Chapter 12
Reeze stopped just outside the bar and rested a hand against Charlie’s back.
“Wait here a second.”
She nodded and stayed where she was while he looked around the room. It didn’t take him long to spot Mia behind the bar, glass in hand as she leaned towards a customer and laughed at something he had said. The moment she noticed Reeze, however, her attention shifted almost immediately to Charlie.
There was nothing suspicious or disapproving in the look, but it was assessing in that quick, efficient way that made Charlie feel as though the woman had already registered considerably more than she would have liked to reveal.
“Mia,” Reeze called, gesturing towards her. “This is Charlie.”
Mia came around the bar without any particular hurry.
She wore tight jeans, a vest top and a plain leather waistcoat without patches, but despite the lack of markings there was absolutely no doubt that she belonged here.
She moved through the clubhouse with the same easy confidence as the men in cuts, and when she stopped in front of Charlie, she gave her one quick look from head to toe.
“Well,” she said with a smile. “So you’re Charlie.”
Charlie barely had time to open her mouth before Mia took her lightly by the arm.
“Come on. You look like you need to sit down before one of these idiots scares the life out of you.”
“I’m fine...” Charlie began, but Mia clearly wasn’t interested in arguing about it and simply guided her towards a corner of the sofa slightly removed from the worst of the commotion.
It wasn’t hidden away, but it was far enough from the main flow of people that Charlie could see most of what was happening without feeling as though she were standing in the middle of it.
“Sit,” Mia ordered, nudging her down amongst the cushions before settling beside her. “Good. Now breathe.”
Charlie did as she was told, mostly because Mia had the sort of tone that suggested discussion would be a waste of everybody’s time.
“You’re safe here,” Mia continued, making a small gesture towards the room around them. “Stay where Reeze left you, and don’t accept drinks from strangers who smile too much.”
“Okay.”
“Good. Then we can begin.”
Mia crossed one leg over the other and leaned back comfortably before she started pointing out the people around them, apparently fully aware that Charlie had been trying to work out exactly the same thing by herself since the moment she walked through the door.
“Rollo. Grey-haired one over there with the look that can make people start apologising without knowing what they’ve done. President. Also my husband.”
Charlie followed her gaze towards the man standing a little farther away.
She had seen him before, but somehow he didn’t quite fit the image she had carried in her head of the president of a motorcycle club.
He looked surprisingly calm, almost like a man who could just as easily have been sitting on a veranda with a cup of coffee discussing the weather.
“Looks harmless, doesn’t he?” Mia asked, amusement creeping into her voice when she noticed Charlie’s expression. “That’s because you’ve never seen him when a prospect has done something really fucking stupid.”
Charlie smiled cautiously and watched him for another few seconds before letting her gaze wander farther around the room. There was still so much to take in that she barely knew where to look first, and Mia seemed to understand exactly what was happening in her head.
“You’re trying to understand everything, aren’t you?”
“Is it that obvious?” Charlie asked with an embarrassed laugh.
“Babe, you look exactly like I did the first time I walked in here.”
Charlie raised her eyebrows and turned towards her.
“You?”
“Yep. Thought every last one of them was fucking insane.”
Charlie looked around again at the men in cuts, the women who seemed to know everyone, the music and laughter, the strange mixture of chaos and order that she still couldn’t quite make sense of.
“I’m still not entirely convinced you aren’t.”
Mia burst out laughing.
“No, you’re probably right about that.”
Charlie couldn’t help laughing with her, and some of the tension inside her began to ease. Not all of it, but enough that she no longer felt as though she had to brace herself for something unexpected every few seconds.
Her gaze drifted towards Reeze.
He was standing several metres away with Billy and two other men, hands tucked into his pockets as they talked, looking completely at ease.
Yet she noticed that his attention kept returning to her, his eyes finding her every so often as though he needed to check that she was still there and that everything was all right.
“Everyone seems to listen to him,” she said after a while.
Mia followed her gaze.
“Reeze?”
Charlie nodded. “He seems...” She searched for the right word. “Important.”
Mia’s smile widened.
“Don’t ever say that where he can hear you. He’ll be fucking unbearable.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
Mia took a sip of her drink before looking towards him again.
“He’s Master at Arms.”
“I know roughly what that means. I asked him about the patch earlier.”
