Under Locke (11 page)

When Slim gave me the chance to get out of there so I could avoid being in Dex The Dick’s general vicinity, I took it. I changed as quickly as I could—because you don’t go to a bar owned by bikers wearing business casual.

Now that I was more familiarized with the area, I realized the bar was just two blocks down from Pins and the body shop Sonny worked at. It seemed like the entire
city mile
was Widowmakers' territory. There were a handful loitering around outside with my brother in their midst.

Old, still smelling strongly of cigarettes, pee, and beer, Mayhem had new upgrades like flat screen televisions mounted on the wall and new pool tables lined up far from the entrance that clashed with the old bar. The lights were dim, the place was as loud and crowded as it'd been two weeks before. And for some strange reason, I didn't feel completely awkward there like I usually did when I'd gone to bars with Lanie.

This in itself said something because in the first five minutes I was inside, someone had broken off a bottle against the edge of the counter and held it up to someone else's throat before t
wo Club members
split them up.

Sonny and I walked around the floor. I smiled and waved at some of the people he'd introduced me to the last time. People who knew the complicated web of our lives thanks to an irresponsible former Widow.

And apparently, because I was getting so chummy with strangers who were a little interested to meet a former member's daughter, Sonny thought it'd be fine to leave me.

The horny bastard said he’d be right back, and thirty minutes later, he wasn’t. I’d seen him spying some brunette across the bar before pulling a Las Vegas magic show act on me and disappearing.

What was a girl who didn’t really know anyone supposed to do? Sit her ass at the bar, watch, and wait.

And watch and wait was what I did. About a quarter of the people boozing and being really friggin' loud were dressed like Luther and Trip: jeans, a t-shirt, and a black leather vest with multitudes of patches. And so many tattoos I didn't know where to begin looking. I could still remember the WMC insignia my dad had worn proudly until he'd gotten it covered up one day randomly. I was never sure what had officially cut his affiliations wi
th the Club after nearly a decade of living away from Austin but honestly, I didn’t give a crap.

Not a single one.

The other half of the people milling around Mayhem doing shots, yelling, laughing, and smoking something I had a feeling wasn’t legal in the corner, were still pretty rough looking. 

Glancing around, I’d never seen so many tattoos, leather, and facial hair in my life—and that was just the men.

The women were all around mid-to-late twenties and older. Their skin and hair colors ranged across the color spectrum. Clothes were obviously optional after I’d seen a couple women flash their boobs just for the hell of it.

It totally made sense to me right then why my
m
om had hightailed it back to Florida when she found out she was pregnant with me. In the ten minutes that followed the first broken-bottle-to-the-throat incident, someone got socked in the face. What did I do? I sat there and watched.

Maybe I
should have
felt aw
k
ward and out of place. I was used to being alone and I didn't mind it. But even though the men were loud, burly, and kind of intimidating and overbearing, I liked listening to their laughs and voices.

I found myself alone, nursing a glass of orange juice Sonny had ordered for me, and people-watching. It was like my senior prom all over again minus the fancy dress, orange juice, and smoking.

The guys from the shop hadn’t shown up yet, and at that point, I was desperate enough to attach myself at the hip to any of them. Well, with the exception of Dex.

“Iris.”

I whipped around to spot Trip making his way toward the part of the bar I was at, dressed in a nearly identical outfit as the one from the day before. He was also either on his way to Shit-Facedville based on the glazed look in his eyes, or already there.

“What are you doin’ here all by yourself, pretty Iris?” he drawled lazily, stopping to the side of me.

“Waiting on Sonny,” I told him with a smile, but really, I was making sure he wasn’t a belligerent drunk. Or worse, someone with a weak stomach. He hadn't been last time we stopped in but you could never be too sure. Getting thrown up on wasn’t on my list of things I’d like to suffer through any time soon.

He tisked. “Saw him go off with Tiff. Might be awhile.”

I made a face because seriously, that was gross. “Well, I’ll wait for him a little bit longer.”

Trip backed up to sit on top of empty stool to my left. “Not much of a party girl, eh?”

“Not really.” I never had been. When I turned twenty-one, Lanie and I had bought a bottle of boxed wine to celebrate an age I wasn't sure I'd make it to. So it wasn't a surprise that we'd celebrated way too much. The next morning, when I was hunched over the toilet seat puking my guts out, I swore I’d never do it again. Three years later, I’d kept my word. On the rare occasion I'd drink half a beer or maybe a glass of wine.

