Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
“She’s alive and awake. That’s all I’ve got for you,” Prez tells me.
I’ve been worried sick about Daisy since Doc took off to Lonerock with her to leave her with Hot Mama.
Big Daddy’s crazy assed half sister that runs Queens of Anarchy.
She’s a fucking fruitcake. The only reason she’s alive is because they share the same blood.
Hot Mama used to be married to the Lonerock Prez, Smiley.
Rumor has it she killed him, but if you ask her, she says he ran off, and I wouldn’t dare ask her.
Just like her brother, she’d rather kill you than look at you.
She took over his club and patched in women. Though Animal and Wild Thing stayed on with her. They’re a throuple or some shit.
“When can I go see her?”
“That’s up to Hot Mama. You know how fucking weird she gets about men stepping foot past her gate.”
I do know, which means I’ve gotta learn to have more patience.
I don’t like it, but I understand. Knowing how crazy them bitches in Oregon are, they’d try to shove a crystal in my ass if I showed up unannounced.
Daisy needs extensive therapy. She has more trauma than I’m equipped to handle, but it doesn’t mean I don’t worry about her and want to protect her.
We’ve got other shit to worry about like the Depraved Sinners pushing against our territory, trying to start a fucking war.
“You need to get laid,” Wicked tells me.
Maybe he’s right.
I do need to get my mind off Daisy. All this stress isn’t good for the soul.
“She’s just a whore. You need to find yourself a good girl to settle down with.
” When Tyrant says it, I want to knock his teeth out.
Instead, I match him beer for beer until we’re both slurring our words out by the garage.
He’s a mean drunk, but I have a meaner punch, so we keep it civil.
It starts to rain. The shitty spring kind that’s less about cleansing and more about drowning everything.
I stand there, rain soaking through my shirt, and think of Daisy—Hope, whatever her name is.
With her sharp little bones and haunted doe eyes.
I’m losing my edge. I should be thinking about the Depraved Sinners.
About next week’s shipments. About the fact that my old man is finally hanging up his tool belt after forty years and trusting me not to tank the business.
Instead, all that’s pounding in my brain is the way Daisy fit against me in my bed.
The way she didn’t flinch at pain. The way she smiled at the lake.
The way she stepped into my shower and touched me like she needed me as badly as I wanted her.
We make little sense, yet somehow we fit.
Fucking hell.
I head back inside to take a shower and jerk off to the memory of Daisy, but it’s not as good as the real thing. It never is.
I’m not wild about the party at the clubhouse, but I’ll show my face for appearance’s sake.
A couple of the club girls are already riding some of the guys on the couches in the corners.
The music is loud enough to make my ears bleed.
Any other night, I’d be all for this chaotic scene.
I’d be joining them, but I still can’t shake the loss of Daisy.
It’s ridiculous. I hardly know her.
I grab a beer but can’t bring myself to down it as fast as I normally would.
Sissy keeps trying to sneak into the party. She’s wearing her shortest damn skirt, hoping someone gets drunk enough to take the bait. We never do. Hero spots her, and they share some heated words.
She finally disappears.
I take up a seat watching as a bunny by the name of Sugar works one of the poles. The bitch can move and has a big ol’ ass. She twerks it in my face, giving me all the signals she’s down to fuck.
“Why don’t we take this upstairs, and I’ll give you a private dance?” She teases at the sides of her thong, yanking the strings down to give me a glimpse of her bare pussy.
Taking her to my bed and fucking her brains out is what I should be doing, but I can’t find the appetite. All I can think about is the fact that a week ago I had Daisy in my bed and in my arms, even if it was temporary.
“Pathetic, man,” Tyrant razzes me. “I mean, look at that ass.” He whistles and pats his leg. Sugar drops her ass in his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck. He buries his beard in her fake tits.
For some damn reason, I can’t stomach the sight. I shove up from my chair and hit the bar where Toxic and Puck are chasing shots. I join them even if my heart isn’t in it.
Wicked shows up with more girls. I recognize one of them from Legends. Leah or Layla. I can’t remember. She slides up to me, hooking an arm around my waist. We went out once or twice last year, but nothing much came of it. “You ghosted me.”
“I think that was you. Got back with your boyfriend or some shit.”
“I’m not with him anymore.” She bats her lashes and smiles all sweet at me. “You going to offer me a drink or what?”
I lick my lips and hand her a shot. I’m finally catching a buzz and feeling alive again.
“Layla,” one of her girls calls her name. “Bathroom.”
She saunters off with her friend. “Got damn.” Toxic slaps me across the chest as we watch the two of them saunter away. He’s not wrong. Layla is gorgeous. Long, dark, silky hair. Gorgeous gray eyes. Legs for days and a rack to match her sweet ass.
