VALOR “CLAWS” MERCER, AKA THE LUCKY ADONIS

From the moment I was born to Emmett and Poppy, I’ve been lucky. I entered the world to find I had a great family and a perfect future waiting for me.

My childhood was aces. Not a complaint there. I grew into a fabulously handsome bastard. I’m built thick and menacing like my pa, but my face got its shiny, beautiful features from my ma.

I’m smart enough to know how things work and when to ask for help when shit gets too complicated. I throw a mean punch and can take down two guys at the same time.

I’m just overall impressive. That’s why becoming the future Rawkfist Motorcycle Club’s VP never made sense. My older brother West is assumed to be a shoo-in for the president spot. While he’s nothing to sneeze at, the bastard doesn’t have anything on me.

But that was still the plan. West and I would be the Adonis twins, running the club when not breaking hearts.

Recently, West met his dream girl and stopped wooing other women. The ginger clown is quite the looker and sweeter than sugar. I’m a big fan of my sister-in-law.

With commitment becoming all the rage at my family’s twenty-acre homestead, I figured maybe I’d find a cool babe and make a baby Adonis.

Except my little sister got her dream guy first. Bouncy, blonde, and big-mouthed, Tuesday stopped wasting time with losers, weirdos, and whatever the hell that troll from Wheeling was. She married a forty-four-year-old hitman named Burke “Bullet Train” Sabian, who came with a great head of hair, a slick car, and a teenage daughter.

Not long after the love bomb detonated on my family tree, I met my dream girl. Lola McGraw is the older daughter of a man I’ve heard about for most of my life but never spoken two words to in that time.

Oh, boy, did I hit the jackpot with Lola! She’s a dark-haired goddess with plump lips begging for kissing. Her dark blue eyes shine like jewels whenever she laughs. We have the same sense of humor, like when we both snorted at the sight of a bar pervert tripping over his own feet and landing wrong, likely breaking his balls.

That magic happened the night we met. The pervert had been hounding her. She shoved him off in that bitchy way my sister does with losers. I could tell Lola was about to lose her temper, meaning her playful “just fuck off” mood would soon turn genuinely hostile.

I slid into the scene, playing hero by being big and scary. Many women claim I’m too damn sexy to be intimidating. Fortunately, men don’t suffer from the same delusion. The pervert got scared, backed away, tripped, and crunched his nads.

Lola’s resulting laughter wrapped around my heart and claimed it. I knew she was mine right then. The way she bit her bottom lip and gave me a playful wink said she was feeling the same way.

We ended up in her truck, and our magic hit a fevered pitch. I knew Lola was mine. I saw a long life stretched out before us.

Yet, my dream girl switched gears from hot to cold. That night, after we had our make-out session, I asked to see her again, preferably as soon as possible. I was ready to bring her home and meet the family. We were going to be together forever.

Except she said no. I assumed Lola’s behavior was related to how her dad ran a rival club. None of that mattered to me. Duke McGraw wasn’t my enemy. Besides, Tuesday briefly dated a member of the Blood-Red Suns. No one blew a gasket over my baby sister getting porked by Cubby, so why would anyone care if I handed my heart to Lola?

Being sensible, I attempted many commonly-used techniques utilized by men to win a woman’s attention—sending flowers, pretending to give her space, stalking, writing a poem I mostly stole from shit online, throwing a fit when she kept saying no, pretending I might cry, giving her space for real before giving up and just stalking her again. Yet, somehow, none of these seductively obnoxious moves worked. Lola McGraw remained out of reach.

A guy like me shouldn’t lose the girl. Why hadn’t my natural good luck kicked in to hand me everything I wanted?

Cue to today when Duke McGraw asked Uncle Court to patch over the Blood-Red Suns and make it a chapter of the Rawkfist Motorcycle Club.

Court Bayer’s been our president since I was a kid. He’s always plotting a few steps ahead of every problem. He knows the Charleston club might try to ride into our small town—Tumbling Rock—and McGraw’s—Basin Rock—to claim our territory. Rawkfist is filled to the brim with smart guys pushing middle age. The Blood-Red Suns are packed with muscled meatheads. Only McGraw owns a brain, and he’s worried about what happens if he’s gone.

