Judas: Indignant Few MC Book 1, page 11
Tressica was a damn angel and none of us deserved her. Tucked in the bag was a basic makeup kit, a curling iron, and all the toiletries a girl could ask for. What such a thoughtful and put together woman wanted from my brother was beyond my comprehension.
I took my time getting ready, knowing nobody would really care whether I came out of this room wearing a burlap sack and a towel on my head or a prom gown, but something about making myself presentable made me feel like, for one instant, that I had my shit together, even though I knew everything was falling apart.
I needed to show the guys those tweets. I owed it to them to show them what they were getting themselves into by keeping me around. I swooped some dark blue eye shadow over my eyelids, wondering why I’d never tried this shade before. It had been my job all these years to look good, and less than a whole day back at the clubhouse and I was already learning things about my skin tone that I’d never even considered before.
This kind of thinking was hella toxic.
I was reverting to my old ways. Not even twenty-four hours back at my old home, and here I was painting on my face and whistling a happy tune, in complete denial about the severity of my situation. I was turning into my mother. Maybe I had always been her, but being away from this place let me hide that side of myself better than before.
I’d always promised myself I wouldn’t be some weak bystander, a pretty face, a damsel in distress, and yet here I was curling my hair and globbing on body glitter like some stupid bitch trying to catch a date.
I wasn’t, though. At least I could try and tell myself that. Sure, my feelings for Judas were strong, but he was already accounted for. Not just by Betty Sue. He was accounted for by the club, the patch, the life I swore off. This was all just temporary.
Maybe I could just hide in here while I let things calm down a little. I could live in the darkness and pretend like I was sleeping every time someone came in to feed and water me. I hadn’t had a vacation in years. Maybe if I decompressed for a while, I’d get my wits back. I’d be that no-holds-barred boss babe who had everything under control.
I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the wall. How did this guy function without a TV set? His bookshelf was impressive. If it were any other guy, I’d think it was just for show. Judas, however, I was sure he devoured The Things They Carried and The 48 Laws of Power. He was a complicated fellow.
I couldn’t contain my curiosity any longer. I at least had to go do a lap around the clubhouse and see how things had changed over the last ten years. Would it be just like the old days? Thick smoke, drunken idiots, fistfights, and club sluts lined up wall-to-wall, looking for somebody to make them an old lady, or was Isaac not simply talking out his ass? Had things really changed around here?
I cracked the door open, peeking out into the hallway. I could hear the loud roar of heavy metal coming through the swinging doors that led to the bar. I could hear the loud cackle of my mother’s laugh, the sound of pool balls breaking on the table, the muffled voices of the new generation of the MC. I thought I’d never want any parts of this again, that I was all grown out of this phase, but the reality was, this life was like a drug I forgot I was addicted to. I couldn’t resist the urge to belly up to the bar and crack open a beer, drinking myself into oblivion and pretending like the world wasn’t such a bad place.
It was in me. It was in my blood. You could take the girl out of the MC, but you couldn’t take the MC out of the girl. I smoothed my dress and tossed my hair. It was time for Athena Fisher to make her first official appearance post-kidnapping.
20
Judas
The clubhouse was pretty mellow tonight, even though the bitches were on their worst behavior after a weekend without the guys around to feed them attention then shit on their dreams. I always wondered what had to happen in a woman’s life to make them that way, draw them to this life, a life that was fun until it wasn’t. A life that turned you into a commodity. Sure, it was a fast track into our dysfunctional family, but at the end of the day, no matter how many brothers you slept with, you were still alone. It was a different kind of love than the outside world understood, maybe a mutual appreciation, but to me, it didn’t feel good.
I took a pull from my pipe, letting the smoke sort of lull me into a state of simply existing. I was present as much as this barstool underneath me was. Here but not really thought about. Functional if called upon, but not going out of my way to participate. I didn’t have much to say anyway.
Nobody here understood what was going on in my mind anyway. They thought bringing Athena back here was a joke. They thought they were doing me a favor, like hiring a stripper for a bachelor party or something. They didn’t understand why the two of us didn’t just hump and get it over with.
I was too worried about the girl in my room, not just because of the people who were after her. She was my holy grail. The woman I waited my whole life for. I could protect her from the outside world, but could I protect her from myself?
I watched her sleep today, her pretty face the only thing peeking out from underneath the pile of blankets. I didn’t try to wake her, but I didn’t try not to either, turning the light on, talking to Tressica as she dropped off the bag of clothes, trying to go about my business as usual. Every time I looked over at her, I got this weird feeling in my guts. She was smiling so sweetly, looking so content and comfortable. Knowing she could feel like that around me, even when she was at her most vulnerable, unconscious to the world, it messed with my head. It took everything in me not to just spoon up next to her, finally wrap my body around hers after all these years, squeeze her until she knew this was exactly where she was supposed to be. Forever.
Except I knew that wasn’t true. She belonged here about as much as that alligator did. Sure, we could keep him happy and fed, but he knew as much as we did this wasn’t where he really belonged. He’d run away the first chance he got and rip us all to shreds on his way out the door.
