ZEKE’S BABY: Midnight’s Hounds MC Page 19

  ***

  Royal stepped off his bike at the clubhouse. The contractor was supposed to be there already, but the only vehicle in the lot was Doc’s Dyna. “He’s not here?” Royal asked as he walked into the shell of their clubhouse.

  “You see him here?” Doc asked, sitting on an upended five-gallon bucket.

  “I guess he’s cheap for reason,” Royal groused.

  “You ever seen a contractor, plumber, electrician, or anyone like that on time? Have a sit.”

  “I don’t want to sit! I want to get this shit moving!”

  Doc stared at his friend again. “What’s eating you, brother?”

  “Nothing. It just pisses me off that nobody can be on time.”

  Doc quirked an eyebrow at Royal. “Nothing, huh? Seems like something to me. You still got a burr up your ass about that diner chick?”

  “I stopped by to see her today before I came here. I just wanted to talk to her, to explain why I did what I did.”

  “Just fucking forget about her! Jesus Christ! You did what you had to. Even if you tell her, what will it change? Nothing!” Doc watched Royal a moment then softened. “Look, I think it’s great you want to come clean with her. That takes a lot of balls, and not a lot of guys would be willing to do it. But you’ve tried twice now, and she kicked you in the nuts both times, right? So it’s time to let it go.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Royal replied softly. “But this is eating me from the inside and I don’t even know why. I was hoping if we could talk it out I could let it go.”

  “Maybe you need to go back to Charleston until you get your head straightened out. This shit didn’t start until you got to Greenfield.”

  “It’s not the where; it’s the who. When I saw her the other night in the diner, that’s when it all came back.”

  “What you need to do is go out and find that witch bitch again. You need to fuck her, and keep on fucking her, until you get this out of your system. No pussy is worth this much headache.”

  “Sorry I’m late,” Antonio Daniels said as he stepped into the clubhouse. “I got on the wrong interstate and had to find an exit to turn around.” Tony looked around the gutted building. “You guys have done a ton of work. The carpenters should be here any time to start putting walls up. That will be pretty fast, a couple of days, tops. The electrical, and especially the plumbing are going to be what slows us down on the rough in. You sure you want the two extra bathrooms and showers in the two existing ones? Without that, we can have the rough in work done in a couple of days.”

  “Got to have them,” Doc said.

  “You got it, but jackhammering out the floor to tie in with the existing plumbing is going to be a real pain in the rear.” Tony smiled. “Still, we can handle it.”

  “Still think you can complete all the work in thirty days?” Royal asked.

  Tony shrugged. “I don’t see why not. We’ll be working in the dry so there shouldn’t be any weather delays. You keep the money flowing, I’ll keep the guys busting ass. Once everything is roughed in, we can start the finish work. That’s what’s really going to eat up the time.”

  Doc nodded. “Good enough. Make it happen, Tony, and the money will be there.”

  ***

  Doc and Royal left to leave Tony to his work. Royal needed to clear his head. Doc was right. Stella wasn’t worth it. No pussy was. He turned north on the 276, a place he used to ride often. It was a nice stretch of road with plenty of curves, once he got out of town, to keep his mind occupied. He rode, going nowhere, while thinking.

  The past four years had been the best thing to ever happen to him. He knew it had been the right decision at the time. He’d been offered a prospect patch by the Iron Kings and he’d leapt at the chance. He’d loved Stella, but he needed a way out of the spiral he was in.

  He’d graduated high school but there was no money for college and his parents were useless. Constantly strung out on drugs and alcohol, unable to hold a steady job, they’d existed in abject poverty, surviving on food stamps and welfare while living in government assistance housing. He had nothing, and it seemed he would always have nothing.

  He was working a minimum wage job at a car wash, the only job he’d been able to find, trying to save enough to get out. He’d finally managed to scrape together enough money to buy a bike, a ten-year-old Honda Shadow Sabre. He couldn’t afford a car, but the bike beat walking, even in the rain, and he came to love the machine for the freedom he gave him.

  He’d ridden to Charleston for Low Country Hog Fest and, while there, ran into the Iron Kings. It had been an inauspicious meeting to be sure. After the show he was in a bar, nursing a beer, before riding back to Greenfield. He was getting up to leave when he backed into a man, causing him to drop his beer. He’d apologized, and offered to replace it, but the man was drunk and belligerent. He’d slapped money down on the bar for the man’s beer and tried to leave, not wanting trouble, but the man followed him out. Outside, things got out of hand and they’d locked up in the parking lot while a crowd of men and women cheered them on.

  Royal had his share of fights in high school, but the man was an experienced brawler and outweighed him by fifty pounds. It was no shoving match, and whether it was because the guy was drunk, or Royal was just too stubborn to stay down, he didn’t know, but after what felt like an eternity of pain, his burly opponent had thrown in the towel.

