“As for the details…” Gunnar said.
“Right.” Blade nodded. “When you’re on the clubhouse premises, we’ll require you to have a chaperone with you.”
“A chaperone?” I asked, eyebrows raised. What exactly did they think I was going to do? Priest had known me since I was a kid, for God’s sake. Sure, a few of our guys had shown poor judgment recently, but there was no reason for Blade to distrust me.
“It’s a formality,” Blade said placatingly. “It’s in our charter, and I don’t want to set a precedent of ignoring the charter when it’s convenient for us.”
…Well, all right. That made sense. I eased a little bit, even though I was pretty sure that wasn’t the full reason. And in the next breath, Blade proved me right.
“And I want to give the Kid some responsibility, now that he’s patched in officially,” Blade said. “He’s more than pulled his weight as a prospect, and it’s time for him to take on something a little more seriously. I want this to help bring him out of his shell, without the stakes being too high. And I know I can trust you to not to pull anything shady.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“Is that a problem?” Gunnar asked suspiciously.
It really was. Not only did I have to deal with the mild degradation of having a babysitter, it had to be the Kid, of all people. But I didn’t exactly have much of a choice. “Not at all,” I said. “I’m not gonna go easy on him, though.”
“I don’t expect you to,” Blade said with a grin.
Almost as if it’d been planned, there was a knock on the door. At Blade’s nod of assent, Gunnar opened the door and ushered Heath in.
Even now, surrounded by his president and his sergeant-at-arms, the Kid looked terrified of me. His shoulders were curled in slightly, and his wide, doe-like brown eyes wouldn’t even glance in my direction. I stared him down, like I could force him to look at me with just my own unrelenting gaze. What was his problem with me? I hadn’t done anything. We’d barely even spoken.
I was used to getting treated like this at the bakery; often when I came to the front to work with customers from out of town, they were shocked to find out a guy who looked like me—big and muscled and tattooed—owned Stella’s and made the cookie they were enjoying so much.
But I didn’t expect it from club guys. It fucking annoyed me. Enough to overwhelm the little surge of attraction I felt when he chewed nervously on his lower lip—well, almost enough. Part of me still wanted to drag my thumb over his plush lip and order him to stop. But if he was going to freeze me out, well, I’d do the same thing to him.
Suddenly I was a lot less excited about the next few weeks.
4
Heath
As soon as I stepped into the office, Dante pinned me with an ice-cold look that cut to the very core of me, chilling the blood in my veins. Apparently I’d had a good reason to be anxious about this meeting—the last thing I wanted was to be stuck in a small room with Dante, especially in front of my president.
The look on his face—almost a glare, like he was annoyed just by the sight of me—shriveled something inside of me. Honestly, there was no reason for me to react so viscerally to his disapproval. If anything, I should be used to it. I’d been on the receiving end of a look like that pretty much as long as I could remember until I’d left home at eighteen.
And maybe that was a part of it—I’d worked so hard to be accepted and liked by the men in my life, my brothers in Hell’s Ankhor, and there was still a part of me that felt that if I did something wrong, or failed them in some way, they’d realize their mistake in letting me in the club at all. I didn’t want Dante stepping in and messing any of this up for me. I’d worked too hard, and my life here was too important to fuck up over some guy who didn’t even know me, who thought he could just judge me because of the way I looked.
“Something wrong, Kid?” Blade asked.
It wasn’t unkind, but it was definitely a reminder. Blade knew about my past, and he knew I could slip into negative headspaces like the one I was in now. The firm look he gave me was a silent order to remember who I was: the Kid, a patched member of Hell’s Ankhor. And to stop behaving like a spooked prey animal.
“No, sir.” I straightened my spine and avoided Dante’s gaze to meet Blade’s instead. “Jazz said you were ready for me?”
Blade nodded. “Dante will be working with Hell’s Ankhor as part of the Liberty Crew’s reparations. Self-defense training, and… some other tasks.”
Priest’s mouth twitched into a small smile.
“So,” Blade continued, “as per our charter, he needs to have a patched-in member with him whenever he’s on clubhouse premises.”
Oh, fuck. My heart sank all the way to my feet. There was no way I was supposed to play this role. I knew the charter: the chaperone was intended to keep the clubhouse safe when there was a non-member on the grounds. What the fuck was I supposed to do if Dante decided he wanted to cause trouble? There was nothing I could do against a guy of his size, except call for backup.
Blade must’ve seen the disbelief on my face. “Any questions?”
I swallowed hard. Yeah, I had a lot of questions. Such as: why? And: didn’t he see how this was doomed to go horribly wrong? But I knew those wouldn’t go over well, not with Gunnar and Priest and Dante waiting for my confirmation.
“Are you sure?” I asked skeptically.
“You’re doubting my judgment?” Blade asked with his eyebrows raised.
“No,” I said quickly. “I just—don’t you think there’s someone, uh, better suited to that job? With more experience?” And more muscle, I didn’t say, but I knew everyone was thinking it.
“I asked you to do it,” Blade said. “You’re a patched member, same as everyone else in the club, and you’re perfectly capable of doing this job. Right, Gunnar?”
Gunnar nodded. “We wouldn’t assign you to it if you weren’t.”
I flushed. There was no way I could turn them down now. Blade and Gunnar were protective of me, but not in a way that felt condescending or patronizing. It was more like—Blade knew how to push me outside of my comfort zone without asking too much of me. He also knew I struggled with refusing orders, and he wouldn’t ask me to do it if it wasn’t a good fit. So I guess I had to trust his judgment, even if it seemed like a lack of judgment right now…
“Right,” I said. “I understand.”
Dante looked unimpressed with the proceedings. Blade cut his eyes from me to Dante, and then back to me. “Is there going to be a problem with this arrangement?”
“Not at all,” Dante said with a lackluster shrug.
“No, sir,” I said.
Blade glanced between us again, and then at Priest. Priest shrugged, too. Blade sighed. “All right. I’m holding you both to that. Now, as for the details: We’re looking at three months of self-defense training, twice a week, and then the baking lessons once a week.”
“Baking lessons?” I asked. I was so surprised I forgot to be pissed about the situation. “Self-defense and baking?”