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Loki gives my shoulder a little push, “Speak for yourself, Saige. Bahahaha, I’m joking. Really, we do appreciate everything. Y’all are the best family anyone could ask for. Thank y’all for being here. Like Saige said, y’all being here to celebrate our birthday was the greatest gift you could have given us.”

We have already eaten a huge meal and the cakes that Stella decorated. She did one with sugar skulls and butterflies for me. Loki’s had skulls and lightning bolts.Then they had us go through this massive pile of gifts. Clothes, gift cards to all kinds of stores, jewelry, stuff for our bikes, and other knick-knacks. I’m glad Dad brought the cage up here. It’s going to take it to get everything back down to the clubhouse and my room.

“Saige! Loki! We need you two to come over here please.” Stella has us follow her over to the end of the pavilion. Our dads and Tires are standing there with two ‘65 pan-heads, fully remodeled. Both have a custom paint job that my brother did on them at his garage.

“Happy birthday, kids. These are from us, Tires, and Cotton.”

We walk over and hug them. I have tears running down my face. I look at Loki’s bike. It is neon green with lightning bolts and a badass skull on both sides of the tank. Right by the gas cap is the Renegade Vipers emblem. The helmet matches the green and has the lightning on it. He walks over to look at my bike with me. It’s a deep purple with cream. Cooper didn’t go too crazy with the decorations on mine. Just a small butterfly on each side, and our emblem by the gas cap. My helmet is the same purple with a small butterfly on the back. I can’t believe the work that he did on these. He really did an outstanding job.

I look over to my brother and dad, and they both have tears in their eyes. I hug them both. “Thank you both so much. You didn’t have to do this. I love you.” I can’t seem to stop the tears.

My dad cups my face in his hands. “Baby girl, we did this because we wanted to. I love you. Now, let’s get all this stuff packed up and get it back to your room. Yeah?” Nodding, I follow my dad and we start getting everything loaded into his Ford F250 Harley Davidson edition truck. I love his truck so much, that I went and saved up the money to buy myself one.

Loki and I ride our new bikes down to the clubhouse, and after we get them parked Pyro walks over to us. “Listen, I wanted to apologize for earlier. I really do want to go out with you tomorrow night, Saige. Will you forgive me for being such an ass?”

“Yeah, I will this time.” I smile at him. “Goodnight, Pyro.” Giving me a kiss on the check, he says goodnight and heads off towards the bar.

“You going to go in and have a drink, or are you calling it a night?” Loki asks me.

“I think I’m going to call it a night. I need to take some more of my meds and try to catch this migraine before it gets bad. I really want to keep our plans for in the morning.”

Hugging me close, he says, “Yeah, okay. Get some rest. If you need me, text me. I’ll come running. See you in the morning. Acer is expecting us around ten.”

Nodding, I head into my room. I had Dad leave it unlocked for me. I see a little present on my bed. Hmmm, wonder who that is from? That’ll have to wait a minute though. I lock my door, take my migraine meds, get some clothes, and take a quick shower. Leaving my long hair loose, I towel dry it a little and then run a wide tooth comb through it. With my natural big loose curls, I never brush it. I go back into my room and put everything up that I got today, and then sit on my bed looking at the present. I open it and gasp. It is the most beautiful necklace I have ever seen. White gold with a tanzanite butterfly. The little card only says, “Happy birthday, Cotton.” Wow! Cotton got me this? No way! I grab my phone and shoot him a text.

Me: Cotton, thank you for the beautiful necklace. I love it. ~S.

Cotton: YW. Happy birthday butterfly

Butterfly? He’s never called me that before. Maybe he’s starting to feel for me what I feel for him? No. Not Cotton. He’s a screw ’em and leave ’em type of guy. He never stays with the same girl for more than a night. He usually kicks them out as soon as he gets what he wants from them. Oh well. I can dream, can’t I? I put thenecklace in my jewelry box so that it doesn’t get messed up and lay down to go to sleep.

The next morning,I get up and feel the twinges of a migraine starting. Great. I take my meds, hoping that it’ll keep it at bay, get dressed in a Vipers tank top and cut off shorts, brush my teeth, and go out to meet Loki.

He takes one look at me and shakes his head, saying, “We’re taking the cage and I’m driving. No arguing with me. That’s if you even feel like going. I can call Acer and reschedule.”

I shake my head. “No, we’re going. I took my meds. But the cage and you driving is a great idea,” I say. “I need to try to eat a small bite of something or it could get bad pretty fast.”

“Okay. Want to stop and get a chicken biscuit?” I smile up at him. My best friend knows me so well. “Alright then. Let’s get going.”

I give Loki the keys to my truck. It’s my baby. So he knows I really trust him to let him drive it. It’s a 2019 F250 Harley edition. I got the beautiful grey color. Everyone here has the black. I wanted something a little different. I got a specialty tag for it that says, I

We have several of each in our MC. It’s how we can do what we do. We don’t run guns or drugs or anything. We are legal in almost everything we do. Tires owns his garage with Cotton, the Torque Wrench Custom Build and Bike Shop. Ryker and Skip work there. Tripp was a marine and he now owns the strip club, Vipers Pit. Hawke usually helps him out if he isn’t on call with the EMS. Tech is a computer genius and he does anything that’s needed. Rubble, Lynch, Locke, Crow, Pyro, they are the Nomads. Barq, Mac, Gunner, and a few others are from Black Forest, they are our other charter. We help our community with whatever they need. Toy drives for kids, taking food and medicine to the shut-ins, working on homes, whatever.

Then there is the other thing we do. If we hear about drugs, kidnappings, sex rings, anything going on like that, we go in and bust it up. I say we, because I am actually a patched-in member. The first and only female. I have Cotton to thank for that too.

Loki and I had gotten into trouble, yet again. Rubble waspassed out in the common room. We took some hair extensions that I had that were pink, purple, green, and blue, and put them in his beard and hair. Then Loki took all these empty hair dye boxes and bottles set them around us, then poured some water on Rubble. It woke him up. He was sputtering, then looked at us, asking what the hell we were up to. Loki showed him in the hand mirror. Rubble went berserk. He was cussing and screaming. Dad and the guys were in church and came running out to see what was going on. From then on, anytime there was church, Loki and I had to sit on a couch in the corner on opposite ends.

One day Cotton came in, he was angry already for some reason. “Oh, for fuck’s sakes! Pres, if they’re going to be here for church all the damn time, you may as well patch them in!” he’d yelled, banging the table.

My dad had looked at him, then smiled. “All in favor?” Everyone in the room said ‘aye’.

Cotton looked up shocked because he hadn’t meant it. Never had he meant for me to be patched in. Loki was thrilled. Me, not so much. I was shocked. I love helping others. I love the club. But I want to bake. I want to contribute in other ways. Like an old lady would.

“Hey, what do you want to drink with your chickenbiscuit? You want the Cajun fries with it?” Loki asks, pulling me from my thoughts. Thank God for him.

“Oh, my gosh, yes. And a large Coke.’’

Loki grins. He knows that when we come here, no matter what we get, I always get the Cajun fries. Pulling through the drive thru, we get our order and head to Renegade Tattoo.