5. Wombat
Chapter Five
Wombat
It sucked to be somewhere you aren’t wanted. For a moment I thought Honoria liked me. Maybe even leaned in to kiss me. But then she backed all the way off. The chill rolling off her almost made my nuts freeze. That’s why I made myself scarce whenever she dropped off or picked up Molly.
Which was best for everyone. Honoria was my lawyer. Well, technically, the club’s lawyer. Screwing that up would cost me my patch. I was sure of that.
Odd how fear makes you do stupid stuff.
Like avoid your president so you don’t have to come clean about almost sticking your tongue down the throat of Maryland’s sexiest lawyer. Damn. I even searched other law firms online and stalked their staff bios to be certain.
Those chicks had nothing on Honoria.
I sighed into my beer. This was my second. Any more and I’d have to take a room upstairs so I wouldn’t get pulled over on the ride home.
Snake, the club’s chaplain, swung a leg over the chair opposite mine and sat down. At least he came at me from the front for this ambush.
“What are you doing in the corner?” Usually, I was in the middle of the mayhem, getting high, drinking hard, having a blast.
“I gotta keep my nose clean until the next hearing.” Maybe the one after that if the state wanted to go to trial.
“The lawyer isn’t getting you off?”
Only in my fantasies. My silent guilt was mistaken for something else.
“I’ll talk to Walt. He’ll get another—”
I shot a hand out and slapped the table near his. “Don’t. I’m… good.”
“You sure?” He stared at me too intensely.
“Did you know they have a woman on their team?”
At first, my words didn’t register. Or at the very least, his expression didn’t telegraph any emotion. Then his cheek tensed, moving one side into a squint. He looked down and schooled his face back into a clean mask. “Tell me.”
He was a much better chaplain than Digger had been. That asshole used booze to get the worst out of you. Snake simply asked.
“She’s pretty.”
His silence urged me to spill my guts. I had a little more fortitude than that. “She’s got a dog.”
That subject change confused him. “What does that mean?”
I shrugged. “Nothing. It’s just that she— I see her more often than court.”
“See her?”
“Not like that. It’s just me and how I get. She doesn’t want anything to do with me.” For good reason.
For a man who didn’t talk a lot, he was bitching me out something fierce.
“I know, she’s our lawyer.”
I slammed the rest of my beer. Maybe shots were a better solution? If I went home now, I’d jack off at least twice to the memory of how her lips looked when she tilted her head toward mine. Did I misread that?
“I can’t go there, can I?” I looked to Snake for answers.
He frowned and shifted in his chair. “No, you can’t.”
Fuck.
I motioned to the prospect on duty to bring me another beer. I’d have to stay for a while to let it wear off. But hanging here was so much better than being alone.
Snake’s chair squeaked against the wood floor as he pulled it in closer and bent over the table. “I need you to listen for a minute.”
He sounded more like his old role as VP than a chaplain. “I’m listening.”
“You know the club is in deep shit right now.”
Yeah. Having almost a half-dozen missing members of the club’s former chapter was a big red flag to anyone with any kind of sense.
Speculation was high, bets were laid. Whispers cut short when no one dared to speak the questions out loud, “Did the Destroyers do it? Were all of those missing men dead?”
As a result, people walked around us a little wider. Cops stared a little longer.
My mouth spat out something stupid. “Me fucking a lawyer might draw some heat off.” Wouldn’t it?
His hand slapped the side of my head. The heavy rings on it stung.
There was a reason he was called Snake. I never saw it coming.
I rubbed my ear. It was wet with blood. “Did I deserve that?”
“Yes,” he deadpanned.
“Fuck, man. I was just joking, not serious.” Liar.
His eyes picked up a reflection from something. The glint hitting the darkness he wrapped himself in and sparking like a teeny-tiny hell flame. “You’re serious. I know you.”
He was hitting too close to home on a truth I didn’t want to admit. “So what? She doesn’t want me. I’m a Destroyer.” She was a lawyer. It wouldn’t work. And, I was at least a decade younger, not to mention I was undoubtedly poorer.
Snake’s brows tightened as he read me. It caused that little flame to die.
“Stop thinking like that. You’re one of an elite group.
Don’t forget that. Women… well, not all of them are perfect like my wife, but most of them see that patch and want a piece of it however they can get it.
Find one of them.” With that, he leaned back.
His quiet smile turned into a sly grin. He scanned the somber room and noted every flaw. “I think we need a party.”
