He rooted around on the floor to find jeans, tee, underwear, and socks. The women in his bed didn’t twitch when he sat down next to them to pull on his boots.
Dressed, he turned off the light to his room and headed down the hall and into the common room of the Club’s compound. The brothers’ rooms were at the back, doors opening off a long hall that ran the length of the building. A doorway in the middle of the hall led to the common area, which had a long, curved bar and a mess of couches, chairs, tables, and pool tables. Off to the side through another door was their meeting room, a kitchen, and a set of locked, reinforced storage rooms.
As he moved through the common space he saw Brick, one of Chaos’s members, flat on his back on one of the couches. He had one foot on the floor and was dead to the world. He also had a woman draped on him, dead to the world too. She had a short jean skirt on, and Shy saw that Brick was sleeping with his hand up the hem, cupped on her ass. Shy also saw the woman wasn’t wearing any underwear.
Other than that, the space was empty and currently lit only by a variety of neon beer signs on the walls.
That night, Brick’s girl had brought two friends to party.
Brick got his girl. Shy got the friends.
Shy left the Compound, went to his bike, threw a leg over, and drove the six blocks to his apartment. Once there, he didn’t bother going upstairs to his place. He never bothered to go upstairs to his place.
He wondered vaguely why he kept it. He was rarely there. He ate fast food that he ordered to go. He slept in his bed at his room in the Compound. He worked in the garage at Ride or the auto supply store attached. He drank and partied wherever there was drink or party provided. He communed with the brotherhood.
All other times, he was on his bike.
This was because Parker Cage only felt right on his bike.
It started with the dirt bike he got when he was fourteen, and it never stopped.
Five years ago, on his thirdhand Harley, he’d cruised by Ride Custom Cars and Bikes, a massive auto supply store that was attached to a garage in the back that built custom cars and bikes. He’d heard of it, hell, everyone had. The Chaos MC owned and ran it, and the garage was famous, built cars for movies and millionaires.
But it was the flag that flew under the American flag on top of the store that caught his attention. Until that day, he’d never looked up to see it. It was white and had the Chaos Motorcycle Club emblem on it with the words “Fire” and “Wind” on one side and “Ride” and “Free” on the other.
The second his eyes hit that flag, he felt his life take shape.
Nothing, not anything in his life until that time, except the first time he took off on a bike, had spoken to him like that flag. He didn’t get why and he didn’t spend time trying. It just spoke to him. So strong, it pulled him straight into the parking lot and set his boots to walking into the store.
Within months, he was a recruit for Chaos.
Now, he was a brother.
Outside his apartment, he parked his bike and moved from it to his truck. If she was in a state, Tabitha Allen wouldn’t be able to hold on to him on a bike. If she was feeling sassy, which was usually the case, she’d put up a fight he couldn’t win with her on a bike. So he hauled his ass into his beat up, old, white Ford truck, started it up and took off in the direction of the address on the text Hop sent.
As he drove, that fire in his gut intensified.
She was in college now, supposedly studying to be a nurse. Cherry, the Office Manager at the garage who also happened to be Tack’s old lady and Tabby’s stepmother, bragged about her grades and how good she was doing in school. Shy had no clue how Tab could pull off good grades when she was out fucking around all the time. He couldn’t say one of the brothers got a Tabby Callout every night but it was far from infrequent.
The girl liked to party.
This wasn’t surprising. She was nineteen. When he was nineteen, he’d liked to party too. Fuck, he was twenty-four and he still liked to party in a way he knew he’d never quit.
But he wasn’t Tabby Allen.
He was a biker who worked in a garage and auto supply store, oftentimes raised hell and kicked ass when needed.
She was studying to be a freaking nurse with her dad footing that bill, so she needed to calm her ass down.