Just twist the fucking knife a little more in my heart, sweetheart.
Josie bit her lip and hesitated.
“I don’t have all day here,” Reese said.
“Fine. Here’s the truth, Reese.” Josie inched closer, still holding onto his leather cut.“That pregnancy test isn’t mine.”
Chapter Eight
Reese slippedhis hand into Josie’s and motioned to the clubhouse. It was a giant step back in time for Josie as she walked through the door and heard the familiar sound of beer bottles clanking, hard rock music in the background, the smack of pool balls together, and the thick laughter of the bikers that hung around.
Nothing much had changed about the place, but these weren’t the type of guys that worried about redecorating and rearranging their furniture every six months. The clubhouse was sacred to them, including all of its flaws.
Brett and Jason were playing pool and they quickly stopped when they saw Josie. The two stood there like giant animals, lips curled, ready for a meal as they stared at her as though she were some kind of enemy.
Reese stopped at the bar and knocked on it. “Prospect. Two cold. Now.”
“Yes, sir,” a young guy said. He threw a dirty white towel to the bar and hurried to get two beers.
Josie casually looked around, remembering everything. The good times. The bad times. The first time her father busted through the clubhouse door and caught her there. Sipping warm whiskey, laughing her ass off at the dumb stuff Hawk was doing, Levi in the corner, surveying the club as President, making decisions in his mind that would change everyone’s lives.
“Here you go, sir,” the prospect said.
“Get back to work,” Reese said. “Don’t fuck around.”
“Yes, sir,” the prospect said.
Reese took Josie’s hand again and they started to walk.
“Why are you so mean to that guy?” Josie whispered.
“Fucking prospects,” Reese said with a growl. “They need to learn.”
“Learn what?”
“Sweetheart, everyone thinks they want this life. They think we just skip showers, eat pussy, and ride for hours at a time. They think it’s easy and free. They think you just break the rules, break the laws, and get away with it. If you can’t handle the pressure of me getting pissed at you for the way you wipe down the bar, then what are you going to do when someone pulls a gun and shoots?”
That was the part of it that Josie hated the most. The violence. The fights.The wars, as the MC called them. But they really were wars. She remembered so many times her father and his closest guys sitting at the kitchen table, half asleep, trying to go through papers and make sense of what was happening in town. Josie remembered making them coffee at three in the morning, just to help out a little. All because her father’s greatest ambition was to make Back Down Devil MC leave town.
And here was Josie, walking down a familiar hallway with a wall full of pictures of all the members. Past and present. Current guys patched. Guys who had died. Guys who had been killed while wearing the cut. And then pictures that were flipped around with a blackXacross the back. Josie once asked Reese what that meant, and he simply said it was a reminder that not all traps with cheese catch rats.
Reese took her to his room in the clubhouse. This was different though. Before, Reese had a room that was basically a glorified closet. He didn’t even have a bed. Just a futon that he would pull out for them to relax on together. The ceiling was slanted with a giant banner of the MC.
This new room was pretty big.
“This is nice,” Josie said as Reese held the door open.
“VP,” Reese said with a wink and nodded to his leather cut.
Josie swallowed hard.
Do I congratulate him for that? For being ruthless enough to climb up the chain in the MC?
She knew how it all worked though. Reese was one step away from running the entire club. That’s what he’d always wanted. To finish the job his father started years ago and to shape the club into an existence that was honest, but still moved along the outlaw road.
There were two dressers in the room, along with a large bed, two nightstands, and a desk in the corner. Josie spotted what looked like a big walk-in closet, and another door that was open, where she saw a sink, meaning a bathroom. Reese even had himself a little corner set up with a mini fridge and coffeepot on top of that.
“Like a mini apartment for you,” Josie said.