Crash (Brazen Bulls MC #1)(40)

“You look like shit on toast, brother.”

He really did—his skin had a grey tint to it, and his reactions seemed a step too slow. Even his smile moved up his face at half speed.

“Fucking hurts to get sliced in the gut,” Simon answered hoarsely.

“I’m goin’ for Willa after church. She wants to check on you again.”

Simon nodded. “I like her. She has soft hands. She’s a good one, bro.”

Rad was figuring out that people were right when they called him an *. Here was his friend, his brother, suffering with a stab wound, and Rad’s first impulse upon hearing him say something appreciative about Willa was jealousy. Earlier, while she’d been whispering in Simon’s ear, calming him so she could sew him up, Rad had stood there tensely, pulled in two equally strong directions—wanting to push her out of Simon’s reach, and feeling pride and admiration for her gentle, skillful care. Her banter with Gunner had produced the same effect. When Delaney had called him away to meet with him and Dane, Rad had about pitched a fit.

But now, every time he felt that jealous turmoil over Willa, he called up the name Jesse Smithers. He’d recognized far too much of himself in Willa’s story. Not the stalking or beating or rape—Jesus f*ck, not that—but the possession and need for control.

Self-analysis wasn’t something Rad engaged in regularly, but he was capable of it, and in the past couple of days he’d had cause to think about his impulses and behaviors a little differently. It had thus occurred to him once or twice that Dahlia might not be the iron-clad bitch he’d decided she was. He was probably tough to live with.

Though there was still that f*cking-half-of-Tulsa issue.

Nah, she was an iron-clad bitch. But he’d been a solid-stone *, too.

This time, he was going to do it right.

To Simon, he said, “Yeah. She’s somethin’ else. You gonna be able to make it into church?”

“Yeah. Hurts like a bitch, but I can walk. Mo’s keeping the pills coming.”

“Good. Lemme know if you need a shoulder.”

“Thanks, bro.” Simon closed his eyes. There was a bruised look about the skin there. Rad didn’t like it.

Joanna, Dane’s old lady, came up with a tray holding a sandwich and a glass of milk. Rad took it from her and set it on the table next to Simon’s chair. Then he pulled her a few feet away.

“He doin’ okay?”

She tucked a lock of auburn hair behind her ear and considered Simon. “He’s weak, but no fever. I think he’ll be okay. It’d be good if your nurse came back to be sure. Mo’s been keeping watch. She took the day off to do it. But, you know, we’re mothers more than nurses.”

There were three old ladies in the club: Delaney and Dane were both married, and Ox had been living with the same woman for nearly a decade. Maureen was a grade school teacher. Joanna ran a little clothes shop in Utica Square. Maddie, Ox’s woman, ran what was at the front a local modeling agency but was in fact an escort service.

Maddie and Ox didn’t have, or want, kids. Dane and Joanna had two teenage girls. Delaney and Mo had no kids, after a long series of miscarriages and heartbreaks, so Mo had put all her maternal energies into her students and the club. Mothering the club meant learning a whole lot of first aid, but there was a limit to what Mo could do.

“Willa’s comin’ back later to check in on them both. Where’s Gunner?”

Joanna smirked. “He’s up in one of the rooms, moaning like a big baby. Got Tyra and Janine both fluffing him all kind of ways. He’s fine. Dane went up to get him for church.”

The party room had filled up with patches waiting to meet. Rad checked his watch. Church in ten minutes. Just enough time to get in a shot and a beer first.



oOo



Delaney sat at the head of the table and fumed. Simon and Gunner both sat in obvious discomfort, from their injuries and, in Gunner’s case, from the disgust shooting from the president’s glowering eyes like laser beams right into the idiot’s head.

The rest of the table sat and waited. If they were feeling anything like Rad was feeling, they were enjoying Gunner’s pain. It took a whole lot to wipe the smirk off the crazy bastard’s face, but it was gone now.

“We got plenty of going business to talk about, but first, we got to deal with the shit sundae Gunner’s shoved down our throat. Spent two hours with Terry today. His place is so f*cked he can’t open, and it’ll be a week or more before he can. And it’s on us.” He leaned forward and drew his brows down even farther, glaring at Gunner.

Delaney had started a club that was misfit more than outlaw, but when they’d turned to the dark side, he’d led them with fierce focus and keen strategy. In ‘Nam, he’d seen heavy combat, and he’d come out of it with a hard, thick shell. He wasn’t the biggest guy in the room, but he was not someone to cross. His evident anger at Gunner now made the air crackle and stilled the tongues of every other hardass around the table.

“It’s on you, Gun. You. Thousands of dollars in damage, Terry shut down for days, all because you like getting your ass kicked.”

“Prez…” Gunner attempted.

Delaney cut him off. “Don’t you open that wise-ass trap of yours unless you can tell me true that you didn’t start that shit.”