Chapter 18
Jordan
“Jordan! Hey. Fancy seeing you here.” Kit gave me a mischievous smile.
That look told me she wasn’t at all surprised to see me here. I blushed at the implications of that. Knowing that Ricochet was talking to his friends and family about me caused equal parts delight and worry to work their way through my mind.
Kit quickly introduced the other women she was with, then motioned for us to follow her. “I’m making mojitos,” she announced as we headed toward the bar.
Seek groaned. “I love mojitos. That’s not fair.”
“Sorry, Girlie, you’ll just have to wait until after you pop that baby out.”
We all laughed at Kit’s wording. We were closing in on the bar, and the group of bikers having their meeting, when one of the women, I think her name was Susie, called out to one of two men walking our way.
“Done with your meeting?” she asked as he approached.
“Our part of it.”
“Good. You have kid patrol.”
His jaw dropped and horror washed over his face. “All of them?”
“Don’t worry, Dash, Bear will help you,” Daisha—I remembered her name because it was so unique—said, offering up Tori’s old man as a helpmate. She gave the man a huge, innocent smile
The men just shrugged and Bear took Tori’s baby from her before they walked back toward where the kids were playing. Seeing these huge burly guys with kids surrounding them made me smile. It was actually really sweet. And it was just as clear they were over the moon for the kids.
I looked around as we walked into the bar. It looked exactly like I’d expect a biker bar to look. Kit flicked on the lights and got busy behind the bar. Sitting on one of the stools, I smiled at the others, feeling a bit awkward as all attention turned to me.
“Tell us everything about yourself,” Jenny requested.
My eyes widened. “Um. There’s really not a lot to tell…”
“Oh please,” Tori said, waving a hand at me, “you managed to catch Ricochet’s eye.”
The tone in which she said it made me curious. “That doesn’t happen much?”
“Girl. I’ve known Ricochet since he prospected into this club and I’ve never seen him bring a woman to one of our barbecues,” Kit told me with a significant look.
“Bringing you to the barbecue is his way of claiming you,” Seek told me with an air of confidence.
I watched in shock and a bit of disgust as she lifted up a bottle of lime juice and poured some of it into her mouth. We were all watching her in utter bewilderment.
“Sorry,” she said, a sheepish look on her face. “I’ve been craving really sour things lately.”
“I don’t know how you just downed that.” Susie shook her head.
“What do you mean, claiming?” I asked, getting back to the matter at hand. “He’s mentioned stuff like that before. That I belonged to him-”
The others started laughing and giving each other knowing looks. “When did he tell you that?” Kit asked.
“The day you were at the house…”
I watched as five of the six women groaned and Kit whooped with delight.
“I win!” she declared.
“Win what?” I asked in confusion.
They all gave me looks of shame, though their eyes were sparkling, so whatever it was they didn’t feel that badly about it. “We bet on how long it would take for him to claim you,” Daisha told me.
My mouth dropped open. “How did you even know about me?”
“Kit told us everything,” Jenny replied.
“I knew from the minute I met you that Ricochet was interested,” Kit stated. “Partly because my brother let it slip, but I also caught him staring at you. It was more than just checking you out, he was hooked.”
My cheeks heated with embarrassment. “We’re not dating or anything.”
“That’s what you think,” Tori said with a snicker of laughter.
“We’re just getting to know one another.”
They all just blinked slowly at me, like owls.
“He agreed to that?” Seek asked, looking dumbfounded. “The boy must be in love.”
“I- Look,” I said with a sigh when the silence stretched on, begging for an explanation, “I’m not ready for whatever…this…is.”
“It’s a lot,” Jenny admitted. She frowned at me. “Do you know what you’ve gotten yourself into here?”
“What do you mean?”
Seek and Jenny gave each other pointed looks. Then Seek sighed. “Will Ricochet mind if we fill her in?” she asked Kit.
The woman behind the bar shook her head. “He’s hoping we will, guaranteed. There are some things that are just easier to hear coming from old ladies.”
“Who’s old lady are you?” I asked her.
Kit shook her head. “My dad was a part of this club way back when. Since Smoke is a member now, Lockout lets me hang around, but I don’t belong to anyone.”
There was a glimmer of sadness in her eyes. I wondered if she had her eye on someone? Was that why she seemed disappointed that she wasn’t an old lady? I didn’t say anything. She didn’t seem to want anyone to know about it, because she quickly turned away to hide her expression.
“This is going to take some time,” Jenny said.
“Good thing we have all night,” Susie chirped.
“And plenty of drinks,” Kit said, setting a pitcher of mojitos in front of us.
Looking around, I gave them an uncertain smile. For some reason I knew I was going to come to love these women. That didn’t mean I was completely on board with what all that entailed.
* * *
My eyelids were heavy as we polished off another pitcher of mojitos.
The last time I drank was with Gwen on her birthday last year.
We’d both sworn off alcohol for a while after that night.
I smiled as I remembered the way we’d stumbled into her home shushing each other and giggling, so we didn’t wake the kids.
The babysitter had put us to bed and I’d been passed out in the guest bedroom before she’d made it out the front door.
Even with the amount of alcohol we’d consumed, I had a decent buzz going.
Just enough to be relaxed and no longer self-conscious, but I was heading toward drunk and somehow the cup in front of me kept refilling itself.
These women had been telling me some of what I needed to know about the club life.
There were so many rules. Thankfully, most of them applied to the men, but the old ladies had a few as well.
Something I would need to know if I decided to take Ricochet up on his claim.
Though the girls didn’t seem to think I had much choice in the matter.
I’d found out that meant he was telling his brothers that I was off limits and belonged to him.
Really that should disgust me, I wasn’t property after all, but according to these women, I was.
