Jaguar is standing near her, his eyes searching the room for me. When they land on my own, he jerks his chin, which for whatever reason forces my feet to move. I walk toward the brightly lit cake, my thighs shaking with each step.
Then something happens. Something that has never happened in my entire life. The room erupts in song. An entire room full of hardened bikers and their women and even clubwhores sing me “Happy Birthday.”
My shoulders are shaking, my eyes watering, and tears are falling down my cheeks with each step that I take. The men and women part a path so that I can walk through the crowd toward the cake.
The song is finished by the time I arrive. “Make a wish, Pammy,” Jaguar rasps, just loud enough for me to hear.
Closing my eyes, I lean forward and I make a wish as I blow out the candles. Then I wish again and again, over and over, before I open my eyes. Everyone erupts into cheers and the blonde in front of me is grinning.
“You get the first piece, I hope you like chocolate?”
“I love it,” I whisper.
“C’mon,” she calls. “Let’s get this thing cut up. There’s sheet cake in the back for anyone else who wants some. Pinkie and the rest of the women are plating it all right now.”
“This is too much,” I say, trying to hold back the tears that will not stop falling.
She shakes her head but doesn’t say anything. Instead, she turns and walks over to a small table where there is a knife, some plates, napkins, and plastic forks already set up.
“I’m Presley, by the way. Della told me it was your birthday a few days ago, eighteen, you needed a party,” she says nonchalantly, as if this is all no big deal.
As if this isn’t the biggest deal in my entire life. I want to run away, curl into a ball, and cry. “This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. I don’t know how to act,” I admit.
She lifts her eyes, her gaze finding mine and holding it. “Have you ever had a birthday party before?”
Shaking my head, I roll my lips together as my shoulders shake. “I’ve never had a party. I’ve never had a cake,” I admit.
She continues to watch me, then blinks, then her lips curve up into a grin. “Then we did the right thing.”
I open my mouth to ask her what she means exactly, when I look to the side and notice that the women are filing out of the kitchen and they all have wrapped boxes and tissue paper bags in their hands.
“What?” I breathe.
Presley reaches for my arm, her fingers curl around my forearm and she squeezes. “Presents,” she whispers.
JAGUAR
I walk into the clubhouse just in time to see her blow out her candles. She’s beautiful, the candlelight surrounding her face. She closes her eyes and really thinks of her wish, then blows the candles out.
The girls haul her away after the candles are out and I continue to watch as she is taken to the corner of the room where the Old Ladies surround her.
I like that for her. Good women taking her under their wing. She needs that, needs to be surrounded by some good in life. Know she’s never been around it at the Punchers clubhouse.
“More than one brother eyeing her now that she’s legal,” a voice says next to me.
Shifting my gaze from Pamela, I look over to see Wolfe standing next to me. He’s not looking at her though. His attention is on me and me only.
“They can eye all they want. She ain’t theirs.”
He crosses his arms over his chest, tipping his chin down to look at me. “Yeah? Whose is she?”
I know that he wants me to say, mine. He won’t get that from me. As much as I want her to be my own, she’s not. She never will be either, no matter what I want. She deserves a lot better than I could ever give her—even at my best, which I’m not and probably never will be.
“Don’t know. But it ain’t anyone here.”
He chuckles, but I don’t ask him what he finds funny. It doesn’t matter. He’ll either tell me or he won’t. I don’t need to ask anyone anything. That’s not my place anymore. All I need to do is put my head down, get my shit straight, and hope to fuck that they trust me again one day.
“Seems she hasn’t gotten the memo, brother.”
I look from him, following his gaze over to where Pamela is across the room with the women. She’s looking directly at me, watching me. She doesn’t even pretend to look away when she notices that I’m watching her.
Instead, she fucking smiles at me.
“Fuck,” I hiss.
“You hang the moon, brother,” he says between laughs.
Shaking my head once, I shift my attention back to him. “She’s young. She’ll figure it out.”
He hums but doesn’t say anything immediately. “Maybe she’s what you need, maybe you’re what she needs.”
“Twenty years older than her,” I point out.
He snorts. “Thinkin’ you could talk to Dragon, Mountain, Coyote, Hawk, Taz, the list could go on. Hell, even me and Esther, we’re over ten years age difference. That shit don’t matter, not when what you got between you is good. When it ain’t fucked up and ugly, when it’s pure down to your bones. When it’s the heart.”
“Unlike me and Della,” I say, knowing that’s exactly what he was getting at.
“You know it wasn’t pure, it wasn’t love. It was fucked up. You know that shit, down to your marrow, you know it.”
“Yeah,” I agree.
I knew it then and I know it now. I can see it clearly, especially when I look at her and Eagle together. That’s good, the two of them and their baby. That’s really fucking good. We wouldn’t have had that, not for even a second. They did the right thing, even if it