  As he staggered to his feet, his clothes torn and his face and hands bloody, one of the women watching them fight stepped out of the crowd and escorted him back inside where she and another woman cleaned him up. As she cleaned the blood off him, the woman explained the man he’d fought was a loudmouth who liked to fight. He knew better than to mess with the Kings, but he must have looked like a soft target. She smiled and kissed him gently on the lips. He smiled as he remembered her words.

  “Looks like he was wrong,” she’d purred.

  Once he was cleaned up, she introduced him to the Iron Kings. Several of them had been out watching him fight. They’d bought him a beer, impressed that, even though he was getting his ass handed to him at the start, he kept getting up, and had finally worn the man down and kicked his ass.

  He was in no shape to ride the three hours back to Greenfield and they had offered the hospitality of their clubhouse for the night. Reluctantly he accepted their offer, and a few hours later, as he was preparing to bed down, the woman who had kissed him paid him a visit.

  She’d stayed the night, and though he was in no better shape to fuck than he was to ride, she’d given him the most exquisite blow job he’d received to that time. To say he was flabbergasted would be an understatement. After his orgasm they’d talked, and she’d talked about life in the Kings, and how she liked that he kept getting up every time the thug knocked him down. Everyone who saw the fight thought he was King material, and she encouraged him to apply for a prospect patch.

  He’d slipped out at four, leaving the woman sleeping in the bed. He wanted to stay, but he had to be at work by nine.

  That evening, after work, he’d stopped by the library and looked up the Iron Kings on the internet. He wrote a heartfelt thank you for their hospitality and expressed an interest in joining the brotherhood. The letter went in the mail the next day.

  He waited for weeks, each day hoping to hear from the Kings, but hope gradually faded and he realized they weren’t going to offer him a patch, and he had returned to his life of drudgery and grind. Then the unexpected had happened. He’d met Stella.

  He’d been invited to a party where he was supposed to hook up with a chick who wanted to meet him, but he’d left with Stella instead. There was something about her that he couldn’t get enough of. Yes, she was gorgeous, and yes, she could fuck him like no other woman, but it was more than that. It was that certain something you can’t describe but can feel when someone was the one. Stella was definitely his the one, and he fell for her hard.

  After dating a year, they moved in together. She was working at On A Roll
as a clerk while lobbying the manager to be moved into the bakery so she could do what she loved, and he’d left the car wash and was working at a brickyard.

  They weren’t getting rich, but they were making it, putting a little back each month, and they were happy. Then it happened. One day he had a job, the next, the gates were locked and the owners were under investigation for tax evasion. He’d cast about for more work, even returning to the car wash, but nothing was available.

  Three weeks after being let go, and feeling as low as he ever had in his life, he received a phone call from the Iron Kings. They wanted to talk to him about a prospect patch. He was thrilled at the opportunity, but also torn. It was one thing to move to Charleston when he had nothing, but now he had Stella. He wavered, then decided to go. If they offered the prospect patch, they could try to figure out what to do.

  He sent Stella a text telling her he was going to Charleston for an interview and he would see her the next day. He’d ridden to Charleston and after the interview, they’d offered the patch and he accepted on the spot. If he made it through the one-year probation he’d be a member of the brotherhood.

  He snaked the bike through the bends, his stomach churning as he recalled the grievous error he’d made. He had a text from Stella waiting after the interview. The store manager was going to give her a shot at taking over the bakery. The woman who was working there was leaving to assist her aging parents. He wanted her to work with the woman for the next two weeks, and if the woman who was leaving said she could handle it, the job was hers, along with a healthy increase in salary.

  He could sense the excitement in her words and he could feel the creeping despair closing around him again. Stella was on her way. She was going places and he wasn’t. She wanted to open her own bakery someday, and she deserved better than he could give her. He sat for a long time, staring at the floor, before he stepped outside and made the call.

  She’d gotten over him, just as he wanted, just as he hoped. So why was he still worrying about her? He knew the answer, though he hated to admit it to himself. It was because he’d never gotten over her.

  Riding always helped him clarify things and as he made the large circle back to Greenfield, Royal realized why he couldn’t let it go. Though he tried to deny it, even to himself, and had tried to burn out that part of himself with bimbos and booze, he hadn’t been able to do so. He still cared for her and he needed to know she was all right. He knew he was being selfish, wanting to hear the words to assuage his guilt, but he needed to hear it. Once he knew that, he thought he could finally let her go and find some peace.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Royal was hot and sweaty from his ride, so he returned to his apartment and cleaned up. As he stood in the shower, the warm water pouring over his head, he tried to decide how to proceed. He could do what he’d done in Charleston and fuck any and every woman he could talk into opening her legs while drowning himself in booze. He shook his head, knowing he couldn’t go back to that. He’d finally gotten his shit together and he was no longer the lost kid looking for something, anything, to validate him. He’d found pride, something he didn’t have then. He knew chasing pussy and being hungover all the time wouldn’t solve anything.