Ricochet’s property. Why did that make my heart jump for joy?
And my core clench in anticipation? It was ridiculous to be happy that someone wanted to claim me, but he was so damn handsome, and sweet, and demanding, and…
and…sexy. I sighed, resting my chin on my hand.
The women surrounding me gave each other knowing looks. “So why are you making him wait, Honey?” Susie asked.
I straightened up, looking around at their curious faces.
Deep down, I knew I could tell them anything.
They’d already explained the girl-code between old ladies—and that it didn’t apply to the sweet butts.
The woman I’d seen earlier had been one.
They hung around, hoping to get a biker to make them an old lady.
I couldn’t blame them. These men had a huge appeal.
All decked out in leather and tattoos, looking as good as…
Someone cleared their throat and I laughed. “Sorry. Uh…” I couldn’t tell them my hang ups before I told Ricochet. That just didn’t seem right. “I had an asshole ex,” I settled on telling them the partial truth. What Dan had done to me was so much worse, but that was a story for another day.
All their eyes softened. It drove away the unease. “It’s made me a little hesitant to trust men again.”
“How old are you?” Seek asked. “You look too young to have been through heartbreak.”
I laughed. “I’m twenty-five. Plenty old enough.”
They nodded. “Pretty sure we all have dickhead exes in our pasts somewhere,” Kit said. She gave me a pointed look. “No reason to resist a man who’d hang the moon for you.”
“No. I guess not. The problem is, how do you know that’s the kind of man he is? How can I trust that?”
“That’s fair enough,” Jenny retorted. “You don’t know Ricochet very well yet.
I was hesitant at first too, when I met Priest. Ran out of the Austin Chapter clubhouse the next morning ‘cause I couldn’t believe I’d stayed the night.
I hadn’t meant to.” She laughed at all the whistles and catcalls.
“I didn’t sleep with him. Well, have sex with him,” she replied in a prim tone.
“I have a question.”
The women settled down and focused on me, though Jenny’s cheeks were still pink from all the teasing.
“Gwen told me that Ricochet would…kill…for me.” I tucked my hair behind my ears and leaned forward on my elbows on the bar top. “She wouldn’t really elaborate. But she was very specific with her words.”
It was like all the humor had been sucked out of the room. No one was really looking at me. Tori, Susie, and Daisha were studying the bar top, while the other three seemed to be having a silent conversation with each other.
“That’s hard to explain,” Kit hedged.
“It’s sort of best to let Ricochet tell you about that himself,” Jenny agreed.
“There are certain things that only old ladies are allowed to know,” Seek said, expanding on what they were saying. “And there are things even we aren’t allowed to know.”
“Something you have to understand about these men is they are fiercely loyal, to their family, to their community, but especially to each other. You guys may be their wives and girlfriends, but you’re not members,” Kit told me.
There wasn’t anything mean in her tone, just honesty.
And a seriousness that was not meant to be questioned.
I understood what they meant. Gwen had mentioned that Ricochet and all his MC brothers had been in the military. It seemed to reason that they would look for another brotherhood like that one. “Are women allowed to join?” I asked.
“Not this club. There are some all-female MCs out there, though,” Tori replied.
Not that I wanted to join an MC or anything. Mostly I just wanted to learn everything I could about the man who’d caught my unwilling attention. His life was fascinating. I hadn’t known anything like it.
“Us old ladies—and honorary sisters—” Seek said, giving Kit a soft smile “sort of have a club of our own, though. We’ll be there for you through thick and thin.”
My heart softened even more. I loved the idea of that.
I had my family, and Gwen and her kids, but I didn’t have a close knit group of friends anymore, not since we’d all graduated high school and sort of went our separate ways.
It was hard to make friends as an adult.
The idea that I’d have a built in circle of friends was a huge check in the plus column.
It wasn’t enough to completely change my mind, but it was a nice bonus.
“I get that there will be things that he can’t tell me,” I said. “He already explained that. But part of the problem I had with the ex was the lying and manipulating.” And that was only scratching the surface.
“Ricochet won’t do that,” Seek promised.
“None of them do. Secrets, yes, by necessity. But never any lies. Whenever there’s something Hush can’t tell me, he just says so in no uncertain terms.” She cleared her throat and deepened her voice.
“Woman. You know I can’t tell you what that meetin’ was about. ”
Having met Hush earlier, I laughed at her impression. She’d done a pretty good job.
“Talk with him about it,” Jenny suggested. “Explain to him you’d rather he tells you that it’s not allowed, than to lie.”
“A lot of the time they don’t tell us things that would implicate us if the cops came sniffing around,” Daisha said. Her eyes widened as the realization of what she said sank in.
“Cops?” I asked, looking around at them.
“Why would the cops be…” Understanding dawned.
“Wait.” The conversation at Gwen’s dinner party echoed through my mind.
Specifically, what Trent had been saying.
“Are these guys criminals?” When Gwen’s ex had thrown that out there I’d just thought he was trying to rile up Ricochet. Was it true?
“I think that’s my cue to have a talk with my date.”
Cringing as the deep voice interrupted our little bubble of solitude, I glanced over my shoulder and met Ricochet’s gaze. Uh oh. He looked upset.
“Don’t worry,” Kit told me as she came around the bar and hugged me. “His bark is worse than his bite.”
“At least where you’re concerned,” Seek agreed and she wrapped me in a hug. Her belly bumped mine.
They passed me around, one by one, giving me hugs. It was meant to be supportive, but really it was just coming off like I was headed to the gallows.
I walked over to Ricochet, looking down at his strong, calloused hand as he held it out to me. Wrapping my fingers in his, I glanced over my shoulder and gave my new friends a weak smile. They waved at me as he pulled me out of the bar.