After a beat, Jude finally curled his fingers around his and took a single drink. “Happy?”
Kicks grunted by way of answer.
Jude took another sip, then leaned closer to him again. “So, distract me, Kicks. What was your life like before you put on that vest?” He pointed his fork at Kicks’ cut.
Kicks looked at him for a long moment before answering him. “There ain’t much to tell. Like I told you before, military shit—didn’t last as long as I thought it would.”
“Because of your military parents?” Jude chanced.
“Pretty much. My grandfather came here from Spain, and joining was my dad’s way of dealing with feeling…you know, foreign?” Jude nodded when he paused. “He got really into that hyper-patriotism shit. He started getting buddy-buddy with a lot of the higher-ranking officials. He didn’t have the head for engineering like me, but he had a tactical mind. They liked him. He was obsessed with those military families who have those long legacies tracing back to the Revolutionary War. He wanted to leave some bullshit legacy like that behind him when he died.”
Jude’s nose wrinkled. “That sounds…unappealing.”
“Mm,” Kicks agreed, taking another drink. “He got PTSD early on—right after his first tour. He was a dick whenever he was home because he wanted me and my brother well trained—like we were new recruits. It drove Diego to drugs.”
Jude cocked his head to the side. “But not you?”
Kicks snorted. “I had my fair share of fucked up shit going on in high school, but I joined up because it was an easier way to shut the old man up than rebelling.” He stared down at his food, and knew he should eat more, but talking about his parents and Diego always killed any appetite he might have for anything except booze—and he didn’t think the rabbi was going to be up for getting wasted and actually fucking their chances of getting out of there. “He was pissed when I was discharged. He kept ranting about hiring a lawyer to fight them.”
Jude’s face was soft with something like pity—or maybe empathy, but whatever it was, he didn’t want it. “I assume it was the last thing you wanted.”
“I was done by the time they gave me my walking papers,” Kicks said, rolling his shoulders. He swore he could feel his scars twinge, but he ignored them. “He died pretty soon after that. Liver failure from trying to drink away all those nightmares. My mom followed Diego to Portland in some fuckin’ pointless attempt to try and get him clean.” He didn’t bother with the rest.
How it didn’t work, how Diego stole from her and hurt her every time he was high. How people showed up more than once to fuck him up because he owed them cash. How she’d woken up one morning and he was gone, and she had nothing left to her name and no idea where her son had gone.
“She lives with her sister in Kansas City now,” he finished on a sigh. He drank the rest of his beer and set the bottle down, forcing himself not to get up for another. Instead, he hung his hands in the space between his knees and braced for the questions about his brother that he didn’t want to answer.
“So, what are you called, then?”
Kicks’ head snapped up. “What am I what?”
Jude rolled his eyes. “Your name. What’s your name? I know it’s not Kicks if your brother was called Diego.”
Kicks grimaced. Every now and again, Smokey used it—but it was only ever to piss him off or get him to listen. And it worked, but it wasn’t something he readily shared. His name was connected to a past he didn’t want, but there was something in Jude’s eyes that loosened his tongue.
“Emilio, but literally no one calls me that anymore.”
Jude bit his lip. “It’s a nice name.”
Kicks shrugged and leaned back with his eyes closed, his head falling backward on the cushion that sank so far, his skull cracked on the hard edge of the sofa. “It’s just a name.”
“Well, we both know that’s not true.” He was smiling when Kicks peered his eye open at him. “You wouldn’t feel passionate about it if it was just a name. And I don’t entirely understand biker culture, but I have to imagine your road names mean something to you.”
Kicks sighed and dragged a hand down his face. “Yeah, it means that I like to kick the shit out of people who ask too many goddamn questions.”
Jude just laughed and shifted off his chair, dropping onto the sofa. Kicks could feel his warmth, feel his presence, and he hated it. Or really, he hated the fact that he didn’t. “What does it really mean?”
Rolling his head to the side, he let out a bone-deep sigh and shrugged. “When I met Smokey, it wasn’t the first time I’d been on a bike, but he and Gunner made me feel fuckin’ clumsy. I felt…watched, I guess?” He felt his cheeks burn because he didn’t like talking about this shit with anyone. “I kept fucking up and forgetting to put my kickstand down. The whole reason I learned how to fix a bike was because mine kept getting beat to hell from falling against the curb.”
Jude’s grin was wide, but there was no mocking in it, just a sort of quiet joy that made Kicks wonder if he’d ever felt like that before in his life. Maybe as a kid, but it hadn’t lasted long. “So you became Kicks.”
“It could have been worse,” he said, and Jude chuckled again, shaking his head.
“I have no doubt.” His eyes were half-lidded and relaxed, the fear still there but simmering low in the background, and Kicks felt something in his chest. Not relief, but something close. He had done this. He had managed to keep Jude from falling apart, and it shouldn’t have felt important, but it did.
“What about you?” he asked after a beat. “Does your name mean anything?”
Jude dragged his bottom lip between his teeth. “My brother and I were named after holocaust survivors in our family. We never met them—they died way before we were born. I think Eliah hates it more than I do. He always felt like it was pressure, you know? To be more than we were. He struggled after his accident.”
“That’s why he walks with a cane, right?” Kicks said.
Jude nodded. “He was hit by a car, and it shattered his entire body.” He let out a laugh, but there was no humor in it. “It should have been me, you know. That accident. I was the one being a twat. I thought I was invincible. I’d dart into traffic with this belief that every person on the road would stop for me.”
“And he followed you,” Kicks said, his voice a low rumble.
Jude passed a hand down his face, and his eyes were alight with memory that looked old. “No. He waited for the traffic light. He was such a fucking pretentious twat.” He swallowed and glanced away. “The person wasn’t looking—didn’t stop in time. He got hit, then dragged. I thought he was dead for a while. I couldn’t get close enough to tell. He was unconscious for ages and…” He took a breath. “Clearly, he survived, and he’s fine. He spent a year at a dig on Crete to prove the accident hadn’t taken anything from him.”
Kicks offered him a wry grin. “Sounds like he’ll fit in with the Chains. We’re all a bunch of fuckin’ misfits. When the club first started, Gunner kept calling it Club Loser because we were a bunch of rejects. We didn’t fit in anywhere—not in normal society, not in other clubs, so Smokey decided to make our world fit us.”