Page 1 of Sac-rifice (RBMC: Cleveland, Ohio Chapter #7)

THE NAPKIN PHENOMENON

SAC

“P sst. Sledge,” I managed to push out beneath a stifled laugh, knowing he wasn’t going to answer me.

Annoying the piss out of my brother was one of my favorite past times.

He stood with his back to me, mindlessly rearranging the liquor bottles that sat in front of the mirror of our club’s bar.

Despite how much he had argued the fact that it was my turn in the rotation of bar duty, it was his.

We both knew whose ass was supposed to be back there tonight, and it damned sure wasn’t mine.

He had come up with just about every excuse under the sun to get out of his turn in rotation and hang tonight on me—I wasn’t taking this one for him.

In the past, when he asked me to cover for him, I agreed.

No questions asked on my part. I had my brothers’ back through-and-through, and usually, they had mine.

The way that he was trying to weasel his way out of this irked me, and out of sheer principle for his conniving ass antics, I planned to annoy the piss out of him all night.

Sledge wasn’t someone who opened up to people.

Neither was I, honestly, but I had known the guy for a long time, and this wasn’t his norm.

Did he threaten my life at least five times every other day?

Yes. But what he didn’t do was pussyfoot around inconsequential things like bar duty.

None of us were thrilled to be the one behind the bar while everyone else was able to come and go as they pleased, but it was something we did.

When we prospected beneath Ghoul and Spider, the whole lot of us were essentially permanent fixtures back there or helping one of our brothers get rid of a body in one fashion or another.

None of the guys went easy on any of us, me especially.

I still hadn’t fully forgiven Ghoul for flinging the guts all over me without any kind of warning back in those days.

“Sla-sla-sla-sla-Sledge-ah,” I sang to the tune of a popular Kinks’ song.

He lifted his eyes, set in a hateful glare beneath his tightened eyebrows, to the mirror in front of him and made contact with me as he sharply shook his head.

Something was up with him, and I was going to make him crack one way or another.

“Hey, Sledge. I want a c-o-l-a,” I continued with my parody of the song.

“I’m going to shove a c-a-n through your j-u-n-k if you don’t piss off,” Sledge growled through gritted teeth. My brother had anger issues. He went from zero to furious faster than I was able to draw any weapon, and I was pretty dang speedy with my hands.

“Sounds like a good night to me.” I beamed with a widespread smile. “Actually, I think I’ll keep it up. It’d save me from another meaningless night of sex.” My tongue clicked against the roof of my mouth.

Ghoul was on me as soon as the words left my mouth.

“Sac, for as long as I’ve known you and that eighteen-pound bag between your legs, there has only been three things on your mind: our club, your family, and meaningless sex.

” He laughed to himself with a shake of his head, turning on his barstool in our direction before he took a huge gulp of whiskey.

“Ah. Yeah. Sorry, boss. Sour ass’s rainy-day attitude must be bringing me down with him.

” I shrugged, gnawing on the corner of my mouth for a moment.

As far as any of my brothers knew, our Prez was right.

My actions would make anyone believe that those were the most important things to me.

The thing was, I didn’t care about any of the women.

They had never, would never, compare to the one person I wanted and would never have.

I decided early on in my life that if she couldn’t be mine, I didn’t want anyone else.

So, women meant nothing to me. They were a distraction to keep my mind busy and off her.

Every time the memories that were burnt into my soul decided to creep out of my bones and into my head, I searched out a warm body to occupy my time.

When I wasn’t with a woman, like right now, typically, I talked about being with one.

Each and every damned time it was my own personal form of punishment.

I was stuck in a self-inflicted masochistic purgatory that any man would give his right nut to be tormented by and happily trade places with me.

I joked about touching tits and ass so much that the actual act of doing it had almost lost its luster.

I still appreciated the female physique, only it wasn’t as much as I led people to believe I did.

They weren’t her. A man could only get it up for so long if he was relying on his memory for motivation.

Sex was more like an obligation to me than it was something I enjoyed.

I treated it as something mundane and expected, going through the motions on autopilot.

I got about as excited about sex as I did going to the bank.

Hell, now that I thought about it, going there probably brought me more enjoyment—at least when I went there, they gave me lollipops.

“Sa-Sa-Sa-Sa Sou?—”

“Your happy a-s-s better be able to back up all the shit talk your mouth is spittin’ because I’m about to knock every one of your teeth down that throat of yours,” Sledge barked as he turned to face me, gripping the edge of the bar. His knuckles turned white, and he growled in my direction.

I smirked. Pushing him further would be the last thing any sane person would do if they were in my shoes right now as they sat on a barstool across from a highly pissed off bear of a man.

But I wasn’t a small guy either. Sledgehammer had a few inches on me in height, but I was every bit as ripped as he was, if not a little more.

I have claimed to be a lot of things throughout my life but being sane wasn’t one of them.

If I left with all of my teeth tonight, it would be a miracle.

Since he growled at me, I took it a step further by howling in return.

“Ow-ow-ooowww! I’ve never been a coyote in the bedroom, but I like to keep an open mind.

Like I said, let the good times roll, Sledgehammer.

” I figured once he and Lina got together his cranky ass might mellow out some.

Clearly not. Sledge’s jaw twitched as he gritted his teeth together.

I should quit before the guy absolutely loses it on me, but there’s no fun in that.

I couldn’t stop myself from smiling before I spoke again, “A hole is a hole, but I’m a top, sweetheart,” I cackled.

Ghoul’s cheeks puffed out, and he lunged forward.

I turned and held my arms up to shield myself from what was about to happen.

