Page 59 of Indie
“Worried?”
“Yeah. I can tell. You’re chewing on that lip.”
“Oh.”
“It’ll be ok. Happens from time to time, but the lads will sort it out.”
“Sort what out?”
“Just the usual bike club shit. Other clubs muscling in on patches and that sort of thing. Not had a burning one for a while, like. It’s usually just cut up ones, or sometimes just the rockers off the back mailed to us.”
“Rockers?”
“The bits with the writing on.”
“Oh. Right. What does it mean?”
Suzy plonked the bedding on the first single bed, passing me a set and pointing over to one bed in front of the windows.
“Depending on which club is responsible for it, could mean a number of things. But normally someone trying to wind us up, threatening to take over our area. Don’t worry. It’s never happened. Well, not since the noughties.”
“And what happened then?”
“Same sort of thing. The guys sorted it out. It was a good thing, really. It brought the bike clubs in the area together. And now we have the coalition.”
“What’s that?” I shook the sheet out, letting it fall from the folds and come to rest on top of the mattress.
“Like a bike club council. All the clubs have at least one representative there, normally two. They talk out any issues, rather than using their fists, and raise any problems they are having. Ste set it up. To keep the peace between bike clubs. It’s lasted nearly eighteen years. As long as my marriage.”
She smiled at me, stuffing a pillow into the white pillowcase in her hand. And despite the gentle, unassuming tone of her voice, I couldn’t help dwell on some of those words. Of the thoughts of leather waistcoats being set alight and the need for a biker council to keep the peace. Indie told me this was a bike club, just a club, but now it sounded darker and more terrifying.
We were silent for a moment, concentrating on feeding a duvet into a duvet cover without losing the other end. Underneath was a low thrum of voices, men talking somewhere below us.
“There you go,” Suzy said, smoothing the duvet onto the bed and tucking it in carefully. “They could just do with a teddy on the top. I’ll go get the unicorn finished in a moment. Hopefully, it doesn’t smell too much.”
“Is there another set of covers there?” I asked, looking around at the two beds, now freshly made up.
“Another set? Thought you’d be bunking in with Indie?”
“I… I don’t know that we’ve really given it much thought, actually.”
“Don’t worry. None of us are nuns here,” she patted my shoulder as she moved towards the door. “And we won’t judge you.”
Suzy winked, pulling the door free from its frame, and waiting for me to step through.
Chapter Twenty Eight
The burnt leather cut lay smouldering on the carpet.
“Fuck’s sake. Look at the fucking carpet,” I kicked at the leather waistcoat with the toe of my boot, the carpet underneath singed and melted in parts. “I’m going to have to buy a new one now.”
“If I’d known I just had to burn one of our cuts out on the carpet to make you replace it, I would have fucking set fire to mine years ago and taken the beating. Would have been worth it to see this tight cunt spend some money.”
“Fuck off, Fury. Who’s fucking cut is it, anyway?”
I glanced around at the crowd in the pub. At Demon who looked as pissed off at me, as the twins who stifled smiles, at Reap with a face like a slapped backside as usual, and to the faces of Fury and Magnet who shrugged in unison.
“Well, someone fucking check it then!”