Party animal, I know.

His fingers swept over the sides of his mouth, brushing the yellowish hair of his goatee. The look on his face was pure sin. “I’ll keep you company then.”

“Why thank you.” I shot him a smile, still keeping an eye on his mouth's movement to catch any gag reflexes though I was grateful to have someone to talk to. “If I start to bore you, feel free to go hang out with other people.”

Trip rolled his eyes and pressed the bottle to his mouth for a long drink. “Whatever you say, baby.” He smirked. "You likin' the new job?"

Not wanting to be rude but also not wanting to lie, I shrugged a shoulder. "It's coming along, but I'm still looking for another one."

He leaned toward me. His face serious. "Dex bein' a dick?"

I didn't mean to do it but the laugh just kind of burst out of my chest. Wasn't Dex the first person Blake thought of when he saw someone had upset me? That should
ha
ve been a sign of what I was getting myself into. If Trip immediately guessed, I could only imagine what that guy must have done to earn a reputation of pissing people off.

"Why you laughin'? I'm right, aren't I?" Trip grinned.

I had a record for putting my foot in my mouth so I shrugged instead, still laughing just a little bit.

It was Trip's turn to shrug. "He's as moody as can fuckin' be, baby. Always got somethin' up his ass."

So, so true. But I wouldn't admit it outright like that. They were friends, after all. It would be like me hearing someone call Lanie a bitch. I could call her a bitch but no one else could. "He definitely had something living up there a few days ago."

Blonde brows rose. "
Was it his dad’s shit
?"

"I have no idea." But I wo
n
dered for all of a second what
had been the cause.
T
hen I realized I didn't give
care because it didn’t matter. A dick is a dick.

"You tell me if he's givin' you a hard time," Trip said. "I'll beat the dumbfuck out of him." His blue eyes flicked to the
side. “He’s got so much in him, it’ll take a while.”

Something really reassuring settled in my chest at his offer. I couldn't help but nod and pat his arm. "Sonny called his kneecaps, you can have the rest of him."

He chuckled. His eyes had drifted down to where my hand rested on his forearm, his gaze sliding up and over my elbow, stopping on my bicep. My sleeve had rode up my arm at some point. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his hand clench open and close. His baby blue eyes flicked up to mine, his expression confused and curious.

Trip's lips parted for a moment before closing. Once, twice, three times.

I'd done this enough times to know what he wanted. Where his confusion stemmed from. Extending my arm out so he could take a better look at the scarring, he winced and instinctively reached out to touch it. It wasn't a good-looking scar. The flesh looked gnarled and silver-white against my healthy skin. After four different surgeries, I'd stopped caring what it looked like. Seeing it in the mirror didn't bother me anymore but I hated the looks I'd get from people.

Like I was broken.

Like there was something wrong with me.

I lost the name my mom had so carefully chosen and became a medical term.

A hand came down to smack Trip's fingers away. "What the hell are you doing?" Sonny asked, pushing himself between our two stools, his amber eyes going back and forth between Trip and I.

Trip didn't even seem bothered by Sonny's reaction. The look on his face was a little relaxed and a little more confused. "Hangin' out," he answered vaguely, keeping his
gaze
on Sonny.

Sonny narrowed his light colored eyes at his friend before turning his attention to me and pulling down my shirt sleeve as if it were a sec
o
nd thought. There were times when I'd catch him looking at my arm with an expression of pure, painful remorse. Like it'd been his fault that I'd gotten sick. Or maybe it hurt him to see it. I didn't know and I wouldn't ask. If I didn
’t make a big deal out of it—AKA pretend there was nothing different—no one else would either.

"Ris, I'm going out for a minute with a friend," he whispered into my ear, putting both hands on my shoulders and squeezing.

A minute? Ha.

I tilted my gaze up to look at him over my shoulder. There was a pretty brunette standing just behind him, a possessive hand clasped on his arm. Interesting. "Okay. Is it fine if I go home or do you want me to hang out here awhile?"

He smirked and squeezed his grip. "You can go home. I'll be there later." The gross ass smirked again. "Way later."

I faked a shudder.

With more pressure to my shoulder, I saw him reach out to slap Trip on the back. He gave him a hard look that I didn't understand before disappearing into the crowd behind us.

A
woman squeal loudly to my right and I found Luther leaning against a high counte
r
top table with a young—probably around my age—girl tucked on his lap.

