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CHAPTER ONE

RiffRaff

I grin as I look at my phone. I can’t believe that it’s been a year since I started seeing Jillian. The first five or six months, our dates were during the day while her daughter was at school, but this weekend, I’ll finally meet her. She knows about me, of course, but understandably, Jilly wanted to take the time necessary for us to become familiar with one another. Kimber wasn’t happy that her mom was dating, but apparently, when she complained to her therapist, she was told that her mother was allowed to be happy. Granted, Kimber doesn’t know why her mom isn’t willing to sacrifice the rest of her life to her dead husband, and unless push comes to shove, she doesn’t ever plan to tell her, so she was resistant at first.

Still, even though this whole relationship thing is new for me since I think the last time I dated anyone might’ve been in high school. Of course, I got the best part of that when that bitch dropped Brick off to me and hit the road. It wasn’t easy being a teenaged father by a longshot, but I had my mom to help, plus the ol’ ladies stepped in as well whenever I was out on a run. Thankfully, when I took over the gavel, I made us mostly legit, with only a few morally gray things we did as a club.

There was no way I was gonna leave my boy to grow up on his own while I spent time in a concrete box or heaven forbid, six feet under, so I made those changes. We lost some brothers along the way, but with Brick at the helm, we have a helluva brotherhood these days. Add in the fact that he’s got a club princess as his ol’ lady and wife, I’m now a grandfather, and life’s pretty fucking good from where I’m standing.

RiffRaff: I see Chloe’s got y’all trained well.

Jilly: She’s a good kitty.

Yeah, she ended up taking the kitten I found on the side of the road home with her for her little girl. Since Ryleigh has her two, and Rory has one as well, I didn’t think it would be a good idea to introduce a kitten into the already chaotic mix.

RiffRaff: We still on for dinner with Kimber before her overnight?

Jilly: Definitely. You positive about this?

RiffRaff: Never more certain. I’m about to head into church, Jilly, so it may be a little while before I answer back.

Considering it’s been fucking years since I’ve been with a woman, since shortly before my original diagnosis, it’s past time for ‘this’ as far as I’m concerned. However, I respect Jilly enough that I haven’t pushed the issue of sex. She’s worth the wait, even though I haven’t told anyone I’ve been seeing her.

It’s not because I’m embarrassed either. The brothers already suspect something’s going on since I take off most days to see Jilly. It’s more that I wanted us to get to know each other, and as crowded as the clubhouse has been with our Cedar Creek brothers staying in Roanoke right now, I didn’t want to send her running down the road until I had her good and hooked.

Jilly: Bikers go to church? LOL.

Silly woman, she knows what it means, but it makes me chuckle because this is what she says every time I bring up that we’re headed into church. And trust me, ever since Kracken’s shit exploded so spectacularly, we’ve had more of them than I think there’s been in the history of this chapter, regardless of the club’s name!

I can’t wait to introduce her to Brick, Ryleigh, and my sweet Aubree, as well as the rest of the chuckleheads who I call brother. Hopefully, the women will balance out those assholes. That thought has me snickering until I hear Brick ask, “What’s going on, old man? You losing your marbles again?”

“Fucker, no I’m not, and when I’m ready to tell you what’s happening in my personal life, I will.”

“He’s got a woman, Brick, I told you that already,” Banshee states, smirking at me.

“Don’t we need to get this shit going?” I question. “Because you called church if I recall.”

Brick rolls his eyes at me, and I want to smack him upside his head. Disrespectful fucker. I may have been in the clouds for a while, but I’m not any longer and I’ll kick his ass if I need to. It’s a father’s prerogative to keep his kid in line regardless of his age. I’ll threaten to bend him over my knee until my dying day if there’s a reason to. Hell, I wonder how he’s gonna feel when I do introduce Jilly to the club. I’m only seventeen years older than my own kid, for fuck’s sake, and Jilly’s close to his age. He’s gonna end up with a stepmother who’s younger than he is, even though I haven’t told her where I see things heading with us.

“Leave him alone,” Ryleigh decrees. “Hey, Pops,” she says, dropping a kiss on my cheek. “You wanna watch Aubree later?”

“After church, sweet girl,” I reply.

“Church!” Brick bellows.

“Shut the fuck up, we got shit to discuss,” Brick commands.

It’s just the Roanoke chapter today since everything’s been quiet on the Fundamentalist fuckers. As everyone settles, I hear a meow and look down to see Sassy, Rory’s cat, climbing up Banshee’s leg to curl onto his lap.

Snickers reverberate when she starts purring because she’s loud as fuck. Brick just shakes his head in humor and then lifts his chin toward Rainman, our treasurer.