I down another shot of tequila before she comes back. She returns to my side, and I have to admit she looks damn good on my arm.
“If I give you my number, are you going to call me this time?”
“That depends.”
“On what?” She leans up, getting in my face, close enough I could taste her lip gloss.
“Who’s going to answer? You or that boyfriend of yours?”
“Ha. Ha. Funny. That’s real cute.” She swats at my chest, and I grab her wrist.
“That’s what they say. I’m real fuckin’ cute.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I tell her, pulling her up against me. She leans in for the kiss first, but I initiate it.
Daisy’s voice echoes in the back of my mind. “I have a rule about no kissing.” I shove it down and throw away the key to her memories. Tonight I just want to feel something. Someone other than my own damn hand.
Layla and I make out by the bar for a bit, but eventually I take her upstairs to my room. We’re a flurry of fingers and tongues, ripping at each other’s clothes.
We don’t bother with the light and I’m too drunk to care.
She’s on top of me, hair spilling like a velvet curtain, bracing her hands on my chest. I let her grind against me and pretend I’m into it.
Lie to myself. Her moans sound like the word “more” being whispered over and over again by a an old school phone sex operator or porn star. She’s as fake as hr damn titties.
The sex is technically good, but it’s too vanilla.
Too easy. Layla’s skin is smooth, her hands practiced, but the friction I’d wanted.
The wild, raw connection. It isn’t there.
We move together, but she’s performing, and I guess so am I.
I keep waiting for her to bare her teeth, to try to break free, to scratch or even punch.
She just sighs and shifts under me, and at one point calls me “baby.” I finish mostly out of spite.
I roll as far away as I can, gripping the mattress until my knuckles hurt, wishing she’d leave.
Layla traces a finger over my chest and asks, “Was I what you needed?”
I force a “Sure,” but even I don’t buy it. She hums a satisfied noise to herself a little and heads for my bathroom. Probably to call and talk shit about me to her friend on the phone.
Left alone, I bury my face in the pillow. For a minute I let myself imagine it’s Daisy’s scent clinging to my sheets. Not Layla’s cheap perfume that gives me a damn headache.
Layla doesn’t stick around after. We both know I won’t call her.
She gathers her things and gives me a look that reads “thanks for the pity fuck” and disappears out the door.
I stare at the ceiling and wait for Daisy’s face to float out from the cracks in the plaster.
It doesn’t disappoint. She’s there, eyes half-lidded and dark with need.
The way she looked at me in the shower. And then the way she bled out in the dirt, thin arms clutching my knife.
I punch the wall behind my head, leaving a hole like the one in my heart.
The next few months pass by in a blur. I keep myself buried in work.
Hardcore and I took a trip to Arizona to build a barn.
My old man handed me the business. We went to war with the Depraved, but none of it has stopped me from thinking about Daisy.
I’ve chased easy pussy and liquor. Tried giving Layla a shot, but no matter how hard I tried, all I want is her.
The girl with those doe eyes and more emotional wounds than ought to be fair.
She’s all I fucking think about.
All this time she’s been with Hot Mama and her Queens.
I finally got permission to visit.
I’m riding out at first light.
The ride to Lonerock is dry and ugly, but bright enough to make the inside of my skull itch.
The highway’s nothing but a scar down an endless stretch of nothing.
The kind of road where you see your future squirming in the heat waves, and it looks exactly like your past and everything you’re trying to escape.
Bloody, dusty––nothing worth running for, but I still chase the next mile.
I chew the inside of my cheek to keep myself awake, to keep myself focused.
At every stoplight, I imagine Daisy standing there.
Sometimes holding that fucking knife. Sometimes just looking at me with those haunted eyes.
I try like hell not to rehearse a speech or a plan, but the thoughts creep in anyway.
I’m coming for you.
I’ll fix it.
Save you.
I’ll fucking burn it all down.
I’ll kill them all.
I take the turnoff following behind my club brothers and see the old church that’s been here as long as Lonerock has been a place. We drive through the weathered town. Most of the guys file off to check in at the motel. Not me though. There’s only one place I want to be.
The battered sign hanging on the front of a bar called Queens, that looks like it was written with lipstick with a bullet hole in the center of the Q, welcomes me.
I park my bike out front next to a few others. The happy hour crowd has already gotten their start.
Meeting Daisy here after not seeing her for months isn’t ideal, but in Lonerock, Hot Mama’s word is law.
I grab the strawberry plushie I bought at a gas station from my saddlebag, then shove it back in. I don’t even know why I bought it. I guess it made me think of Daisy and her love for strawberry ice cream.
The front door of the bar swings open and some old drunk fool rolls out on his ass as a Queen of Anarchy bitch stares him down with the barrel of her shotgun.