Sledge, who was probably too preoccupied by planning my death, wasn’t nearly as fast as me.

A hefty amount of brown liquor jet-streamed out of Ghoul’s lips and sprayed smack dab on Sledge’s face.

Without missing a beat, I stole a napkin—that I had no idea which one of my brother’s had used for who knows what—from the bar and scooped my hand around it, bringing it toward Sledge.

“Sac, so help me,” he warned. “If you come any closer to me with that, the only hole you’ll see tonight will be the end of my barrel.”

Ignoring him, I cupped his cheek with the napkin, firmly squishing it against his face while the tip of my tongue stuck out of the corner of my mouth.

The liquid clung to the paper, and the napkin stayed in place when I withdrew my palm as quickly as it had arrived.

“I knew you and Lina were freaky, but I didn’t know she had hollowed you out to the point of a rain barrel.

Man, I’ll remember to get you some Prep-H for your birthday,” I spat out in a hurry before busting into a laughing fit.

I jumped off my stool as Sledge balled his hands into fists.

He swung in my direction, and I bobbed backward, his fist soaring inches away from the tip of my nose.

“A swing and a miss,” I called in the best umpire voice I could manage while laughing.

Questioning the gravity defining phenomenon of the napkin wasn’t going to happen right now because I doubted it was anything more than pure luck.

Somehow, even after he pulled his right hook back and was about to launch his left toward me, the napkin clung to the side of his face by no more than a square inch.

He blew out a deep breath and right on cue, as if the napkin was a paid actor, it flapped.

All of us standing around lost it, except for Sledge who was beyond pissed.

This was more fun than I’d had in ages, and to top it off, it was hilarious.

“Let me just grab that for you, wet cheeks.” I bounced forward on the toes of my left foot, snatched the napkin off him, and shoved it in my pocket while I jumped just out of his reach again.

Sledge’s eyes widened, and the corner of his mouth twitched, I figured he was fighting to keep the laughter inside when it clearly wanted to do the opposite.

“You’re a damned pest. Do you know that Sac?” Sledge chuckled as he shook his head.

“I’ve been told that a time or two.” I smiled, happy with myself to finally get him to break out of his mood.

“Right. Only a time or two,” he said as he bent down, grabbing something from the cooler beneath the bar, and then set a cola down where I had been sitting. “And here’s your damn cola.” His fingers were still wrapped around the can, and he lifted it up, giving it a good shake before releasing it.

“Weren’t we meeting someone at some time, Ghoul?” Tin Man asked, flipping his wrist over and glancing at his watch to check the time. “It’s getting kind of late.”

“Brother don’t get your panties in a…” Ghoul’s voice trailed off midsentence, and then he cleared his throat. “Ah. That old fuck is going to be pissed.”

“Don’t talk about yourself like that,” I joked half-heartedly, shoving my hands into the sleeves of my leather jacket and shrugged it the rest of the way onto my body. I guess we’d all been too wrapped up with what was going on between Sledge and me to remember we had somewhere to be.

Knowing Ghoul like I did, he was about to speed past the Cuyahoga so fast it would look like a creek instead of the river that it was and expect all of us to do the same.

Seeing as I was our Road Captain, I would be one of the two riding right behind him setting the pace for the rest of the club, so the quicker I got my ass out the door the better.

“Yeah, I know I’m getting up there, but we can’t all be young tic-tac warriors like you, Sac. Spider and I might have more gray in our hair than color now, but when I say Leo is old, trust me, he’s ancient.” He grabbed his jacket and pulled it on as he continued, “Did you get the ponchos?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Enough for all of us?” Ghoul’s eyebrow raised as he passed me, heading toward the door.

“Yeah, Sac, did you make sure to get enough for everyone?” Sledgehammer questioned like a parrot repeating Ghoul’s words, no doubt seeing the chance to get even with me for riding him all night.

Not only was he going to throw me under the bus, but he was also driving the damned thing.

It wouldn’t shock me one bit if he pulled out some conniving shit and slammed the bus into reverse just to crunch me under the wheels another time for good measure.

I glared at Sledge. He was more than aware I wasn’t the one to physically buy the ponchos per say.

I paid for them, but what I didn’t do was handpick every last plastic raincoat and put frilly little nametags on each of them for all of my brothers.

I was in a hurry and completely done with the sweet butt that stayed that night before I made sure I had what the club needed.

Having her pick up the items made the most sense.

I had offered to take her home, and she asked if I would let her run into a store for something.

I didn’t ask what she needed, didn’t care.

Of course, I agreed to take her. I wasn’t a complete asshole all of the time.

Both of us going into the store seemed pointless, so I sent her after them.

She was a fairly smart lady—too smart to be tangled up with any of us bastards for damned sure—and besides, it was a simple task.

The thought that she might have screwed up and not gotten enough had crossed my mind but only because Sledge kept asking about how many I bought almost daily for the whole week prior to today.

“We have enough. Okay? Now, are we gonna stand around all night nit-picking or are we going to get the heck outta Dodge?” I stood still for a second, questioning him, hoping he took the bait and shut the hell up.

I glanced from him to the open door when Ghoul’s bike rumbled to life and Wiley zipped past us.

“C’mon, fucksticks. We have places to be and a man to see.” Wiley paused, meticulously pulling on his black leather gloves. “We already have to deal with the two of you going back and forth, I don’t want to add a pissed off Ghoul into the mix.”

I opened my mouth to say something smartassy but decided he was right. If we didn’t get our asses out the door, Ghoul would leave without us, and the whole club would pay for it.