Just like she would.
Just like she did.
The front door swung open with a squeal and it would’ve been funny the way everyone turned to look, everyone reaching for their pistols without thinking, but the fact that it was because we were potentially under attack, that any minute now the guys looking for Athena could come busting through that door looking to make this a real bad night, made it a little less laughable.
To everyone’s dismay, it was only Isaac. I’m sure a couple of the guys probably wished they could shoot him. Hell, there were days I definitely wanted to. He didn’t belong here. He would never be like us. I figured by now he would’ve worked his way out. It was the only reason I got Colt to agree to let him prospect. The man never liked to get his hands dirty unless he was shitting on someone else to get ahead, and he’d been handling dumpster duty and cleaning up after rallies like a boss. Every time I thought he’d changed for the better, though, he’d start with his abrasive bullshit. It sucked being personally responsible for him after all these years, but as fucked-up as what he did to me was, I would’ve never been where I am today without him.
“Where’s the broad?” was the first thing that came out of his mouth as he slid up beside me, motioning to Elaine for a beer.
“What’s it matter to you?” I asked. He might’ve broken Betty Sue down, but that was the kind of bitch she was. Athena was the kind of girl who could see right through his bullshit. “You got no business with prez’s sister anyway. You stay in the prospect pool.”
He chuckled in a way that reminded me of my cousin Bert. It was chilling. We might be twins, but that kinda sound never came out of my mouth. It was needlessly sadistic, like an old-school villain who just tied somebody to the train tracks. Not Indignant material at all. I wished he wasn’t my blood brother so I could send him out to pasture for that idiotic laugh alone.
“You misread me, Jude,” he said. He blew the buxom bartender a kiss and dangled a five-dollar bill in front of him before stuffing it down her tight leather halter top. She made a gagging sound before quickly wandering off. He even crept the bitches out, and those girls were into some nasty shit.
“The fuck is that?” I asked, swiveling in my stool so we were face-to-face. Hanging from his wrist was my gold watch. My grandpa’s watch.
The only thing I could think of when I looked at his grinning face was how his teeth were way too straight. They needed realigned. I clenched my fist in my lap.
“What?” he asked, still smiling like a goon.
“You know exactly what.” I stood up from my barstool. So much for a chill night. It was one thing for him to fuck with Betty Sue. It was another thing for him to keep rubbing it in my face every chance he got. I personally gave zero fucks about what he did with her. What I did take issue with was the fact that he was going out of his way to try and get me to snap. I saw it from a mile away. He was a one-trick pony. Predictable as he’d ever been.
“I got it back for you, buddy,” he said, sliding it from his wrist and holding it out for me. “That bitch was going to pawn it.” I relaxed my fists and sneered at him. “I know how much it means to you. Hell, I wish we had more than just a couple hunks of metal to remember Mom and Dad by.”
I snatched it from his hand, sliding it into my back pocket. “Grow the fuck up, man,” I said. “Why do you always have to be so sleazy? Why can’t you just act like a normal person?” Looking around the room, it was obvious what I was saying was ridiculous. Sure, we had our own scale of normal people. Colt was snuggled up on a sofa with his ‘girlfriend’, Rosie was giving himself a crooked-ass shamrock tattoo on his upper thigh with a homemade gun that looked dirtier than anything I’d ever seen in prison while Miles watched in horror, and Breaker was barely poking out from underneath a pile of writhing half-dressed bitches as usual.
The difference between us and him?
He was just cruel. We were just us. He’d never be us. I wished he’d just tap out already.
Suddenly, a strange quiet washed over the room. Even the music seemed muted.
Athena was making her first appearance out of the darkness after arriving here this morning. That woman could turn heads in a pair of sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt, but the dress she was wearing, this see-through flowing thing covered in flowers, was enough to make my heart lodge itself in my throat. She looked like a model. A goddess. Her ruby red lips were plump, even though her smile was thin. She looked around curiously, like she was wandering into the clubhouse she grew up in for the first time, not making eye contact with anybody, but instead running her fingers over the wood on the wall, the barstools.
Nobody said a word. She had to have known every eye in the room was on her. I was trying not to stare but I couldn’t help myself. I fought my urge to claim her right here, grab her around the waist and tell everyone in the room to fuck off, to stop looking at her, she was mine and always had been.
I was too late.
Isaac walked over to her, his chest puffed out, and wrapped his arms around her. I could tell from the look in her eyes over her shoulder that she was overwhelmed. I started over to them, fully planning on taking him to the ground once and for all, for the first time in a long time walking that dangerous ledge when, out of nowhere, she started cracking up.
She relaxed, cupping his chin in her hand, not in a tender way, but in a mama bear kind of way, and shook her head. “Don’t sneak up on women like that, ya creep,” she said. “You’re bound to get yourself decked.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he said with a shrug.
