1. Ethan
Ethan
We're having a Christmas party at the clubhouse tonight. The parties are always raucous and fun, but tonight is different, especially for me.
My brothers in the Black Saints have old ladies, and some of them have kids now too.
I'm still a prospect, still earning my cut one job at a time, and tonight I'm doing something I've never done before. I'm bringing a woman home to meet my family. I know it’s against the Prospect rules, but I’m hoping they overlook it this time, just like the did with Spook and Abby.
I find Brick out by the garage, going over the guest list with Cam like it's a military operation. He doesn't look up when I walk over, just keeps talking to her about kegs and ice.
"Prospect." He says it the way he always does: flat, with no ceremony to it. "Kegs need setting up. Then you're on whiskey and vodka duty, bring the bottles up from the cellar. Cam's run off her feet already."
"On it."
I turn to go, and he says my name this time, not Prospect. Just, “Ethan." I stop. He's still not looking at me. He's checking something off on Cam's list, but there's a beat where he doesn't say anything else, and I know him well enough now to know that's not nothing.
"You good?" he asks finally. Two words. That's it. That's as close as my father gets to asking if I'm nervous about tonight, and somehow it lands harder than if he'd said more.
"Yeah. I'm good."
He nods once, like that settles it, and goes back to the list. He's never been a man who tells you how to feel about something, not even when it's his own son standing in front of him about to bring a woman into this life for the first time.
He didn't raise me in this club, not really.
I came to him at twenty-one and told him I wanted to prospect, old enough by then to make my own choices and live with them, but I had to earn my place the same as anybody else walking through that gate.
I used to think that meant something was missing between us.
I don't think that anymore. I think it means when he does say something, it's the truth and nothing but.
Nerd catches up to me at the cellar door, already hauling two cases of whiskey like it's nothing, grinning that easy grin he's had since the day he walked through the gate a few months behind me. "Big night, huh? Brick finally letting you bring a girl around."
"Don't remind me. I'm nervous enough without you making it a thing."
"Not making it a thing. Just saying, took you long enough.
" He bumps my shoulder with his, friendly, the kind of easy camaraderie that's gotten us both through more bad prospect duty than either of us would admit to out loud.
"Whatever she's like, she's gotta be somebody special if she's got you actually cleaning the cellar without being told twice. "
"She is." I can't help the grin that gets away from me. "You'll meet her tonight. Try not to embarrass me."
"No promises." He laughs, hauling his cases up the stairs ahead of me. "Somebody's gotta keep this club honest. Might as well be me."
I get the kegs set, haul the bottles up from the cellar, and by the time I'm done my shirt's stuck to my back and I've got twenty minutes to shower before I need to go get Cassie. I take the stairs two at a time.
I've been seeing her for a few months now, and I know she's the one. Tonight I’m going to introduce her to my brothers, get her folded into my life here, and then everything else can start falling into place. Cassie's beautiful. She’s curvy, soft in all the ways I want to hold onto, and she’s mine.
I just need everybody else to see what I already know.
I call her on my way out to the bike. "Hey babe, I'm coming to get you on the bike. Hope you've got something warm, it's the only transport I've got tonight."
"You know I love the back of your bike, Ethan," she says, and I can hear the smile in it.
"You're staying over. Hope you know that already. I'm gonna enjoy waking up with you in my bed."
"Can't wait."
I fire up my bike and ride to her place, the cold biting through my jacket the whole way there.
Her house never has much in it. It’s like she just moved in yesterday, even though I know for a fact she's been there a few months now.
It used to bother me, wondering what it meant that she never hung a picture or bought a rug, as if some part of her was still deciding whether she was staying.
I don't let it bother me anymore. I've decided for both of us.
She's moving into the clubhouse with me soon.
I just need to find the right way to ask so it doesn't spook her.
She's waiting on the step when I pull up, and she comes down the stairs fast. She wraps herself around my neck before I've even got the kickstand down. "I could get used to greetings like that, Cass."
"Me too, Ethan." She lets me go and climbs on behind me, her arms locking around my waist, and her cheek against my back.
"You remember what I told you? Lean with the bike, not against it.
