Tread: Biker Romance (Ronin MC Series Book 1) (16 page)

WITH MOST OF THE MC
members gone on one trip or another, the place was pretty deserted. I got roped into doing another day at the gym, since I couldn’t stay at the shop by myself. Now that there were crazies around town, it had even the hardened women of the MC worried. Lola, Kit’s mom, had taken over bar duties. Her words were, “Honey, I can shoot a sawed off shotgun better than you can. I’ve got this. You go play with the girls now.”

It was a little degrading, but those girls just rolled their eyes and checked the handguns in their purses before leaving the saloon. When they told me to pack a bag before we left, I didn’t know what to bring. Hoggin’ didn’t sound like mani/pedis, so I grabbed the oldest pair of jeans in the lot.

Tatum gathered food from the kitchen and we all met her there. “Ma, we’re headed out.”

I looked around for who she might be talking to, but the only other person was Veesa. She snapped her hand at me. I looked down, holding a dog leash and Bella’s bed.

“You leave the dog with me. Tatum’s aren’t so nice.”

“Oh, I don’t . . .” I trailed off, not knowing how to tell her that I didn’t want my Bella to turn into tonight’s soup. “She’s on medication. I can’t impose.”

“Nonsense. You leave her with me. Put her bed there. She’ll be fine.” I followed where her finger pointed to a corner of the tiled room and cleared my throat.

“Let’s go, Grace. We’re gonna be late for class,” Marley said impatiently.

I walked over, set the bed down, and started unpacking my bag. “Her dog food is here. I’ve got her medication in this divider for morning and night. If she eats anything but her food, she could break out in hives. Give her a baby Benadryl and call me.” Tatum walked over and started to pull me out the door, so I talked faster. “She likes to take her pills with cheese or peanut butter but don’t let her, she’s—”

“Allergic,” everyone finished in unison as the door swung shut.

“Really, you guys? I couldn’t even finish instructions when you’re making me schlep my very high maintenance dog onto a stranger?” I asked in aggravation.

“Grab that pack. It’s yours, Grace,” they ordered, completely ignoring me.

I growled, lifting the strap, then stumbled. “Good gracious, what is in here? I already packed.”

“What do you have left in your backpack, jeans? This is the New Mexico desert, kid. We got you Kit’s old gear from the closet. Give me that.”

I looked up when I heard the rumble of a truck and saw Tread grinning at me from the driver’s seat. The education I’d gotten in the art of men and women had nearly blown my mind thanks to that man. He’d been at the edge of my every thought for days, with his kissing and rubbing. Amazing.

Though he’d been giving mixed signals, I thought I had it figured out. He didn’t want me to get attached. We were ‘having fun,’ as the girls called it. I was not delusional enough to think we were in a relationship, and I was thankful that he was not a sleaze ball about the things we’d done. As far as I could tell, he hadn’t told any of the men. Surely there would have been comments or looks, but everyone so far had been their version of normal.

I was, however, not an expert at hiding my feelings when it came to the opposite sex. Marley and Tatum let me know last night that they wanted all of the details as soon as we were away from eavesdroppers.

As soon as the doors shut in the car, they started in.

“I cannot wait for you to spill all about Tread.”

“Me neither. Everything. Kit left us before she could give details about her and Royal, the heifer. We need to live through your sweet, sweet first time.”

“What? We haven’t had sex!” I yelled from the backseat.

Their shoulders visibly sank. “Oh well. Something’s going on. I want to know about every look. I saw the smile he gave you when he drove by. We need new material.” Marley shook a finger at me when she was done talking.

“New material?” I asked cautiously, not sure I wanted to know.

“Yeah! For the spank bank, you know. With our boyfriend, Bob.”

“You both have a boyfriend named Bob?”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Wake up Grace! It’s 2012. BOB stands for battery-operated boyfriend. Also known as a vibrator.” My eyes grew wide and my mouth dropped open. Tatum found this hysterical.

“We’re talking about masturbating. I know what I’m getting you for your birthday, that’s for damn sure.” Marley snickered.

“We get lonely, Grace. Have you met anyone in the MC? Did you see how things went down with Royal and Kit? Those guys are so protective, like brothers and fathers, all of them. It’s annoying as fuck when you’re trying to get laid. But you don’t have the problem of knowing them your whole life.”

“How do you get any, then? I’m assuming you aren’t both virgins.” I bit my fingernail, in completely uncharted waters with this talk. Never had I imagined I would have someone to talk to about boys. Men.

“We have to wait until we do family runs. The MC will make a few runs a year to different charters and we all go. The guys like to get rowdy, usually drink too much, and get laid. That’s when we have our chance. Now that we’re out of college, it’s all about watching each other’s back and timing. Never sleep over, always look put together. We’ve got it down to an art when we get the chance to scratch an itch. But you don’t want to be screwing some loser, either.” Tatum turned to me suddenly.

“We aren’t hoes, Grace. We don’t even have sex all that often. Sometimes it’s just nice to get a kiss, maybe some over the clothes petting, ya know?”

My mind flashed to Tread and the junkyard yesterday, and I answered without thinking. “Oh yeah.”

Two pairs of eyes landed on me so fast, I felt pinned to the seat. Marley pointed at me. “I fucking knew it!”

Tatum stared with wide eyes. “I’ll be damned, he did feel you up.” She sniffed and wiped away a fake tear. “Our Gracie is growing up.”

I popped the handle on my door and slammed it shut as the girls fell on each other and pretended to sob away my innocence.

