Page 3 of Nave (Henchmen MC: Next Generation #14)

Nave

“I almost thought it was going to have to be a blackout party,” Croft said as he set up the cups on the pong table while his brother brought Jello shots out of the kitchen to set up on the bar.

It had taken the whole day for the power to come back on. A clubhouse full of grown-ass men almost wept at the first huffs of cold air from the air conditioner when it rumbled back to life.

It was probably the first time since Sully nagged the higher-ups to put in a pool that Brooks and Fallon both agreed they were thankful for it.

“We’ve gone without power a lot longer than this,” Rune reminded Croft. “Between the hurricanes and normal grid issues, we were out for long stretches.”

My ears perked up, surprised to hear either of them—but especially Rune—talk about their time in Puerto Rico. Where they did, well, no one knew. Because they didn’t talk about it.

“Yeah, but we were prepared for it there. Fuck, I miss a good bonfire beach party,” Croft said, letting out a little sigh.

“Where’s Perish?” I asked, looking around.

“A couple of the club girls called. Their car stalled out over by the beach. He went out to see if he could fix it. Should be back soon,” Brooks explained.

“Good. Because these new guys aren’t gonna be interested if it’s a complete sausage fest around here,” I said, glancing around at the brothers either setting up or hanging about.

We were in short supply now, we uncommitted few.

It was just me, Perish, and the twins.

Maybe Fallon was right about wanting some fresh blood around the club.

“Rune and I could head over to the bar and see if we can get some more women to come party,” Croft offered.

“Not enough time,” Brooks said, glancing at the clock. “They’re gonna be here in half an hour.”

“You underestimate me,” Croft said, a smile spreading, his dimple on full display.

“Looks like Perish saved the day,” Rune said, glancing out the front window as a bike rumbled into the lot.

A couple of minutes later, he was walking in with his arms thrown over the shoulders of two blondes. Trailing behind was a brunette, a bottle redhead, and a chick with a split-dye—black and silver.

“Don’t worry. The girls called their friends,” Perish said when they walked in, as if he could see me doing the mental math.

“Well, big, strong heroes deserve all the cat,” one of the blondes said, making a little meowing sound and curling her hand up like a paw, her claw-like fake nails doing a little scratching motion. “He saved us from a creeper.”

“I dunno if he was a creeper,” Perish said. “He was trying to—”

“Leer down our shirts while making gross comments about gang bangs?” the split-dye girl said. “Yeah, he was.”

“Sounds like you need some shots,” Croft said, appearing behind the bar and lining up the glasses.

More of the club brothers came in then. Not far behind them were the friends of the girls with the broken car, evening out the odds a lot better.

“I got all the donuts from the bakery before they threw them out,” Dezi said, coming in the front door with five boxes of donuts. “The crullers are a little hard but edible.”

“Did you actually leave us any?” Sully—in one of his Hawaiian shirts printed with (I shit you not) his girlfriend’s face all over it—asked.

“Your girl let you out of the house in that?” I asked.

“Not without begging me to take it off,” Sully said as he lifted the top donut box and extracted a strawberry frosted with sprinkles. “And, hey, when your girl wants you naked, you get naked.”

“But you put it back on,” I observed.

“Told her that I wanted to make it clear I was taken. Simple.” He waved down at his shirt.

“So those are the new guys, huh?” Dezi asked after dropping the boxes down on the coffee table.

“They look alright,” he decided, taking a big bite out of a jelly donut, the powdered sugar snowing down on his shirt.

He absentmindedly brushed at the spots, only managing to smear the stains more widely across the material.

I turned, glancing back toward the door where two men were greeting Fallon and Brooks.

They were a study in contrasts. One, the taller one who would almost dwarf Perish, had black hair, black eyes, deep cheekbone hollows, and a swimmer’s type thin but fit build.

The other was still tall but with a wider build that indicated he hit the gym reasonably often, a square face, light blue eyes, and dark blond hair.

Both of them seemed comfortable in the clubhouse and with the president as they spoke like old friends for a moment before Fallon gestured them out toward the party.

The black-haired one moved over to the bar, where one of the blondes was stretched out on the surface, her shirt tucked up under her bra, her belly on display.

He walked over, seamlessly pouring tequila into her bellybutton, then leaning down, sucking it out, and fishing the lime out of the woman’s mouth like he’d done it a million times before.

He was still sucking on it as he made his way over to us.

Somewhere on the path between, the lime disappeared.

“What’s up?” he greeted, leaning past me to grab a beer. “I’m Spike.”

“Spike,” Dezi repeated. “Road name?”

“Guess it might be now. But it’s a nickname from when I was a kid.”

“Gonna elaborate, or are we supposed to play twenty questions?” Dezi asked.

To that, Spike shrugged. “Stuck a pencil through my stepdad’s eye when I was eleven. They gave me the name at juvie. It stuck.”

“Did he have it coming, or were you just a violent fuck?” Dezi, with no judgment whatsoever, asked.

“My little sister said he was coming into her room at night, pulling up her nightgown, then jerking off as he looked at her. I’d say he had it coming. Lucky the fucker left the state before I got out, or I’d’ve tracked him down and finished the job.”

