Page 20 of Conan
“It was a club decision, Conan. Demi is important to my old lady and me, too. I came to the club, asked for help, we voted andagreed…unanimously. I appreciate the gesture, but keep your wallet in your pocket, brother. We’ve got this.”
I accept that because I don’t want to offend my brothers. The beast inside of me roars that Demi is our responsibility, but she’ll soon be a sister of the club once I put my patch on her so I don’t want to do anything that deters that blooming relationship between her and the guys.
Nodding my head, I say, “I can’t thank y’all enough for doing this for her. For me.”
“She’s family, Conan,” Rev states. “We’d walk through fire for our family.”
“Blisters heal,” Midas tacks on. “But what those scumbags did to Demi, it needs more than a bandaid, it deserves retribution.”
“Speaking of, what do you say to Auto doing a little bit of rerouting of their finances to Demi? If she had reported it, she would’ve gotten a settlement from the company,” I ask.
“Already on it, brother,” Auto replies, smirking at me. “Seems the four of them had some off-shore accounts, the key word being ‘had’ of course, so I’ve been working my magic to get it for Demi, and since there’s so much of it, I’m making a healthy donation to our local sexual assault program so they can help women who don’t have people like us at their backs.”
“Here, here,” my brother lifts his hand as if he’s been given a toast. “Is everyone packed? We hit the road tomorrow for check-in and to wait for the bozos to cross the border.”
When everyone acknowledges that we are all packed up, he ends church.
“Meet me at the bar,” he tells me right before banging the gavel and ending our session. Something’s on his mind, I just hope I’m not in for a lecture or reprimand for something I can’t remember doing.
As I head behind the bar, I grab one of our pitchers and fill it up then grab two glasses and head to his and my normal table. I’m not sure what’s on Kodiak’s mind, but this’ll be easier to refill our glasses than to have whoever’s manning the alcohol keep having to bring us fresh bottles.
As my brother slides in beside me, he sighs. “You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”
“What brought that on?” I ask, filling our glasses.
“I know when you’re pissed at me, Xavier. You always revert to calling me Kodiak and that seems to be happening a lot lately.”
“You’ve been calling me Conan as well, Marcum,” I reiterate.
“In reaction to you,” he informs me. “What did I do that made you put distance between us? Things haven’t been like this for a long time, only this go around, I’m not sure what I did to get under your skin.”
“To be honest with you, I’m not sure why I’ve been doing that,” I earnestly tell him. “I’m not pissed at you, brother. I have some payback in store for you for some of the bullshit you’ve pulled, but I’m not angry with you.”
“I know I fucked up making decisions without your input, Xavier. I not only disrespected your position in the club but as Demi’s man too. I swear it wasn’t with the forethought to act that way, I wasn’t trying to belittle you in any way, shape, or form. I’m always going to be your big brother and try to take care ofstuff for you. I can’t seem to, even after all of these years, switch that part of my brain off.”
Anger rises inside of me at the reminder of how he’s been treating me. I guess I am a little pissy with him after all. But I sit back, take a minute to reflect by putting myself in his shoes and remind myself I’ve done things like that on his behalf as well.
“I forgive you, Marcum. But seriously, man, I’m not only your blood and club brother, but I’m also your VP. If you undermine me at every pass, the men aren’t going to respect me and I have an issue with that. Stop pulling the rug out from underneath me and start showing me that I wasn’t given the role I was simply because we share the same blood.”
“Duly noted,” he supplies. “Anything else I’ve done you’d like to get off your chest? I’d like us to go into this united, strong, and without anything standing between us.”
“No,” I deny. “Just don’t be surprised if I drop you during a trust exercise.”
“My backside thanks you for the warning,” he laughs.
“If you rattle your teeth I’ll take you to the dentist. I’m kind like that,” I tease.
He snorts before saying, “You’ll tell them I’m allergic to heavy-duty painkillers and have them drill me with nothing less than an over the counter script.”
“One time! I only did that once, Marcum, and it was after you strapped a chain of dildoes to my bike! While I was riding it, for fuck’s sake,” I grumble. I have to admit it was a good prank, it would’ve been a better one if it was against someone else, like Butcher since at the time we were part of the Midnight Riderswith him, Dragon, Wrecker, and the rest of the motley crew. Damn, I miss those fuckers since they moved on and settled long before we did.
Now that they’re residing in Roanoke with Brick and his club we don’t see them as often. I need to take Demi on a road trip and introduce her to my other brothers.
“Thinking about Butcher?” he asks, reading my mind.
“Yeah,” I admit. “Even that old man RiffRaff has been on my mind here and there.”
“Helping him when he came to town to get Butcher’s sister out of the disastrous marriage was a fun time. Let’s reach out to them, and after Luna has the baby, let’s go for a visit,” Marcum suggests. “It’s been a long time coming.”