The classes went just about like the last ones, i.e. me barely surviving and sitting out the stripper routine. We got takeout and Marley drove to Tatum’s house. It was really out in the middle of nowhere on back roads. They pointed out Kit’s empty house along the way. Marley told me she had an apartment in town.

The baying of several dogs was heard immediately when we parked in Tatum’s driveway. She unlocked the door, turned off the alarm system, and dumped her gear onto the couch. After we took turns in the shower, we ate lunch and the girls shared a little more.

“I think something’s going on with the guys,” Tatum said with her mouth full.

“Whaddyou mean?” Marley asked, stuffing more french fries in her mouth. Tatum took a sip of her drink.

“Ever since Tread ran in freaking out about the immigration thing, they’ve been quiet, and now this secret recon mission while most of the
first gen is out of town? My brother doesn’t freak out about much, but that was intense.”

“Tread’s your brother?” I blurted out, spitting a mouth full of bacon, lettuce, and tomato across the table.

“What, you don’t see the resemblance?” Tatum deadpanned as it suddenly clicked. Of course I knew they were both at least partially Mexican, but this was southern New Mexico. Veesa was obviously of Hispanic heritage. Tatum and Tread both had very dark eyes, almost black. Where he was tall, she was tiny. I would have to study them side-by-side, but they may have had the same forehead and nose, though.

“Hey! I’ve heard both of you call Veesa by her name. Why would I guess that she’s your mom?” I defended myself.

Tatum shrugged that away. “We call her that because she’s always worked in the kitchen. So naturally we were there growing up. Everyone called her Veesa and we didn’t know any better. It just became habit.” Tatum shifted in her chair then dunked a fry into a mound of ketchup. “Thinking back on it, it probably hurt her feelings.”

“Hurt Veesa?”

Tatum glared. “Yes, hurt. She is a person, you know.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just hard for me to imagine. I know you’re right. She just seems so hard.”

“She’s escaped her country, buried her husband . . . Veesa definitely has a tough outer shell, but she cries just like the rest of us. Oh don’t look that way, Grace. You don’t even want to know how many pints of Ben and Jerry’s I have in my freezer.”

We all laughed and it broke the tension. “Anyway, something’s up with the boys.”

“Do you think it could be Kit?” Marley wondered aloud. I tried not to stiffen up.

Tatum nodded then shrugged. “Definitely for Royal. Tread’s been babysitting him a lot more.”

“Tread took Royal up to my room last night. Didn’t tell me why,” I contributed.

“Then they all went up there for a while. They didn’t used to have separate little gatherings that were so obvious. You think they want to make a power play?” Tatum asked nervously.

Marley scoffed. “No way. They don’t have the numbers for something like that. The only thing I can think of is retaliation for the prospect. But that happened after the first meeting, so I don’t know. Hendrix’s acting off, too.”

I noted the eyes for the first time, a startling jade that they both shared. But there the similarities ended. Marley was a sassy red head, where Hendrix was quiet, watchful, and dark. “Oh, he’s your—”

“Brother, yeah,” she finished.

Tatum balled up her trash and stood. “Well, this is getting us nowhere. Come help me with the dogs and you can spill the juice about you and Tread.”

When we got outside, there were kennels set up in a line parallel to the house. One dog to each run, six in total, and they were all jumping at their gates. The noise was deafening.

Once their food was distributed, Tatum started taking one dog out at a time while Marley refilled their water.

“They don’t get to play together?” I asked.

“That’s what tracking hogs is for these guys. Work is play for them.”

“So is this a hobby, or do you get paid?”

Tatum threw a toy that looked like it’d been around for years and the dog took off. “Nah, it’s a business. We try to keep several legit businesses around to keep the government off of our back. The bar, hoggin’, the gym, and of course the garage keep us above board.”

“So does someone call you about wild pigs on their property?”

“Yeah. We’re known around the New Mexico panhandle and southeast Arizona as the go to place when they’re tearing up green grass. Golf courses, farmer’s losing crops and orchards are our main business. Tonight, we’re going out to a place that’s prime eatin’ for those fools.”

“And the dogs catch them?” I asked.

Tatum scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Nah, kid. The dogs track the hogs. We follow the bays and barking. It’s like a fox hunt back in old England and shit. They corner the hogs, we bring them down and back home.”

“Then what do you do with them?”

“You ever had Veesa’s bacon?” Tatum asked with a twinkle in her eyes. My stomach flipped. There I was thinking something ridiculous like catch and release. This tiny, five-foot-nothing woman filled a freezer.

Would they ever not seem completely badass and intimidating?

The Tread conversation didn’t come up until we were in a huge six-tired truck they told me was a duelly. It rumbled almost as loud as the motorcycles. We were pulling a trailer filled with utility vehicles that looked like golf carts on steroids and four of the dogs. They were all in special vests that Tatum said helped protect them against boar tusks.

Freaking tusks. I had no doubt this whole endeavor was way over my head and didn’t plan on moving my butt once I was strapped in.

“All right, Miss Grace. We’ve got an hour; tell me everything about my brother.”

“Are you sure you want to know? It doesn’t gross you out?” As much as I didn’t want to say anything, the fact that I actually had girlfriends to talk about this with was too much to pass up.

“Honey, there ain’t any action until we move out. Those boys know not to touch us, or risk losing more than a finger, you dig? This is as close as we’re going to get, and I’m pretty sure we’ve all seen my brother getting his dick wet by now. Spill.”