That’s how I got my shot to be president. Duke McGraw can mentor me to be his heir apparent.

More importantly, McGraw wants the future president to marry his daughter. Family makes better bonds and all that jazz.

I woke up this morning, lowkey sad over my dream girl’s rejection and wondering if I could one day eat shit by obeying my brother.

Now, I get the girl and the president spot!

No longer doubting my good luck, I leave the meeting with McGraw and ride away from Basin Rock Bar with my uncles—Court and Donovan—along with my brother West and cousin Ike. We travel the twenty-plus minutes along the back roads from Basin Rock to our clubhouse—The Rock Tavern—in Tumbling Rock.

“What the fricking fuckery was that?” West asks me as soon as we arrive.

“I claimed the future president spot for the Blood-Red Suns. Oh, and I get my dream girl.”

“You idiot,” West sneers before his slightly-less-handsome-than-mine face freezes. “McGraw’s slutty daughter is your dream girl?”

Outraged by his completely understandable question, I shove my brother. “How dare you call my future wife a whore?”

“You did.”

“As her future husband, I insist she be referred to as ‘vaginally daring.’ Hm, pussy-licious would also work.”

Standing dark and imposing for a man of his age, Uncle Court demands, “Would you two shut the hell up?”

“He started it,” I whine dramatically.

Though West wants to smirk so damn badly, he manages to hold onto his angry, future-president scowl by the skin of his teeth.

“This is good, right?” I ask my uncle who stares at me like I’m a dumbass. “Rawkfist will have a second chapter.”

“Those guys will never obey you.”

“Of course, they will. I’ll rule with an iron first. McGraw can show me how he does stuff. I’ll imitate him like I grew up imitating my dad and uncles. Oh, and King Peepaw.”

Uncle Court rubs hard at his bearded jaw, hearing my words rather than paying attention to how I keep shoving West.

“I wasn’t expecting him to want us to patch over his club,” he says, likely talking to Uncle Donovan more than me. “They have a chapter in Florida. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”

Giving up on putting my six-foot-four brother in a headlock, I explain to my uncle, “If you don’t want to patch them over, I’ll convince him to just align with us.”

“Convince him how, exactly? Did you miss how much he hated you?”

“He was cranky about handing his club to someone else and marrying off his daughter. Once he gets to know me, the man will weep with joy to have me in his family.”

“Did you know how this would play out?” Court asks, moving closer and going intimidating-president on my fine ass. “You know his daughter. Did she give you info that you didn’t share?”

My thoughts flash back to Lola McGraw sucking on my tongue in her tricked-out truck. She was so beautiful that I couldn’t believe she was real. I was already picking baby names when she threw a monkey wrench in our awesomely-ever-after by telling me no.

I’d been shocked, of course. Women love me! Old, young, fugly, hot, doesn’t matter. Women simply adore what I bring to the table. I’m naturally handsome and, oh my God, my smile is made out of sunshine. At least, that’s what I’ve been told by so many women, not just my ma.

Lola McGraw still told me no. But she also seemed sad about it. Sure, the melancholy was hidden behind her temperamental biker princess bullshit. If I’d been a weaker man, I’d have begged on my hands and knees to keep her. But being a supreme badass, I just asked very nicely for her to reconsider.

In the end, everything’s worked out. For me, anyway.

“What was the question?” I ask when I daydream for too long.

“Did you know?”

“Lola doesn’t like me,” I say, and West snorts. “She won’t talk to me. When I tried to foist my wonderful personality on her a week ago at a Basin Rock grocery store, she screamed so loud, the soundwave nearly killed an elderly woman a few aisles over.”

“That was a lot of words to say no,” Court mutters as if he doesn’t know how our family works.

“I’m telling your wife you said people should be less chatty.”

Uncle Court rolls his eyes, clearly needing to voice his bitchy concerns alone with Uncle Donovan and my pa before he can barf them all over the rest of us.

I inch away from him and then jump on my hog. He watches me like I’m crazy. I think he might be more upset when West bails on their conversation to follow me.