Trust it to hold you." I said it to her the first time I ever got her on the back of this thing, back before I'd even kissed her, and she'd laughed at me like it was the strangest offer she'd ever gotten.
She doesn't laugh now. She just tightens her arms and leans when I lean, easy, like her body learned the trust before the rest of her caught up.
"Hold tight." I gun the engine and feel her shiver against my back, and I grin the whole way to the clubhouse thinking about how long I'm going to last at this party before I take her upstairs.
We pull up and she climbs off first, a little unsteady, and maybe a little nervous. "You okay, babe?"
"Yeah. I've just never been inside a MC clubhouse before."
"It's gonna be fine. Nobody's gonna hurt you. You stick with me and I'll walk you through everybody." I take her hand and she wraps her other one around my arm on top of it, holding on with both hands like she needs the extra grip.
We walk in and the party's already loud, there are string lights that I helped to hang, and a tree somebody's decorated with empty shot glasses instead of ornaments. The whole clubhouse smells like pine and spilled beer. "What do you think?" I ask her, steering her toward the bar.
"Wow. There's a lot of people here." She's doing that thing she does, cataloguing the room, and I don't think much of it. I figure anybody would in a room this loud and this new to them.
"What are you drinking?" Cam calls out from behind the bar.
"I'll take a beer, Cam. Cassie?"
"Beer's good, thank you."
"Coming right up. And welcome to the Black Saints Christmas party, glad to see you're a real person and not just something Ethan made up to get out of talking to the club whores." Cam winks, and I shoot her a look. She holds both hands up, laughing, and slides two beers across the bar.
"Have you told people about me?" Cassie asks, leaning into my side.
"Of course I have, you're my woman." I kiss the top of her head and she blushes, the way she always does. It’s like she still isn't sure she's allowed to be somebody's.
We find a spot near the other prospects, and I introduce her around, and she says hi to everybody with that careful smile she gets around new people. Prez finds us before we've even sat down.
"This your woman?"
"Yeah. Prez, this is Cassie."
He shakes her hand easily, but I catch him giving her the same once-over he gives every new face that walks through the door. He’s cataloguing and filing her face away to possibly use at a later date. "Good to finally meet you. Was starting to think he'd invented you."
His eyes flick to me for half a second, and I brace for the rule to actually get said out loud for once instead of just hanging over my head. "You know prospects aren't supposed to be bringing anybody around till they've patched in."
"I know, Prez. I'm hoping you'll let it slide. Same as you did for Spook and Abby."
"Spook had a woman who'd just survived something no club could turn its back on. That's a different kind of exception." He studies Cassie a beat longer, not unkind about it, just weighing something.
"We'll talk. Not tonight. Enjoy the party." He claps my shoulder once, harder than he needs to, and I understand it as a warning wrapped up as a pat on the back. Tonight, I get to have this. Tomorrow, I might have to answer for it.
"Seems to be the running theory tonight," she says, he laughs and heads off toward Rosie, wrapping an arm around her and kissing her temple.
"He seems nice."
"They all are. They’re good brothers. They'd tear the world apart to protect their own and their women, and that includes you now."
"I like the family feeling here," she says softly, almost sadly, and something flickers over her face before she smooths it back down.
"What about your family? You close with them?" I've asked before. She always finds a way to avoid talking about it.
"I don't want to talk about them tonight. It'll spoil the evening." She looks up at me, and there's something behind her eyes I can't name, something old and tired that doesn't match the rest of her, and I'd give anything in the world to make it go away.
"Okay. We don't have to." I kiss her temple and let it go, the same as I always do. Some people have things they want to keep hidden, especially in a new relationship. I just hope that one day she will be happy to talk to me about her family.
The old ladies pull her off to dance a while later, and I watch her laughing with Rosie, Meg and Cam.
Her head is thrown back, and something in my chest goes tight and warm at the same time.
I look for Brick without meaning to. He's over by the bar, his arms are crossed, and he’s watching the room the way he always does.
For a second his eyes land on both me and Cassie, and something moves across his face that I don't have a name for either.
Then he looks away, back to the room, back to being Brick.
Brax and Shadow find me while I'm still watching her dance.