I groaned, left the phone on the charger, and trudged to my bed. Being sent to work the Three Card Poker table on the casino floor was a rare thing for me, but that’s where I had found myself tonight. It was debatable if I made more money on the general floor or in the poker room, but tonight I felt certain it would have been a wash.
Part of me wished I had paid Suzy for her fancy foot-tub. We shared it, and when I was moving and downsizing my stuff she wanted me to have it. What I wouldn’t give to soak my tootsies right now.
Curling up on the futon, I wondered why Sammy would be so adamant to know where I lived. Then I thought about Michael.
Or, I suppose I had to think of him as Har now.
When Suzy and I lived here as young girls, I had the hugest crush on him. With six years between us, Suzy had told me I was crazy. Now, though, six years was nothing. In fact, it was ideal.
However, I still thought I was crazy if I expected him to give me even a second look. The years hadn’t just been kind to him since age sixteen, they had been bountiful to him. His sandy blond hair had grown long, but it wasn’t lank. It fell to his shoulders and it made me jealous how it was wavy, without being frizzy like my wavy hair. Those green eyes of his were flirtatious as hell. Whether he knew it or not, he rocked his goatee in a way most men couldn’t. He had bulked up since I last saw him, but seeing as he wasn’t even eighteen at the time, that was to be expected. His arms were corded and thick, but not overly so, like Brute’s arms were. Just enough to promise he could overpower the average Joe.
My phone dinged with a notification and I couldn’t believe it hadn’t rolled into “do not disturb” mode. I should have ignored it, but curiosity would kill me if my own stupidity didn’t do it first.
As I walked into the kitchen, my feet felt slightly better. Bizarre how that worked. Getting off my feet for just twenty minutes always made them feel half-way like new.
The notification was for a new email from Turk.
Turk, a member of the Jacksonville Riot MC, used to be my boss at the Flatiron Bar & Grill. While he never admitted it, I suspected he had a thing for my sister. It was the only explanation for his frequent presence at Suzy’s place. Sure, I had been staying there at the time, but he spent way more time with us than necessary, and his constant chatter with Suzy said it all to me. I hadn’t enlightened my sister because I didn’t think there was any way she didn’t know Turk was interested in her.
The thing I didn’t understand was why Turk hadn’t laid his cards on the table with Suze. The brothers of the Riot MC took life by the balls. If he had an interest in Suzy, why he hadn’t gone after her?
Turk ranked as one of the only men on the planet I trusted. He had helped me get moved, and by ‘helped’ I mean he drove the U-Haul truck with my bike strapped to a trailer on the back. I could see where Suzy might view that as him being interested in me, not her, but I knew Turk was just that much of an upstanding guy. My phone showed the time as just after one in the morning, which would make it just after two in Jacksonville. Why would Turk email me so late?
I opened his message and thanked my lucky stars I did.
Yo Steph!
Hope your fresh start is going well in Biloxi.
Brute needed your address and contact info. You never told me you and Suzy were his stepsisters, what the hell woman? Holding out much?
Anyway, told him where you’re at. It’ll be good to know other Riot brothers have your back and I don’t have to worry so much.
Later,
T
I wanted to be mad at him, but I couldn’t. Brotherhood was everything with those guys in a way most women would never understand. I liked to think I understood, but I didn’t, really. My mind couldn’t wrap around being so loyal to another person who wasn’t my blood-kin. I couldn’t open my mind to go there, even though I envied the hell out of them for having that.
A family made from bonds thicker than blood, those bonds strong enough to endure and forgive anything.
I had never had that, and my mother wasn’t a good example for loving bonds. She loved me, yes. But she didn’t have a bond with me and Suzy that would forgive much, let alone endure anything. When I thought about it like that, I would think she was a bad mother, but I couldn’t bring myself to say that. She was the only mother I had, and deep down I knew she did the best she could. It helped when at the end of her days, she had been diagnosed with depression. As more of that diagnosis was explained, I realized she’d had that my entire childhood, but it went undiagnosed.
My morose trip down memory lane halted when someone pounded on my door. I jumped with the noise, and I felt a rush of fear surge up my neck, but I tamped it down.
Either Brute’s fists were tearing down my door, or it was someone
