I’m still shaking my head when we reach the bottom of the stairs, where there’s a bar lined down the back wall, sofas spread out messily, and a pool table beneath the spray of naked bodies.
Dad pulls out a barstool, just as the front door opens and in walks a girl around seventeen, pushing her oversized glasses over the top of her head.
“Jesus Christ, you guys are such pigs.”
“Lila, sweetheart, come meet my kid.”
Lila walks closer, tight skinny jeans and a loose T-shirt. She’s got an innocent little heart-shaped face and a kind of swag about her that you only get if your parents are in the MC. There’s no way anyone would walk through these doors and insult—even if it’s true—without knowing they belong here.
She lifts her head, her eyes falling up and down my body. “Huh, you’re hot.”
My eyes narrow.
She perks her brow. “Really hot.”
“Lila, fuck, come on!” Lester stumbles in, dragging out the chair beside me.
Lila ducks behind the bar, pulling over a tray of clean dishes. “Aw, Daddy, what’s the matter? Don’t like me being around so much now?” She rolls her eyes. “Hot or not, I’d never date a biker.” She waves her hands around the place. “Like seriously. Blood and murder aside, y’all are pigs.”
I chuckle, inhaling my cigarette and blowing out a thick cloud of smoke. “I like her.”
Lester glares at me.
“Hell no, man. I’m not into the whole live bait thing…”
Lester reaches for the glass of freshly poured whiskey, his heavy silver rings clinking when his fingers wrap around it. He shoots it back. “We need to call Temple. There’s some shit we need to discuss about Sissy and we need to hear what you found out, Old Man, and you”—his eyes come to me, pointing his finger into my chest—“need to decide. You patching in or?”
“Wait, you’re Antichrist?” Lila asks, pausing with a dishcloth in her hand. She slowly lowers the clean glass onto the counter. “Wow.”
I flick my tongue over my teeth, ignoring her. I knew my answer after I left, but only just before I got back to this clubhouse. “Yeah, fuck. I am.”
“Good,” my old man murmurs, shooting back his drink. “Now call your mother. Put her heart at ease, and it’ll give the old ladies something to organize. Keep them busy.”
Lester whistles out loudly and a round of groans sound out. “Temple! Now!”
It took an hour to finally get everyone in Temple, mainly because we were waiting on Fanta. Lester is sitting opposite me, with my father at the head as acting prez. The room where Temple is held is behind the bar, with no windows and only one way in and one way out. Photos, war medals, handlebars of fallen brothers, they all decorate the walls. There’s one large steel-top table that sits in the middle, with the engraved memorabilia on the top.
My old man runs his hand through his gray beard. “As you know, Smoke and I took a trip down toward the southern border to see what was going on. There has been word on the street that an old organization that went off-grid twenty or so years ago is back and they’re interfering with a lot of our business. Bad news is, their crew is a lot bigger than they used to be, and the other bad news is we don’t know who their boss is.”
“So we got any good news? Damn.” Fanta leans back in his chair, twirling a toothpick in his mouth.
“Yeah.” Lester grins, flicking a patch onto the table. “We got ourselves a new prez.”
The roar of cheers is deafening, but I shrug off my cut and lay it out on the table.
“Old Don was real proud of you, Nik. You earned this and you get the Old Man as your right hand.”
“Wait—” my father says, raising his hands out. “I’m old as fuck.” His eyes come to mine, brown and tired. “I’m done.” He points to Lester. “You, my brother, deserve this.”
I take the patch between my fingers, fiddling with the material. Everyone around me has silenced, as if they’re waiting for my next words. Truth is, this isn’t how I wanted to do this, but the latter would be worse.
“There’s something I should tell you all.” I bring my eyes up to all of them. “As your pres.”
The grass is greener today. I remember when my aunt would tell me how special I was because I saw the things that other people didn’t. Like at times, I could tell the time just by looking at the position of the sun. But today, the grass is greener, and judging by the sun, it is midday. He said he would be thirty minutes. I shouldn’t be alarmed that it’s been three hours, yet here I am, filling water into vases that have flowers I just wish would die. My mind would always stray when I’d think about Luca and the kind of life we had. My friends never second-guessed it because our circle’s toxicity started at a young age. Usually, Luca was predictable. Easy. I knew where he would be and what time he’d be there, but if that was still true, why was he late and why didn’t I know about it?