her, and she snuggled close.
“ That gig was bizarre, babe,” he declared.
She started laughing.
“ I nearly fell asleep,” he went on.
She kept laughing.
Fuck , but he loved to make her laugh.
She looked up at him. “ So the ambient jam is not your style?”
It was late night Saturday . They’d gone to Charlie’s gig that night, and they’d done it not only with Mel and her man Gerard (who seemed a decent dude, more so when Mel had to elbow him because he actually did fall asleep), Bernie , as well as Dutch , Georgie , Jagger and Archie .
Dutch and Jagger kept shooting him What the fuck? looks through the whole thing.
Georgie appeared to be near laughter through the whole thing.
Archie seemed to dig it, or at least she pretended a lot better than the rest of them that she didn’t think it was as totally whacked as it was.
“ No ,” he answered Diana’s question.
“ You don’t have to go again,” she told him.
“ You go to all of them?”
She nodded.
Of course she did.
“ They don’t happen very often,” she explained, “because, I mean…obviously, they don’t have a big following and there aren’t a lot of venues longing to have a band that will put their clientele to sleep.”
He had noticed not many tables in that bar were filled, and some had emptied after Charlie and her crew got started.
“ Charlie doesn’t care, she just likes to play,” Di continued.
“ How often do gigs happen?”
“ Maybe once every couple of months. They go up to Sedona and Flag to play more than they do here. Sometimes we go, because those places are fun to hang in. Sometimes we don’t.”
“ We’ll see when it happens again.”
She gave him a soft look, stroked his beard and changed the subject.
“ I like Georgie and Archie . They’re both totally rad.”
His lips tipped up. “ They’re definitely… rad .”
She stopped stroking his beard to slap his pec and demanded, “ Don’t give me shit.”
Hugger smiled fully.
Warmth hit her eyes as she watched him do it, but he felt her mood shift.
“ Babe ,” he said quietly, “it’s gotta get done.”
He was talking about the fact that he knew what her mood was about.
He’d told her he was riding back up to Denver with Dutch and Jag on Wednesday .
“ I know,” she mumbled.
“ Snap’s in to help renovate my place,” he reminded her. “ He texted today and said Hound’s already been over there to start gutting the kitchen.”
Her eyes rounded in surprise. “ Really ?”
“ Hound likes to destroy shit.”
Her mood shifted again as she started laughing.
“ Earned yourself a Club name,” he muttered, loving the fact that she had down to his bones.
Both Georgie and Archie started calling her “ Blue ” the minute they hit her pad that night when they all met up to go have something to eat before the gig.
Her mood entirely shifted as she beamed at him. “ I’m official.”
“ Already were, baby,” he murmured.
That bought him a kiss.
He gave that back before he ended it and rolled her this way and that to turn out the bedside lights.
He was tired, he’d come hard, and they had a big day the next day. They had to get some shuteye.
They cuddled front to front, like every night. Though , he usually shifted, and they woke up with her tucked to his back, or sometimes, she shifted, so he was curved to hers.
But they started connected and ended connected.
Every night.
Hugger didn’t think about it, not once, not since the beginning.
Because this was Di .
So he didn’t think about it then, when he felt her drift asleep in his arms, and he followed her.
And he didn’t think about it hours later, when he woke, curled into her back, holding her close.
* * *
That afternoon, Hugger pulled himself out of Nolan’s pool, shook the wet from his hair and grabbed one of the thick beach towels from the stack that had been put out so he could towel down.
He then walked to the gigantic cooler filled with beer and helped himself to one.
He twisted the cap, tossed it in the trash bin sitting near, and turned to take in what was happening in the pool.
There was semi-loud music playing, and thankfully, it wasn’t ambient. To fit his generation, and theirs, Nolan had set the music to nineties grunge, which worked for both.
Di was riding a pool noodle wearing a sweet red two-piece that had a halter top with a little ruffle, and it plunged way low in the front showing a good amount of her tits. The pants came up high at the waist, had some gathers at the belly and showed nice ass cheek.
It was sexy as fuck.
They’d hit the mall that morning and got him some extra-long board shorts in army green. Di had wanted him to buy a red pair, but he wasn’t a red guy. Now he was glad he pushed back on that, or they’d match, and that’d be goofy as shit.
But he reckoned this was why she pushed for the red, so they’d be goofy, she’d be cute, at the same time a pain in his ass, something he also found cute.