  The only way forward was to clear the air between them. He needed to speak his peace to get the poison out of his system, to say the words he should have said four years ago. Then he could move forward with his life as she had moved forward with hers. He hadn’t realized until he saw her again he was still haunted by how he left her. He’d been unable to let go of the guilt, to find someone new he could love. Every sexual encounter since her had been just like the one Friday night with Circe. Empty fucking. He was tired of that life. He wanted to find an old lady, someone he could care about and someone to care about him, but he couldn’t until he let go of the guilt.

  It didn’t matter to him if she forgave him or not as much as it did that she simply knew why he’d done it, and he found out she was happy and okay. The corner of his lips quirked up. He didn’t know why this had become such an obsession for him. Until now he didn’t give much of a shit what a woman thought about him so long as she let him fuck her. Maybe that’s the difference between someone you were using and someone you love. Or loved once.

  He banged the shower off. He had his plan. He would grind her down. All he wanted was to talk, and eventually she would have to talk to him, if only just to get him to go away. The easiest way was to eat dinner at the diner every night. He had to eat anyway; it might as well be there.

  ***

  “One?” the hostess at Carolina Diner asked as Gabriel stepped into the diner.

  “Yes. Stella’s section, please.”

  The hostess consulted a table map. “Right this way.”

  He followed her into a small side room and placed his menu on the table. “Stella will be right with you.”

  He picked up the menu and was looking at it when Stella arrived. “You’re persistent, I’ll give you that.”

  He smiled at her. “I have to eat somewhere. Might as well be here. The food’s good and so is the service.”

  “That’s the only reason you’re here?”

  “You know it’s not.”

  “Why’s it so important to you that we talk?”

  “Honestly?”

  “Sure.”

  “Because seeing you made me feel guilty about how we ended.”

  “You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t worry much about your guilt.”

  “Didn’t think you would. But you asked for an honest answer, and I gave it to you. That’s all I want: to be honest with you one last time.”

  She looked at him a moment. He had certainly changed in the four years he’d been gone. Not only had gotten better looking, but he’d come into his own as a man. He had a confidence about him he never had before and, goddamnit all, he was hotter than shit because of it. “What can I get you to drink?”

  He smiled. “Sweet tea, no lemon.”

  “You ready to order or do you need a minute?”

  “Give me a minute, please.”

  She moved off and he returned his attention to the menu. When she returned with his drink, the menu was lying on the table.

  “What can I get you?”

  “Country fried steak with mashed potatoes, pinto beans and mac and cheese.”

  “Cornbread or roll?”

  “Cornbread, you know that.”

  She smiled because she did know, just like she knew about the sweet tea with no lemon, but she said nothing. “It’ll be right out.”

  “He’s back again?” Tara asked as she stepped behind the counter.

  “Yeah. He simply won’t let it drop. He said he wanted to be honest with me one last time.”

  Tara smirked. “I’d let him be honest with me. I’d let him fuck me until I honestly couldn’t walk.”

  Stella snickered and stuck the ticket on the kitchen wheel. “Why don’t you go talk to him, then?”

  “Why don’t you? Maybe he still has the hots for you.”

  “Because I don’t want to go there again. I’m so over him.”

  “Uh-huh,” Tara grunted. “Look, far be it for the divorcée to tell you how to handle your relationships, but the reason I’m divorced is we never talked. We let resentments build up between us until they exploded. If we’d been honest with each other instead of playing stupid games, Hick and I might still be married. If he wants to talk to you, I think you should let him. What’s the worst that will happen? He’ll piss you off again? But maybe you can find some actual closure over this and you can get on with your life.”

  “I’ve gotten on with my life!”

  Tara nodded knowingly. “In the year you’ve been working here, you’ve never gone on a date that I know of.”

  “Tony and I date!”

  “Oh really? When was the last time you two did anything other than fuck?”

  The question annoyed her for reasons she couldn’t explain. “I don’t have time! I w
ork two jobs and have a little girl, you know.”

  “I work two jobs, but I still have time to occasionally go out and do something fun that doesn’t involve getting the sheets all sweaty. If that’s all you want from life, go for it, but is seems to me you are missing out on a lot.”

  Stella sighed as she propped against the wall. “It’s hard, Tara. I never seem to have enough time. If I go out, I feel guilty for leaving Katrina with her grandmother. It’s not fair to Connie or Katrina. Besides, it seems like all the nice one’s are already taken. Anyone who is interested in a twenty-six year old single mother seems to be interested in only one thing.”

  Tara nodded. “I know it’s tough, but it’ll get easier as Katrina grows up. But you can’t live like an old maid except when you can’t take it anymore. You’re beautiful, smart and too nice for your own good. I can’t believe nobody wants you. Tony is just using you.”