Gross.

Trip must have recognized the look in my eye because he laughed, either forgetting all about what he'd seen or choosing to push his question aside. “You get used to it.”

Not trying to be rude because obviously Trip knew Luther, I covered my dry gag by looking at him out of the corner of my eye. “But she’s… young enough to be his daughter.”

“She’s younger than his son, baby.”

I sucked in a breath way too loudly that made Trip smile wide. “But… but… how? Why?” Luther wasn’t going to win any awards in the beauty department. He wasn’t one of those men who had gotten better with age, or even aged gracefully. He was okay looking but that was as far as I’d compliment him.

Trip looked at me with a straight face and laughed, his beer bottle shaking in his hand. Once he settled down, he shook his head. “Because some girls don’t care if a man’s old enough to be their daddy as long as he’s the Prez.”

“The Prez?”

Trip nodded.

What the hell was the Prez? Even if he was the President of the United States, I’d have to get paid at least a few grand to go anywhere near his lap.
Yuck.

“The
Widows
?”

Trip slapped a hand over the right side of his leather vest over where the white patch was stitched. “What else would he be the president of?”

I ignored his smart ass comment and focused on the men hustling around, messing with each other. "There's a lot of you guys."

“We got chapters all over Texas and the Southwest.”

Hmm. I still didn’t have a single clue what exactly it meant to be in a motorcycle club besides what I saw on television, or hell, the stuff my mom had told me about years ago when the club was mixed up in drug running. She hadn't told me much but it was enough to know that twenty-five years ago, the WMC wasn't a group of people that valued family and community service.

Though now, even after Sonny had explained that the Widowmakers had changed their ways, they probably still didn't hold bake sales but whatever.

As nice as Trip seemed, I figured I should probably hold most of my questions for Sonny. If anyone was going to laugh at me for asking dumb things, I’d rather it be him than someone else.

“If you would've gotten here last month you could've gone to our rally,” he mentioned.

"What do you at a rally?
G
et together?"

Trip nodded, clinking his bottle against mine. "We all drive down to Galveston and," he smiled wickedly, "party for a couple of days."

It was impossible not to miss the implication in his face. He had trouble written all over him, making me snort. "I bet you guys just
party
."

"We do," he insisted with another grin, his fingers inching up his neck to scratch at a two-inch scar that scissored his skin. "Now. Ten years ago... that'd be a different story."

That was something to think about and ask Sonny about later. I shoved that plan into the back of my head and raised my eyebrow at Trip instead, just as the same girl squealed once more. We both looked back at Luther and the twenty-something who had her face buried in his neck.

Sheesh. That was disturbing. I was pretty sure that Luther was definitely older than my dad. Yuck.

There were plenty of other
men
scattered around, some in their forties and younger who weren't unattractive, sure they were kind of hairy and had tattoos that would probably give me nightmares, but they weren't eyesores. So I didn’t understand why the girl was hanging all over Luther of all people. There was something really hard about his face that made me a little wary and added to the comment Trip had made about the club's activities ten years ago. If anyone had a face of a lifetime worth of doing risky things, it was Luther.

If Trip was right—and I knew he was—then the girl was just like any other little gold digger. Or groupie! She wanted the top dog even if he was in his fifties or sixties. And not so attractive. And more than likely had wrinkly balls, which I couldn't even figure out why I would think about to begin with.

Gag.

We talked a few more minutes about some of the people around us. Trip pointed out those who were native to Austin and his club.

I looked back over at Trip and raised my eyebrows, sliding the glass of juice I'd been holding away from me. "I guess I'm going to go home."

"Want me to walk you to your car?"

The incident the night before flashed through my brain. Friggin' Dex. "Nah. I parked close by."

"You sure? Son might kill me if something happens to you."

I snorted. Total Sonny. Threatening people left and right. "It's fine. He's a pussy cat."

"Are we talkin' about the same person?" Trip laughed. "The day you showed up, he said he'd break both my legs if I tried anythin' with you.
”

“Aren’t you his best friend?”

He scrunched up his face, making the harsh lines of blonde facial hair seem pretty darn cute. “And?” Trip leaned back, shaking his head.

Th
e
mental picture of my half-brother breaking someone
’s legs
made me grin. "It's really okay." He didn't need to know
my car
was back at the shop's lot. I mean, it was close by. Squeezing his forearm, I smiled at him. "Thanks for keeping me company."