Mel , Charlie and Georgie were riding noodles too. Bernie was sitting next to Nicole on the edge of what Di told him was called a Baja bench in the pool. The women all had melting frozen drinks in their hands in fancy, but plastic glasses and they were forming a huddle.
Jagger appeared to be asleep on a float that looked like a massive pillow. Dutch and Gerard were in the lounge chairs set on the Baja bench, drinking beers and rapping. Pete was completely conked under a lounger at the side of the pool, and he had company. Shannon was reading a romance novel in the lounger next to Pete’s .
So , yeah.
Another plus for Phoenix , that view right there.
Larry hadn’t come. He apparently was all in for Diana to have her family around her, so Nicole had shocked the shit out of both Di and Hugger when she showed, but it’d probably take a while before Larry was fully down with partying at his wife’s ex’s house.
Said a lot about the man that Nicole was there, though, just as it said a lot about Nicole .
Grudges will fuck you up, it was best to avoid them.
Though , Hugger hoped Di kept hers against her mother for the next twenty-five years.
When he heard the door open behind him, he turned and watched Armitage stroll out.
The man looked to the pool, his face went soft, then he looked to Hugger and came his way.
He got his own beer and stood beside Hugger .
“ You’re not a man to mess around,” Hugger noted, tipping the neck of his beer bottle to the pool.
“ It would appear you aren’t either,” Armitage replied, then took a drag from his beer. “ Diana tells me you’re moving down here.”
“ Yup .”
“ That’s quite a sacrifice,” Armitage remarked. “ Takes you away from your family.”
“ My brothers will get it. And Di doesn’t live in New Zealand .”
“ No ,” Armitage murmured to his bottle of beer. “ She doesn’t.” He then took another drag.
Hugger took his own and went on, “ Anyway , I lost my ma, she found her dad. And that woman who’s her mother is playing games with her grandma. It’d kill her to be away from either of you right now.”
He felt the man’s eyes, so he turned from watching Diana smiling at something Archie was saying to look at her father.
“ You lost your mother?” Armitage asked.
“ Yeah .”
“ I’m so sorry, Harlan ,” Armitage said quietly.
Hugger took another drag and said, “ Happened a while ago.”
“ You never get over it,” Armitage said.
His gut clenched but he didn’t say anything.
“ I had a wonderful mother,” Armitage told him. “ She and my dad worked hard all their lives, died too young and didn’t get to enjoy all they worked for. They were both in their sixties when they went, but still, it was too young. I miss them every day, and I hate that for them every day. I would have wanted them to leave this earth having had time to enjoy being on it without expending a lot of blood, sweat and tears.”
Hugger remained silent, feeling this in the marrow of his bones, because it was the same for him.
Armitage’s attention was acute on Hugger when he said, “ That’s their due, what they earn from us, not to be forgotten. They live on in us, as long as we have their memories.”
“ Yeah ,” Hugger grunted.
But he liked that.
It was what his ma told him in that song.
She’d be gone, and her memory would get him through.
And she was with him, maybe just in his thoughts, but every day, whenever he needed her, he could call her up, and she’d be right there.
His attention was taken when female cackles rent the air, and both men focused on the women in the pool, seeing all of them lost in laughter.
“ With what Margaret did, there was always something, like a blanket smothering our happiness as a family, Di’s and mine,” Armitage said as he watched the women laugh. “ Never seen her so happy and carefree.”
Hugger felt his throat close.
Because what Armitage just said…
That was for him.
The man was giving him that gift.
Armitage turned to him. “ Thanks for that, Harlan .”
Christ , that was for him .
“ You can call me by my Club name, Hugger or Hug ,” Hugger pushed out.
Armitage smiled and murmured, “ Honored .” Then he walked to the edge of the pool and asked, “ Anyone ready for me to put the burgers on the grill?”
Pete woke for that and yelled, “ Fuck yeah!”
“ Want help, Dad ?” Di called.
“ I’d love it, Buttercup ,” Armitage answered.
Armitage glanced at Hugger with a dip of his chin as he took his beer back into the house.
Diana paddled her way to the Baja bench, listed off the noodle and pulled herself out of the pool.
Dutch and Gerard got off the loungers, Dutch going to sit on the edge of the bench, Gerard commandeering Diana’s noodle and floating in the pool.
Jagger lifted his glasses off his nose, looked at Hugger and grinned.
And Hugger set his beer aside and toweled off some more so he wasn’t dripping.
Then he went into the house to help Di and her dad with the burgers.