For him to suggest that was an anomaly. Snake was clean and sober. Hadn’t touched alcohol or drugs in years. He was married. Had a kid. He was one of the most responsible Destroyers I’d ever met, and that included some of the scarier ones.
I spoke my thoughts aloud. “If we have a party, that’s not really laying low, is it?”
He skewered me with his eyes. “But laying low will hang us. We need business as usual.” He got up and sauntered off to the office area where at least two of our club leadership were holed up.
Why hadn’t I thought of that? By being “good” and “quiet” we were slowly hanging ourselves. We looked guilty by acting like were weren’t. Snake was goddamn brilliant.
“Fuck yeah.” I pulled out my phone, preparing to call the local strip club, but stopped.
If Kid or Walt, or Digger said no, I’d have jumped the gun.
Instead, I pocketed my phone and slipped behind the bar, checking stock levels on the booze back there.
I’d done it so often as a prospect, I knew exactly what and how much we’d need.
“Speck, go in the stockroom and bring out two bottles of Jack, another Jose, and at least six cases of wine coolers.”
The prospect looked at me like I was stupid.
“Now.”
He jumped to it. I went into the industrial kitchen and pulled out the biggest metal tub I could find and filled it with ice. Wine coolers would go into that, along with at least a case of beer. Free booze was always a sure bet.
“What are you doing in my kitchen?” Kid’s wife, Sierra, glared at me from the doorway.
“Ain’t your kitchen, it’s the club’s. There’s a party tonight.”
She stared me up and down. “That ain’t your call.”
“No, it was Snake’s.”
Her eyes went a little wide. “Like hell it was.” She thought about it a little longer. Under her breath she whispered, “Dang it. That man is a diabolical genius.” Instead of bitching more, she pulled out all the extra ice trays and began filling them. “I ain’t cooking for no one.”
“No one asked you to.”
“You need an ice cube for your ear, or do you want the other one to match?”
As warnings went, it was creative. “I’m good without both.”
“Snake did that, didn’t he?”
I nodded.
“I like that man.” Sierra appreciated violence a little too much.
It was too easy to needle her for it. “I’m going to tell Kid you said that.”
Sierra casually plucked a knife off the magnetic strip installed to keep them within easy reach. “You’re going to do what now?”
If there’s one thing she handled better than guns or her husband, it was knives. I pretended amnesia and capitulated.
“Nothing.” I hefted the filled tub and took it to the bar.
Already the barn’s mood was improving. Digger stood in the middle of the barroom, directing the phone calls. The strip club, the sex-toy store, the bars, and the right dealers were on the list.
A little pinch of unease hit my gut. This wasn’t going to be a small party. “Speck, stack five cases in that corner. You can thank me later.” I went to the storeroom myself and pulled a couple of extra bottles out.
When I came back with my haul, Sierra planted her toes in my path. “We need a bartender.”
My reply was automatic. “Not it.”
“You’re as good as any.”
“Get Nickel’s girl.” She used to manage a bar before moving up to hotels.
“You know she ain’t right in the head yet. An’ if he catches wind of her in distress, someone’s gonna die, again. Best we leave them outta this.”
She had a point. It wasn’t that long ago Rachel had a concussion, and worse. While she’d gotten out of the hospital and was finally smiling, Sierra was right. She wasn’t ready for a full night of biker insanity.
We only had one idiot prospecting right now. Fly was laid up and barely able to walk.
Speedy and Mojo were on a run, and Scotty was a complete fuckup at mixing drinks.
Which meant someone, somewhere would finger me to do it anyways.
So I bargained with Sierra. “Fine. But only half of the night.” I wanted, no…
needed to get good and drunk. “And I get Ashley’s old room for it.
” Ashley was the club’s old bartender, and not so euphemistically a lot more.
Her services warranted building a room she could call her own.
It was almost a mini apartment with an attached bathroom, little sitting area, and a bed that went from one wall to the other.
It currently stood empty, either waiting for someone to claim it, or maybe for her return.
Best of all, it was away from the dirty cluster of rooms on the other end of the barn that everyone crashed in.
On that end, the walls were so thin you could hear every fart.
Sierra caught on quickly and countered. “Man the bar until two A.M., and the room’s yours.”
“Will it be clean?”
She frowned at me. “That ain’t my job. Get the speck on it.”
I did.
The barn was packed from wall to wall. The line for the bathrooms trailed into the parking lot. Or at least it felt that way as I stepped behind a car to take a leak.
The early December wind bit too sharply.