I race home, knowing Ma-Poppy should hear the good news from her favorite son rather than her firstborn who was more of a test run than anything else.

West tries to catch up to me, but I’ve always been faster than him. I grew up running. Legend has it that I sprinted out of my ma’s womb. The world has always looked better as a blur in my rearview.

Arriving at the homestead, I don’t park my hog responsibly in one of the many free-standing garages. Instead, I roar right up to my childhood—and current—home. The one-story rambler was a wonderland growing up. But I’m ready to tell it goodbye and bunk with Lola.

I rush through the back sliding glass door and find Ma-Poppy standing in the kitchen with my sister Tuesday and West’s ginger wife Alexis.

“I’m getting married!” I announce and throw up my arms, always forgetting how my fingers will smack the ceiling. “I will also run a chapter of our club one day! Feel free to applaud!”

Being an absolute gem, Alexis goes ahead and claps. Tuesday looks confused. My ma, though, is stunned enough to fall into a state she rarely experiences—silence.

“The last I heard, your dream girl thought you smelled of wet farts,” Tuesday helpfully shares as she walks over to me. Leaning forward, my younger sister gives me a sniff. “You smell like Pa and sweat. No wet farts. Congrats, dingus.”

“Thank you.”

Ma-Poppy sighs deeply. “I don’t know why my children can’t meet a nice person and go on a few dates before bringing their dream whatever here to meet me. Then, over time, they can fall in love. Why must you be so dramatic?”

Tuesday smiles at our ma’s bullshit. “We inherited our theatric nature from Pa.”

Moseying over to Ma-Poppy, I give her my best “aw-shucks” smile. “You always said I deserved the best. Now I get it.”

“Bull,” West says, out of breath for some reason.

Alexis hurries over to her gasping husband. “Are you dying? Should I prepare to wear black for a long time?”

“You’d look smoking hot in black,” West replies and feels her up.

“That’ll be me soon,” I tell Tuesday while Ma-Poppy texts her sisters for backup. “I’ll be feeling up my woman in front of our family. It’ll be awesomely awkward.”

Tuesday sighs wistfully. “I grabbed Bullet Train’s ass at dinner last night. It was magnificent.”

“Yes, that’s why we applauded,” I tell my little sister.

“I’m happy for you,” Tuesday says, smiling brightly before furrowing her brow. “Now who is this, um, I’m guessing based on our family’s habits, wait, what comes after clown and hitman?”

“She runs her family’s restaurant and bar.”

“Ick. Is this a professional bitch who won’t approve of me?”

“It’s Duke McGraw’s daughter.”

Tuesday goes still as her eyes widen. “I don’t approve.”

“Why?”

“She seems uppity.”

“No.”

“When I was dating Cubby, she pushed her way into our relationship and warned me how he was bound to annoy me.”

“He did annoy you.”

“Yeah, but I wanted to learn that naturally. Lola ruined the surprise.”

“She can’t help herself. She’s a natural know-it-all. That’s right. I’m marrying a wise woman like my ma.”

Ma-Poppy starts to smile before narrowing her eyes. “Don’t manipulate me.”

“You let West do it.”

“He’s right,” West chimes in as he horndogs his woman. “But I think it’s obvious why I get special treatment.”

“Pity?” Tuesday asks, and I nod approvingly.

“No, shits-stains, because I’m the golden child.”

“All my children are golden,” Ma-Poppy insists while peeking out the back door and waiting for her backup.

“Val doesn’t even have blond hair,” West grumbles. “He isn’t golden at all. Just a shit-stain.”

“I look like our pa,” I reply and smile. “I’m telling him you think he looks like a shit-stain.”

Defeated by my snitching skills, West looks to Alexis for comfort. “My brother’s annoying, and I nearly crashed on the way here. Let’s go to our house to help me heal.”

“No,” Ma-Poppy says. “I might need you to hold down Val during our deprogramming process.”

“Uncle Court agreed for me to run the Blood-Red Suns, and he said I can marry Lola. Now, you know I’d love to do whatever you say, Ma, but Uncle Court runs our lives like a dictator. My hands are tied.”

