Page 27 of Property of Thrasher (Kings of Anarchy MC: South Carolina #1)

THRASHER

I was at my desk in the garage going over logistics for a run when Tiny said my name standing in the doorway.

“Thrasher.” From the threshold, voice even, eyes steady. “Got a minute?”

“Yeah. Always, brother.”

Tiny entered the office space leaning against the wall. That big frame of his looked settled, like he’d already decided the thing he brought and just wanted to say it right.

“What’s goin’ on?” I wondered.

He exhaled once through his nose, a man opening a valve.

“I wanna marry Lyric.”

No wobble in it. Just the brick of the fact set on the table.

“Yeah?” I said, because a man deserves his own words echoed back before you tell him what you think of them.

“Yeah.” He checked my face like you check the sky before a ride—habit, not fear. “Figured I should run it by you. Any opposition from the club?”

“None.” I didn’t have to think on that. “You’re good for her, she’s good for you. Old ladies should be chosen by the men who’ll carry ‘em, not by a room. Nobody here’s gonna kick dirt on your door for choosing right.”

His shoulders let down an inch I bet only I would notice. Then he lifted a brow and added, “Maybe you could prepare Melody. I don’t want her to kick me in the nuts. Lyric says she’s overprotective and I heard she broke Maria’s nose”

He barked a laugh—fast, loud, the kind that comes from the chest. “What they got out of fucked with their heads. Lyric said Melody feels shit deeper than most but hides it all away. I don’t want her to think I’m taking Lyric from her. But never felt like this before, brother.”

“Fair. I’ll see what I can do for you.” I responded thinking about the way Melody did tuck away into herself rather than wear her emotions on her sleeve.

The reaction she had to Maria shocked me but I couldn’t lie and say I wasn’t in love with it.

If someone said that shit to me about her, I’d get jealous too.

I couldn’t define what we had like Tiny was with Lyric, but I did know there was something different about her. I also knew there wasn’t another woman around that I craved the way I did Melody.

“They have a bond. It’s like brotherhood level. No one is gonna come between me and my brothers, I don’t want Mel to think I’m doing that with Lyric.”

“She’ll come around,” I said, a corner of my mouth tipping.

He nodded, then thumbed his jaw like there were details to chew. “I’m not doing a circus ceremony. I’ll tell ‘em at church after I give her the ring, then we keep it close. Want you as my best man, Enzo. Want the club in it, but nothing over the top. Lyric ain’t like that.”

“Say when,” I replied honored to be beside him. “I’ll stand with you.”

He turned his eyes to the lot, found whatever he was looking for, and pushed off the wall. “Appreciate it.”

After a pause he spoke quiet like, “If there’s anything you think I’m not seeing—say it now.”

“You’re seeing it,” I gave back honestly. “All I can tell you is patience. She’s got a past that pulls on the line. Sometimes you gotta let her have space.” I tapped my sternum. “Doesn’t mean you let go. Means you hold even when she wants to shut you out.”

He left and I got back to the task at hand.

By the time the sun tilted and the heat quit biting, I’d texted Melody to be ready for dinner.

She’d sent back a thumbs-up and nothing else.

Meant yes. Meant she was already tying her hair back, already shutting out whatever the day brought to give her full attention to our time together.

I rolled up to the hotel in the kind of evening light that makes everything look like it belongs in a photograph whether it deserves it or not.

She was on the curb by the back door, boots on, loose braid over one shoulder, that soft T-shirt she wore when she didn’t care who saw her plain.

When she saw me, she smiled like a thing in her had settled. It landed low in me, that look.

“You good?” I asked.

“Yeah.” She slid her tote strap across her chest, took the helmet like it was already hers, cinched the strap without looking, and hopped on. First time I put her on a bike she’d clutched with fingers that left prints. Now her palms found that spot on my middle and fit like she knew she found home.

We took the long way by instinct. Taking the cut through behind the lumber yard, the S-curve where the pines pull back enough to give you sky.

She leaned with me, not against me. Half a mile in, the tension that rides under most people’s skin when they’re new to a bike slid out of her shoulders.

She rested the crown of her helmet between my shoulder blades, a small weight I’d started keeping track of.

At my place, the trees held the day’s cool like a secret.