Stragglers and drunks clustered around the fire barrels we set up to augment the heaters that were going full blast. I stopped under one of the latter to warm up before going back in.
My shift was done. I could go upstairs and stuff some earplugs in and try to sleep.
Or I could get drunk. My insides hummed at a fever pitch.
I wanted something more than either of those things.
I was too wired to sleep, and too sober to ruin the natural buzz zinging through me.
A cute girl wiggled her ass in time with the music that somehow leaked through the stone walls.
I admired it for a few minutes. She peeked over her shoulder, caught me looking, and smiled. Then turned right back around and wiggled it harder. That’s what I needed.
“You got a problem?” The asshole asking wore an insulated North Face jacket zipped up against the cold. He had a black knit cap on his head matching the color of his coat.
My gaze slipped down. It matched his pants and shoes, too. He was a little too rich to be here. As I returned his glare, I assessed my odds. He stood at least three maybe four inches taller than me. Then I assessed his reach—he had me there, too. That left me to gauge his attitude.
There was no contest there. If I couldn’t fuck, I’d take fighting any day. He didn’t stand a chance.
He swept an arm around the jiggling girl. She stopped and turned to see the problem. Her eyes weren’t clear, but far from completely fucked-up. Better, the front curves matched the back.
He’d asked me if I had a problem. That offered me a great opening to fuck with him.
“You got your arm around my girl.” I pointed out.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” he spat back.
I tilted my head and squared my shoulders, with my colors on full display. I’d tossed a hoodie on, then slipped the vest over as an ingrained habit. Display the patches with pride was a rule we staked our lives on. “I’m her ride for the night.”
His fingers tightened. “She’s not going anywhere.”
The girl flinched and squirmed free. “Ow. You don’t own me.”
I ignored her and kept my eyes on him. “Who said she’s going anywhere?”
“You. You said—” Realization dawned on his face, and that expression twisted into a scowl. The arm came off, and his fists clenched. “She’s not your girl.”
“Are you calling me a liar?” Please, oh please do that…
He changed course. “She’s mine.”
I scanned the girl. “I don’t see a property patch on her.”
“She’s not—I mean I don’t—”
“Yeah, you don’t. That means she gets a choice.” I turned to her. “What do you say? You want to wiggle that ass somewhere more private?”
The gleam in her eye told me she was on board. “Upstairs?” Her eyes flicked to the stone walls that stretched almost forty feet above her head.
I licked my lips. “Yeah. I’ve got a room.”
A hand hit my vest. “She’s not going anywhere with you.”
He touched the vest. I placed my hand over his and clamped down, and made sure to hook his pinky. As I tightened my grip, he struggled, but ended up on his knees gasping in pain. “Never touch the vest.”
“You cool, Wombat?” Snake had his keys in his hand.
It was hard to talk normally while pushing my will into making that asshole pay for his mistake. “All good.”
Instead of going to his car, Snake moved closer. He clipped his keys back onto the chain at his waist and stared down at the man kneeling in the dirt. “What’d he do?”
“He touched my vest.”
Snake stretched out his words to mock the asshole sweating at my feet. “Shiiiit. How long were his fingers on it?”
“About three seconds.” I answered.
Snake nodded as he agreed with my reaction. Then he added, “Break his hand.”
I did.
Somehow that didn’t deter his girlfriend from following me upstairs. I stopped before unlocking Ashley’s room. “Show me your ID.”
“What?”
I gave her a moment of grace. Obviously, she was new. “I need to see your ID to make sure you’re over eighteen.”
“Oh, here. I’m twenty.” She tugged the plastic card out of the little purse she had dangling from her outfit.
I checked it, noting her name and address, and committed the information to memory. “Winter?” I asked, noting the similarity to my family’s penchant for odd names.
“That’s my name, what’s yours?”
She was fishing. “Wombat.”
“Winter and Wombat. Cute, no?”
Was it too late to take her back downstairs? “No, it ain’t. This is one night only. Got it?”
She nodded.
“Cool.” I waited to see if she’d reconsider.
She licked her lips and touched my chest. Her hand slipped between the opening of my vest carefully not touching the leather framing it. “I can do this, right? I’m not touching the vest.”
“Lower.”
Her smile flickered. But her fingers caressed the buckle on my belt. “Here?”
“Lower.”
That’s when she showed me teeth and her hand swept down my cock. Her caress stilled to frame the bulge and give it a light squeeze. “You’re big.”
Thick would be more apt. “Wanna find out how big?”
“Unlock the door, Wombat.”
Who was I to say no?