“I’m sure. You need to start taking lessons from these scumbags,” she laughed. “If they’re anything like their forefathers, bitches line up down the block to take a ride on their ‘bikes.’ ”
“Awe, ’Thena, you’re not a bitch,” he said. I could’ve swore he looked over his shoulder and winked right at me. “You’re a princess, and I want to be the first one who gets to buy you a beer.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere, son. I drink for free anyway.” She turned and walked straight toward me, and I was weak in my knees. She was still the same girl I knew all those years ago, only somehow a million times hotter. I couldn’t even look her in the eye; the only thing I could focus on was the fact that she wasn’t wearing any shoes, her tiny feet dragging on the filthy floor of the bar. It was sexy in a strange way, a carefree ‘this is my home and I don’t give a fuck’ kind of way.
Only my dumbass would read into a woman without any shoes on. I guess it was just wishful thinking. I wanted her the same as she always was, only different. I wanted her to be the kind of woman who stays.
“Say who you drink free, sis?” Colt asked, stepping in between the two of us. “You got more than enough dirty money to buy this place ten times over.”
“You never earned a clean dollar in your life, you dumpster diver. The only thing clean about you is your laundry, and that’s because Mom still washes it. Unless she still bathes you, too. I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“That’s what I got Tressica for,” he said. “She gives the best baths. She’s very thorough if you know what I’m saying.” He flicked his tongue at her and she slapped her hands over her eyes. “Nobody drinks for free unless they got a patch on.”
“I’m legacy,” she said, holding her ground, motioning for Elaine.
“You’re nothing but a damn traitor.” He put his hand up in the air, and Elaine stopped in her tracks. She looked confused. President’s say trumped everything. Under normal circumstances, that is.
“You brought me here, ya fucking idiot,” she said with a laugh. “What would Dad say?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you go dig him up and ask him?”
“Mom!” she shouted. Reena just lifted her head up off the bar and waved her hand at them. I was having déjà vu. Things were no different now than they were twenty years ago.
“If you’re not good, we’ll just call up anonymousinvegas and hand you over,” Colt said. “I could probably show him a thing or two about how to torture you.”
“Colt,” I shouted, “that’s not fucking funny.”
“Yeah,” Tressica said, pushing herself between the two of them. “Quit being a dick. As long as she’s under this roof, nobody’s gonna fuck with her. Including you, you immature asshole.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked away. I didn’t know what it was about her, but she seemed to have a way with him. Any other woman talked to Colt like that and she’d be dumped in the woods somewhere trying to find her way back to town with nothing but the flashlight on her cell phone. “Somebody get this girl a beer, please. Put it on my tab.”
Elaine stood there motionless except for the nervous flutter of her long black eyelashes. “You don’t have a tab,” she nervously peeped.
“She doesn’t have a tab, Colt! And she doesn’t have a patch? Somebody call the party police,” Athena roared, chasing after her brother. He scooped her up in his arms and hugged her, and Elaine lined up shots on the bar for everyone. At least one sibling rivalry around here was purely for show.
“Welcome to the club,” Tressica said, holding up her shot glass to mine as I watched Colt and Athena fake wrestle, her legs swinging wildly as her dress wrinkled up over her hips. “You probably know better than I do that these two are a whole lot of nonsense.”
“I don’t think I’m a part of that club, babe,” I said, taking down the shot of whiskey, grimacing at the after-burn. Hell, my brother had spent more time with her than I had since she got back.
“Oh, you totally are. You just don’t know it yet.” She tipped back her beer and smiled contentedly at the duo.
I couldn’t help but smile, too. It felt like something that had been missing in my life for a long time had been locked back into place. The mood of the house as a whole felt lighter.
“I love this song!” Athena squealed, as an old Kid Rock song blasted from the speakers. “Tress, dance with me!” Tressica balanced two shot glasses on the palm of her hand and picked up two bottles of beer in the other, and the two started dancing like no one was watching. I was trying not to, at least, but it was hard seeing her perfect body gyrating on Tressica. Definitely made my jeans feel a little tighter, especially because I knew exactly what was underneath that sheer dress.
She took right back to the club life like a fish to water, and the rest of the room came to life. Everyone was dancing, laughing, and taking shot after shot. Isaac was right about one thing; she was a princess.
And she was totally eye fucking me from over Tress’s shoulder. I turned away, thinking maybe I’d been staring at her unwittingly and she was trying to make me uncomfortable, but as I looked back over, she gestured to me. That perfect blonde with the hair that hung down to her ass, the girl I always had a little crush on who was now a full-grown woman, she was motioning me to come dance with her.
She knew damn straight I wasn’t a dancer.
This was all a part of her game. My desire to put my body all over hers trumped my desire to look cool in front of my friends. I beelined my way to her, and she took my hand and pressed it to her hip, swaying back and forth to the beat of the music.
“You know the last time I danced was at your brother’s wedding?” I leaned down and whispered in her ear, my mouth just inches from her flesh. God, she smelled like heaven, a little bead of sweat trickling down her neck.
“You know supposedly the whole reason why I was brought here was because of you?” she snapped back. “Don’t deny it.”