I killed the engine, and the quiet climbed back on the world—cicadas, a soft tick from the pipes, some bird late to the evening.

Inside smelled like cedar and soap and the faint metallic ghost of machine oil no amount of scrubbing ever takes out of a man’s life.

She looked around the way she always did—cataloging without judging—then put her helmet on the chair by the door the same spot she always did. Little rituals felt big around her.

“Water?” I asked.

“Please.” She hopped up on the counter, heels knocking the cabinet, hands on either side of her like she needed to touch wood to stay in her body. I handed her a cold bottle. She took a sip, rolled it on her tongue like she was letting her day dissolve.

“Tiny called me,” she shared, eyes on the rim of her glass.

“Yeah?” I slid a cutting board out, set a steak on it, salted with the pinch that lives in my hand. “What for?”

“Asked me to go ring shopping with him.”

My knife paused. I didn’t make her look at me to know her face had gone careful. “And you don’t seem happy about that.”

She made the small move she makes when she’s picking between truth and safety—a quick glance down, a long breath, a lift of the chin that says she’s chosen.

“I want to be,” she said. “I love him for loving her. But I—” She stopped, swallowed, started again. “He asked because he wants it right. He wants it good. And I want that. I do. But there’s this…thing in the way. It’s not about him. It’s about before.”

“Say it,” I told her, quiet.

She set the glass down and twisted the stem once.

“We grew up in a cult. Didn’t realize fully what it was until finding life here.

” No tremor in the word cult now—just the flat edge of a fact worn smooth by living with it.

“They have rules that laugh at the world’s.

In their eyes, Lyric is already married.

To BJ.” She said his name like taking out trash—get it out, get it gone.

“Paper the state won’t recognize maybe, but paper the men back home would swing around if they wanted to make it ugly.

She got out. But…you see what I’m saying. ”

I did. I pictured a man with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, a room full of people who think the law is whatever their favorite man says it is, a piece of paper nobody should care about that can still be used like a blade.

“You told Tiny?” I asked.

“Not everything. Not like this.” She met my eyes. “I wanted to tell you why I didn’t light up when he asked about rings. I didn’t want to lie to you by staying quiet.”

I walked the two steps to her, took the glass from her hand, set it on the counter, and put my palms on the wood to either side of her thighs so the choice was in her hands, not mine. “Thank you,” I said. “For telling me straight.”

She nodded, the relief in it small and real.

“We’ll figure it,” I added. “If that bastard tries to breathe on her life again, we’ll be the wall. If there’s a paper needs burning, we’ll burn it. If a judge needs educating, we’ll educate him. You don’t have to carry this shit.”

Her shoulders lowered. I like that moment—when a person lets a piece of their load slide into a man’s hands and doesn’t grab to take it back.

“You sure?” she asked.

“About what part?” I cocked a brow.

“All of it.”

“Yeah.” I meant it. “Tiny’s my brother. She’s your blood.

That makes it my business. And yours.” I poured olive oil into a pan, set the flame low, let the house take on the smell of garlic because it makes both our shoulders drop.

“Doesn’t mean we storm anything tonight. Means we move smarter than they do.”

She reached out, hooked one finger in the belt loop of my jeans, and tugged me closer an inch like she didn’t even know she’d done it. “You always talk like that?” she asked. “Like a man who already figured out where the exits are.”

“Usually I’m already standing in one,” I said, and she smiled, a small flash that lived mostly in her eyes.

I cooked because I like what it does to a room.

Steak seared in the pan while potatoes roasted in the oven with rosemary and salt, the kind of smell that makes a place feel owned.

I handed her a cherry tomato halved with salt on it; she made a face at me for it, then popped it in her mouth and sucked air when it was hotter than she thought.

We both laughed. Nothing fancy. Just a minute of being people.

We ate at the table by the window. The trees out there threw the last of the light back in at us, and the air had the first hint of cool it was going to give.

She ate like someone who’d taught her body not to refuse good things.

Every so often I’d cut a bite I wanted her to have and set it on her plate and pretend I didn’t watch her face after.

Every so often she’d do the same back like she thought I wouldn’t notice.

The idea that someone learns what you like and keeps it on a shelf in their head—that’s a thing a man doesn’t take lightly.