Page 24 of Rome
Lacey eyed me warily as I stomped past the front counter and headed down the hallway to my suite. My head was throbbing even worse, so I passed by my door and walked into the breakroom instead. I opened the cabinet where we kept a big bottle of Tylenol, shaking out three of them in the palm of my hand. I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, twisting off the cap and tossing the pills back before taking a big swig to wash them down.
Back in my suite, I tried to focus on the design I’d been working on but gave up after a few minutes. I picked up my phone to call Abby, but then realized that she would still be at the baby shower. I settled for sending her a text, taking care to spell out my words. For whatever reason, Abby hated to text-speak, and the usual abbreviations people used bugged the shit out of her.
ME: Hope you’re having a good time. Love you. I’ll see you tomorrow.
I was too amped up to sit around here any longer, so I slipped on my cut, turned off the lights and locked the door to my suite, then let Saint know I was leaving for the night.
“I’m heading to the clubhouse. Are you coming to Bull’s party?”
“Yeah, I’m here until nine, but I’ll be there as soon as I’m done.”
“Sounds good, man. See you there.”
I stopped by the front counter on my way out, then spotted Lacey in her piercing suite with a client. It looked like she was setting up to do a tragus piercing.
“I’m outta here, Lace. Call if anything comes up.
“Will do, boss man. See ya Monday.”
The roar of the bike managed to soothe me as it always did, and it didn’t take long to get to the clubhouse compound.
I pulled through the gate, giving a head nod to Tony, who was stuck manning the guard shack for tonight’s party. As I turned off the bike, I could hear the music blaring from inside, and a quick sniff of the air confirmed that someone had already lit the bonfire in the courtyard behind the building. The air was heavy with the odor of wood smoke, along with the underlying scent of pot and cigarettes.
I remembered to grab Bull’s gift out of my saddlebag. Abby had bought him a box of his favorite cigars, along with an engraved cigar cutter. I pulled open the clubhouse door and was immediately hit with a wall of sound that threatened to make my headache come back. Looking around, I saw that the stripper pole wasn’t in use yet. It was a little early for that still, but there were several brothers gathered around the pool tables, and by the dart board. I spotted several of the club bunnies hanging around, too, just waiting for the action to kick off.
I found Bull sitting at the bar with King and Cowboy and set the present down in front of him.
“From Abby,” I told him. He craned his neck to look around behind me.
“She with you?” Bull had a soft spot for my wife, probably because she helped keep the offices organized and running smoothly.
“Nah, brother. She has family in town for her cousin’s baby shower this evening. Besides, she’s not feeling up to late-night parties right now.”
He nodded knowingly. Bull had a couple of kids, although he didn’t get to see them often. His Ol’ Lady took off several years ago, moving to Pennsylvania after catching him with a club bunny. He didn’t much miss his former Ol’ Lady, but it tore him up not to see his kids more than a few times a year.
An hour later, I’d had a few slices of pizza and a couple of bottles of Dr. Pepper and had kicked Bodhi’s ass in a game of pool. Viking had challenged me to a game of darts next, cackling like a hen when he won.
“That last shot was just shameful. I’ve got better aim than that, and I got cataracts older than you, boy.”
I flipped him the bird and grinned. “Yeah, you just got lucky, old man.”
“Hey brother, you up for a game of poker?” I felt a hand clap my shoulder and turned to find Jagger and his fiancée Molly standing there. Molly was wearing the Property of Jagger cut he had given her a couple of weeks ago. He’d ordered it the day after he proposed and had presented it to her at the joint birthday the club had thrown for us.
“Don’t let that sweet face fool you, Rome. She cheats at cards,” Viking grumbled, wagging his finger in Molly’s face. He couldn’t quite hide his grin though.
“I didn’t cheat, and you know it. I can’t help it that you and Pop assumed I couldn’t play,” Molly protested with a laugh. It was an argument I’d heard before. Jag had told me that Molly had been taught to play – and count cards – by an ex-boyfriend who’d spent some time working as a dealer in Vegas. I didn’t think they had shared that little bit of info with the rest of the club.
“Yeah, deal me in. I’m gonna grab another drink.” I caught Jag’s look of concern and shook my head. “Nothing stronger than Dr. Pepper, bro,” I assured him.
I spent the next few hours playing poker and shooting the shit with whoever took a seat at the table. Jagger and Molly cashed out around midnight, with Molly winning over two hundred dollars, including about fifty from Jag. I heard him tell her he was gonna take that fifty out on her ass, which caused her to blush and smack his chest before grabbing his hand and racing him up the stairs to his room, which happened to be right next to mine. I hoped they were already asleep by the time I made it upstairs, because I didn’t think I could look Molly in the face in the morning if I had to listen to them fucking. The walls in this place were pretty damned thin, and Lucky and Trick both swore they’d heard her screaming a time or two, and whatever she’d done to Jag had made him yell his damned head off.
I laughed at the difference in Molly when she was here at the clubhouse. It made quite a change from the conservative kindergarten teacher persona she presented in Ethan’s classroom. Hell, the woman didn’t even swear, although my brother said she cussed like a sailor in the bedroom. I wasn’t sure if he was yanking my chain or not, and I wasn’t about to ask for any more details. He wouldn’t have given them to me even if I had.
Jagger, like most of us, kept a room here for nights when he didn’t feel like making the ride home – or had been drinking and couldn’t. There were quite a few brothers who lived here full-time, including my uncle Ace, Trick, Lucky and Bodhi. The prospects stayed here as well, in rooms in the annex we’d added on to the main building about ten years ago. The handful of club bunnies had rooms over the garage and bike shop at the opposite end of the compound.
Once Jagger and Molly bailed on us, the card game fizzled out. Lucky wandered off with Diamond, one of the bunnies who’d been around for a while. I saw Bull leading a woman upstairs, clearly planning to celebrate with a birthday fuck. I recognized her as a hangaround, one of the biker groupies who liked to party with the club from time to time. We got a lot of those, usually women who wanted to walk on the wild side for a bit before they settled down to life in suburbia, with two kids, a minivan, and a husband who gave her missionary sex once a week with the lights off, of course.
I saw King nuzzling the neck of another hangaround – a pretty blonde - and hoped like hell he took her upstairs before his hands on her waist moved any lower. Jagger had the misfortune to walk in on him when we were prospects, only to see him getting sucked off right in the middle of the common room. Poor Jag hadn’t been able to get a boner for a week after that. I’d laughed my ass off about it for months, thankful as hell that it hadn’t been me seeing that shit. Luckily, our dad had been more discreet with his hookups since then. He also didn’t touch the bunnies once we’d patched in, sticking to the hangarounds or women he met outside the club. He’d been weirded out about fucking the same women that Jag and I were hooking up with. I had to admit, I hadn’t much cared for the idea either.