“And I’m guessing he gave you the shortest possible explanation.”
Charlie laughed.
“He said he’s responsible for security and the rules, and that he gets into a bad mood when people fuck up.”
“Yeah, that sounds like Reeze.”
Mia shook her head in amusement and set down her glass.
“If Rollo decides where the club is going and Billy makes sure everybody gets there, Reeze is the one who makes sure nobody burns the fucking road down on the way.”
Charlie blinked at her.
“That sounded very cryptic.”
“Yeah, I heard it as soon as I said it.”
Mia laughed and tried again.
“He’s responsible for security and discipline, and for making sure the club rules are followed. If someone causes trouble, Reeze is usually the one who has to deal with it. That patch isn’t there because it looks good on his cut. He carries a hell of a lot of responsibility for everyone in here.”
Charlie let her gaze settle on him again.
Back at the flats, she had mostly seen Molly’s father. The man who made pancakes, teased his daughter and kissed Charlie in her kitchen. Here, the people around him clearly saw something else as well, and she was slowly beginning to understand why.
“So he’s dangerous?”
Mia was silent for a moment, her eyes still on Reeze, before she shook her head.
“No. Reeze isn’t dangerous.”
Charlie looked at her in surprise.
Mia smiled and nodded towards the men around them.
“He’s the man they send when something dangerous needs dealing with.”
The distinction hit Charlie harder than she had expected, and suddenly she understood why Josh had photographed that particular patch.
It told him far more than she had realised at first.
Mia continued pointing out people around the room.
The man laughing far too loudly was Mark, who apparently always had a plan and at least half of those plans were usually terrible.
Jesse, standing a little farther away with his arms folded across his chest, handled the club’s money and rarely said much but listened to everything.
Charlie tried to memorise names, faces and roles, but eventually gave up on getting everything right the first time.
“You think too much,” Mia observed.
“I’m a journalist.”
“Yeah. I’m beginning to notice.”
Charlie smiled and let her gaze wander through the room again.
It was actually the women who confused her most. Some were sitting together around a table, laughing loudly, while another had settled herself on a biker’s lap at the bar as though it were the most natural chair in the building.
“So...” Charlie began cautiously. “How does all of that work?”
Mia followed her gaze and laughed.
“Welcome to the question every woman asks the first time she walks into a clubhouse. Simplest version? There are about four kinds of women around a club.”
“Four?”
“Mm. First, you’ve got the old ladies. Wives, girlfriends, women who are properly with someone. They don’t have to be married, but everybody knows who they’re with.”
She nodded towards Rollo.
“Like me and that grumpy bastard.”
Charlie smiled. Whatever Mia called him, the affection between them was impossible to miss.
“Or like you and Reeze, if you two keep heading in the direction you seem to be going.”
Heat immediately rushed into Charlie’s cheeks and Mia started laughing.
“Yeah. That reaction tells me everything I need to know.”
“We’ve known each other for about two minutes.”
“Babe, I’ve spent most of my life around bikers. I don’t need two minutes. Two seconds usually does it.”
Charlie shook her head, unable to stop herself from laughing.
Mia went on to explain the women who wanted to become old ladies but weren’t quite there yet, the ones seeing someone in the club or trying to work out whether there was anything real between them.
“That’s also where a hell of a lot of drama starts,” she added.
“Of course.”
“Of course.”
Then came the patch bunnies, which made Charlie raise her eyebrows.
“I’m almost afraid to ask.”
“Girls who chase patches. Cuts, club patches, bikers.” Mia shrugged. “Some people collect stamps. Some collect men on motorcycles.”
Charlie had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing.
“You’ll find them around every club.”
“And the fourth?”
Mia’s expression became slightly more serious.
“Pass-arounds. They don’t belong to anyone and they don’t want to. They sleep with whoever they want, whenever they want, and there’s nothing wrong with that. People can do whatever the fuck they like.”
She paused, and Charlie immediately realised there was a but coming.
“But?”
Mia gave her a meaningful look.
“Sometimes people forget to check whether the man they’re planning to take home already has an old lady.”
“Ah.”
“Exactly. Then things can get fucking messy. Jealousy, misunderstandings, fights. I’ve seen all of it.”
Mia leaned slightly closer, her voice becoming softer.