“What time is it?” I ask, rubbing my eyes.
“Err, just after ten,” he states, taking a sip of the amber liquid.
“Shit!”
I jump up and immediately regret it, the room spins and I manage to hold down the contents of my stomach in time to get outside. Everything spills out and I hear laughter from the other side of the parking lot. Not bothering to see who it is, I flip them off and carry on with my sordid display.
I’m getting too old for this shit! I think and immediately shake my head. I shouldn’t be thinking like that, I’m in my prime.
Jacques pats me on the back and holds his tumbler out to me. “Hair of the dog?”
Just the smell has me puking once more and I punch him in the arm when he laughs.
“Just ‘cause I got sick doesn’t mean I still won’t beat your ass!” I growl.
“Need me to take you home?”
“I am home, and am I shit getting on the back of a bike with your pansy ass,” I say, walking inside to go grab a shower.
He follows me into my room and kicks off his boots to lie on my bed. “I’ve been riding since I was old enough to walk, we both have, so don’t try pretend that I suck, ‘cause you know that shit ain’t true.”
I roll my eyes at him and he winks as I shut the door to my bathroom. “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, Jacky boy, whatever makes you feel better.”
I hear him chuckle and I smile. He may be nearly ten years younger than me, but we’ve always been close. He graduated from high school two months ago and there was no question about whether he’d become a prospect or not, I think that was decided when he was a toddler when he rode his first bike. He loves them as much as I do, the only problem with him is he’s too eager to please the older brothers who’ve been here a hell of a lot longer than me or him have been alive. He’s impressionable, and as much as I try to get him to stay away from the party lifestyle side of things, I’m beginning to see he’s starting to take on some bad habits that I need to nip in the bud now, ‘cause my pop sure as hell won’t.
By the time I’ve had a shower, he isn’t in my room anymore and I hurry to get dressed before he does something stupid. He needs a job before his life becomes… this.
I look around the common area at the broads grinding on some of the brothers and the coke that lines the table, and clench my fists. It’s a fuckin’ mess.
Jacques is sat in an armchair eyeing a particularly chesty well known redhead. I pull him up by his collar.
“Don’t even think about it, that one’s riddled. Be smart,” I whisper, and let go of his shirt.
His face changes and I can see he’s about to say something he’ll regret so I keep my stare locked on him until he backs down.
“I’m going to see pop. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
I try to keep my statement light hearted but he knows I’m being deadly serious and nods subtly at me. Can’t have my little brother catching anything.
I walk across the parking lot and nod across at Frankie and Grinder talking by their bikes, then I peel out the lot. I make it to my childhood home in ten minutes and steel myself to walk in there, I don’t come back here often.
The memories of my mom assault me as soon as I kick the stand on my bike down.
She chuckles and wipes at my chin with a tissue as my ice cream drips down onto it.
“What we gonna do with you, huh?” She asks, tickling me.
I pull away nearly dropping my cone. “Mooommm, stoooppp.”
“You’re nine years old, I will not stop babying you just yet,” she says with a smile on her face. “When did you get so independent?”
My pop comes up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and rubbing her swollen belly. “Leave the kid alone, Arlene, you’ll have another one to baby before long.”
She looks at me with a hint of sadness in her eyes. “Oh I know, Trent, I just…”
“I know, baby,” he says soothingly, placing a kiss on her neck. “But he’s gotta grow up sometime.”
She sighs as I finish my last bite and she hands me the tissue. “I just don’t want to let him go yet.”
My mom had such a beautiful nature, she was always there for any of us when we needed her, and she made my pop soft. He loved her more than anything and when she got sick three years ago, he’d stepped down as Pres so he could have more time to look after her.
She died a year later. The big C.
I shake the memories off and make my way up the steps to pull open the screen door and push down the handle of the front door.
“Pop? It’s me,” I call out into the house, but I don’t hear anything. “Pop?”
I round the corner into the kitchen-diner and stop short. Him and Pres are sitting at the table and I have to stop my fists from clenching at their ambush.
“What do I owe the pleasure, Pres?” I ask, sitting down in the chair opposite him, my pop sat at the head of the table between us.
He narrows his eyes at me and I have to remind myself about what my pop said yesterday, I need him on my side.