“There’s still time,” Dezi, always up for a little maiming and murder, said.

“So, who’s the other guy?” Sully asked, looking over at where the blond was talking to Perish and Rune.

“Oh, Cain? Don’t know shit about him. We just turned into the lot at the same time. Never seen him before.”

“So, you’re pretty,” a female voice said, making me turn to find my cousin Layna leering at Spike.

“Layna, don’t,” I warned.

“They never let me have any fun with the new puppies,” she said, shooting Spike a pout.

“Club girl?” Spike asked, looking at me.

“Princess.”

“In that case, you’ve got a killer rack. And I can never look at it again,” Spike said.

Layna let out an exaggerated sigh. “You’re a real boner-killer, Nave.”

“Hey, I’m not stopping you from getting your rocks off anywhere you want. Just not in this club. Edison would have me nailed to a cross if he knew I let you fuck around with a prospect. Where are the other girls?”

“The other girls? Meaning the traitors who went and fell in love and don’t come and party with me anymore? Those girls?”

“They’re not all shacked up. Willa is—”

“You know what Willa is,” she cut me off. “And Ria and Kit are busting ass at their damn homestead. I mean, I like a good sheep snuggle as much as the next girl, but you gotta pull the straw out of your hair and have some fun sometime, right?”

“What about Gracie?”

“She’s on her way. Thank God. Because, no offense, but your club girls aren’t much for conversation.”

“Probably because we didn’t really invite them to talk,” I reminded her.

“Gross,” she said, face scrunching up. “Anyway.” She turned back to Spike. “If you decide you don’t want to prospect, I think you and I should link up.”

With nothing else, she moved away, heading over to challenge Rune at the beer pong table.

“Is it just me or does the Cain guy have a military walk?” Dezi asked. “No offense,” he said to Sully. “But that posture is beaten into you fucks or something. See?” he asked as Cain made his way over toward us.

“Talking about me?” he asked, nodding his chin at Spike, who moved off to go and mingle some more.

“I was saying you carry yourself like someone in the military,” Dezi explained.

“Close, but not quite. Worked SWAT for a few years.”

“SWAT to outlaw biker,” I observed. “Explain that career trajectory.”

“Was straight as an arrow my whole fucking career. Till I saw some shit going down that rubbed me the wrong way. Went to report it to my superiors, and I got canned. You could say there was some serious disillusionment after that. But there weren’t a lot of jobs that utilized my skills and provided the adrenaline fix I was used to outside of law enforcement that wanted nothing to do with me anymore. ”

“So you started working for the bad guys,” Sully concluded.

“Except, as fucked as it is, I don’t think the bad guys are as bad as they kept trying to drill into our heads that they were.”

I could see why Fallon liked him. Ex-SWAT meant he knew weapons, could stay cool in a crisis, and had a decent amount of hand-to-hand training.

If there was one thing I could say about both Reign and Fallon’s choices for club members, it was that they liked to pepper in crazy fucks—like Pagan, Dezi, and Spike—among other calmer, more experienced men like Edison, Callow, Sully, and Cain.

“So, why a biker?” I asked. It was our job to get various answers out of these guys to double-check that they’d be a good fit for the club. Even if it always felt a little invasive to question these guys.

“Honestly? I missed the sense of brotherhood I had when on SWAT. I think I’ve been searching for that ever since. Worked on my own for a year or two. But it never felt right. This,” he said, gesturing around, “seems like what I’ve been searching for.”

“Now that we got that shit out of the way,” Sully said, “let’s get you a drink.”

“I take it you got a woman,” Cain said, smirking down at Sully’s shirt as they started to move away.

“See? I told her the message would be loud and clear,” Sully called back to us.

“Well, I like Spike,” Dezi said, unsurprisingly, before moving off.

I liked them both.

More and more, as the night went on, and they seemed to effortlessly meld in with the club, the girls, and even the princesses.

Hell, Spike even carefully extracted himself when Layna put an arm around him when they won a round of beer pong.

And Cain guided Gracie to the couch then got her a coffee when the Jello shots hit her faster than she’d anticipated.

I’d just dropped down on a chair, finding I was kind of over the party, but knowing I couldn’t be antisocial and go back to my room.

I was still sitting there when I heard my name called, soft and unsure.

“Nave?”

For reasons I couldn’t understand, the sound of her voice had my stomach flipping—almost like something in me recognized her, even though her voice wasn’t ringing a bell.

Except, of course, it did.

I knew it the second she stepped forward to stand near my chair.

And there she was.

A part of my past walking into my present.

She still looked like the same girl she’d been: the golden long bob with the fringe bangs, the blue-gray eyes, the same oval face with the high cheekbones and gently rounded jaw, the generous, and naturally reddish lips.

Gorgeous as she ever was.

But some of it was hidden beneath layers of exhaustion. And, perhaps more prominently, fear.

“Lolly.”

Across the room, stunned into wide-eyed, uncharacteristic silence, was Dezi.

His gaze slid from me, to Lolly, then back to me again.

Then he mouthed the words I felt down to my soul.

What. The. Fuck?