Page 10 of Broken Warrior
Still fast asleep. I can hear her snoring through the door.
A small smile curves my lips as I settle into the well-loved recliner, tuck my feet up underneath me, and sigh at how nice it feels to have someone to help with James, how nice it is to have someone around who appreciates what I do without the expectation to do it. It’s nice to share such a normal living situation with someone, even if he is a little grumpy and a lot sexy.
Not that anything about why I’m here is normal but still, that’s not the point.
“Is Ma actually napping?” Spider asks as he walks into the room and drops down onto the couch across from me.
I nod. “She ate her entire breakfast, took her meds, then let me shower her and put on a clean nightgown. I read her a couple chapters from her book and by the time Deal or No Deal came on she was out like a light.”
An emotion I can’t read flickers in Spider’s eyes but it disappears before I can decipher it. “She fight you at all?”
“Some.” I take a sip of my soda. “At first she thought I was there to try to steal Mac from her, but after a bit she started calling me Trudy and making plans to have a barbecue for the new patches.”
Spider stares at me for a beat before one dark brown brow lifts. “You have no idea what any of that means, do you?”
“No.” I giggle like an idiot. “Not one damn bit.”
“Patches are regular members of the club and she used to organize parties for the new ones.” Spider scrubs a hand over his face as he kicks his socked feet up on the coffee table. “Mac was what she called my dad and Trudy was my aunt.”
“Jackal’s mom?”
He nods. “They were best friends, married brothers. Uncle Angus and my dad were founders of the WKMC and our moms were really involved.”
“So you grew up in the club?”
“Never known anything different.”
“And that’s why you and Jackal are so close?”
Another nod. “We’re the same age, born two months apart, and lived a few blocks away from each other. I spent most of my time at his house when we weren’t at the clubhouse. We took over our grandpa’s garage and then my dad’s bar when he passed, and sit on the EC together with the guys. Jackal is more like my brother than my cousin.”
My fingers twitch against my thighs.He just gave me the opening I needed. “So you and Jackal own the bar?”
“I do but he helps me run it. Spends more time there than I do. Used to anyway.”
“So...” I roll my lips between my teeth, gnawing the hell out of them. “So if someone wanted to get a job there, maybe as a cocktail waitress or— “
“No,” Spider snaps, those cornflower blue eyes icier than normal.
It makes me flinch.
But he is not Gino.
Spider is not going to hurt me.
I take a deep breath. “I just thought, I mean, I don’t really have any applicable skills, no GED or anything, and... well, I want to work, need to if... I can’t stay here forever...”
But he’s already shaking his head. “Not happening, Tate.”
“I need— “
“You need to drop it. MACs is no place for someone like you, just ask your sister.”
That isn’t really fair.
Dori told me about how she met Zak, about the kid from the other MC aggressively hitting on her and stalking her. And I was around when they took her but that has nothing to do with the bar itself.
“I know,” I almost whisper. “But your club took care of things, those guys are— “