“Well, y’all, we’ve got a bump in our pay heading your way,” Rainman says, glancing at his laptop. “Us taking over the laundromat from the Brewer family is paying off in leaps and bounds.”

We all cheer and fists pound on the table. We have a few other legit businesses, and they pull in steady money, but the laundromat was a new venture that was drowning in debt before we took over. I raise my hand and ask, “And that’s including the free Saturdays we do monthly for the homeless?”

“Yeah, they don’t pay to wash and dry their clothes, but the other businesses have been donating money to run the machines,” Rainman replies. “So, we don’t lose anything at all income-wise on those days.”

One of the girls had seen on social media that a small town somewhere in Georgia does that as a ministry of sorts. While we’re not church-going folks as a rule, we are all about helping our own community through various charities, so we jumped at the chance to buy the laundromat when the family decided they wanted out.

Rainman then continues and says, “Adding customization to helmets is helping the body shop’s numbers as well.”

We found someone with some serious artistic talent who does custom paint jobs on the bikes we build, and they had mentioned doing helmets as well. Rainman did a cost analysis and found we could keep our overhead low and still charge a whack to those weekenders who want ‘everything to match’ when they’re riding. We’re still cheaper than several other shops within a hundred-mile radius who offer the same thing, but as long as we’re making bank, I really don’t care.

Hell, even though I was ‘retired’, I still got paid every month. I tried to get Brick to take it back and he growled at me, so I gave up and have invested a good chunk since I plan to live a very long time now.

The meeting continues as each of the brothers who handles a business brings up any concerns they have and before I know it, I hear Brick say, “Adjourned!”

I pick up my phone from the box the prospect’s holding and head to the common room for a beer, snickering again because now Sassy is riding on Banshee’s shoulder as he walks ahead of me.

“Sassy! There you are, you naughty girl,” Rory exclaims. “You know that women aren’t allowed in church.”

Raucous laughter at her statement floats around me as I reach the bar. Before I can say anything, Jadyn has the top popped off a longneck and is sliding it toward me. “Thanks,” I say as I tip it back and take a long swallow.

“You don’t miss having the gavel?” Kracken asks as he takes the stool next to me, Moira tucked under his arm. She waves but doesn’t say anything. Of course, she still doesn’t talk all that much after surviving her ordeal.

“Fuck no,” I retort. “It’s like herding a bunch of scalded cats. Brick’s more than capable of dealing with y’all.”

Jadyn gives me another beer and I tap the bar top before heading over to the couches so I can see my granddaughter. After setting my beer on the end table, I scoop her from Ryleigh’s arms then blow raspberries against her neck, which has her giggling.

“How’s my girl?” I ask as she gives me a somewhat sloppy kiss on the cheek.

“Gampa!” she exclaims, clapping her toddler hands against both of my cheeks before she tugs my goatee.

“Aubree,” I reply, rocking her from side to side. “When are you gonna have a little brother or sister?”

“Your son wants to wait,” Ryleigh says.

“My son? Not your husband?” I question.

“He’s your son when he’s on my shit list, my husband when he’s not,” she teases. “Right now, he’s on the list.”

I snicker, because there could be any number of reasons why he’s found himself in the doghouse, from not helping with Aubree to forgetting to get one of the prospects to pick something up that she asked him to get.

“Guess you’ll be waiting a little while longer,” I whisper to Aubree. Still, I’m loud enough that Ryleigh hears me, which makes her giggle.

With a sly grin on her face, she informs me, “Oh, we may be waiting even though I don’t want to, but that doesn’t mean we don’t still practice.”

“Lalala, I can’t hear you,” I say, just as Rory walks up and plops down next to Ryleigh.

“Practice what?’ Rory asks.

“Making babies,” Ryleigh replies with a straight face.

“And with that, Aubree and I are going out to the playset,” I retort before turning and heading through the kitchen which leads to our huge backyard.

“Pretty girl, you’re too young to be hearing that kind of stuff,” I tell Aubree as I buckle her into the special swing that Brick got for her.

For a man who used to be an adrenaline junkie, who probably took off ten years of my life with all the stunts he, Kracken, and Banshee used to pull, he’s turned into a Nervous Nellie where his baby girl is concerned. Every inch of the clubhouse has been baby proofed now that she’s walking really well, the cabinets in the kitchen all have child locks on them, the doorknobs have these weird covers that are harder than fuck to twist open, and there are a shit ton of baby gates around to keep her secure and in whatever room they want her to stay in. He’d bubble wrap her if he thought Ryleigh wouldn’t blow her top.

I know eventually, there’ll be more babies, but my son cracks me up. I don’t even dare think about her when she starts to date at forty.