“Court will listen to reason,” announces my aunt—and Uncle Court’s never-not-chatty wife—Justice as she enters the house from the open back door. “I married a very wise man.”

“Why wouldn’t Uncle Court want me to be happy?” I ask Auntie Justice. “Is he secretly a dickhead?”

Justice gasps, but my mom isn’t having it. Ma-Poppy snaps her fingers in front of her older sister’s face.

“I’m the one freaking out. You keep your drama as a background thing.”

“But you already freaked out about West and Tuesday. This feels like a bit much, doesn’t it?”

“You flipped out about Felix, Matilda, and Rie. That’s three. Why don’t I get three freakouts? I’m being deprived!”

Auntie Journey enters the house and immediately rolls her eyes. “Why can’t any of you just fall in love normally?”

Tuesday rushes to our gasping ma’s side and mutters at Journey, “Your son recently married a ghost, so maybe don’t judge.”

“Where is Ike?” Auntie Journey asks West and me.

“We ditched him back at the clubhouse. It’s okay, though. Court and Donovan are there, so he’s being supervised.”

Auntie Journey doesn’t find my crap funny. Well, I know she must laugh deep down inside. However, her job is to act normal while the rest of us bounce around like hyper dogs. I wink at her, assuming she’s secretly cool with my crap.

“Don’t wink at me,” she grumbles, making West laugh.

“What is happening?” Queen Meemaw Christine asks as she shoves her way past her daughters.

“Val is going crazy!” Ma-Poppy cries. “And I’m still exhausted from the other two going crazy. Why won’t these children give me a break?”

Auntie Journey replies, “I told you to only have two.”

“Hey, I deserve to exist!” Tuesday cries at our aunt. “And my crazy was endearing.”

My sister steps back from them. West instantly covers Alexis’s ears with his meaty hands. Tuesday lets out a wail and thrashes her head around like she’s a tantruming toddler or maybe possessed.

“Yah!” Ma-Poppy adds when her daughter shuts up. “Tuesday is a treasure.”

Justice and Journey share an eye roll while Christine sits on the couch and reaches for the remote.

“Where is your grandfather?” she asks me.

“Probably at the clubhouse calling everyone whipper snappers.”

Tuesday finds this hilarious for some reason and giggles herself into a seat next to Christine.

Auntie Journey blows her dark blonde bangs from her blue eyes and luscious eyebrows before asking West and me, “Wait, so you two ditched the rest of your club so you could race here to tell your mommy the big news?”

“Why do you say that like it’s a bad thing?” West asks as he settles into a chair and uses Alexis as a cuddle pillow.

“I had to tell Ma,” I say and sweep my ma’s hand into mine. “I needed to be the one to look into her eyes and let her know her favorite son is in love and is getting what he wants. I knew she’d be relieved to know the world was bending to my will.”

“Well, I do want you to get whatever you want,” Ma-Poppy says before shaking her head. “I need time to talk to your pa before I decide if I’m okay.”

“Lola’s beautiful and loves her family.”

“But you said your dream girl didn’t want you.”

“She’s just confused because I’m so attractive and that’s scary, even for a hot chick.”

“He isn’t wrong,” Alexis says and smiles at West. “I was very scared by your good looks.”

My brother nods approvingly. “My parents created three sexy kids.”

My aunts share another eye roll. Meanwhile, Ma-Poppy works through a few emotions before deciding “calm” isn’t the one she wants to roll with right now.

Gasping, she staggers back. “That club is in another town.”

“I’ll commute,” I tell her as she drops into a chair and looks faint.

“My baby is leaving me,” she whimpers dramatically.

“Big whoop,” Auntie Justice grumbles. “All three of my kids bailed on me.”

“But you get to be naked more now,” Tuesday explains helpfully.

“I’d rather be fully dressed at all times if it meant my babies were at the homestead.”

Queen Meemaw Christine waves for a whiny Justice to come get a snuggle.

“Hey, your suffering is old,” Ma-Poppy tells her sister. “Mine is happening right now.”

“I have space for you too,” Christine says and nudges Tuesday over. “Come to Mama.”

Soon, Ma-Poppy watches me from her spot snuggled next to my grandmother.

“You have two sons who will run club chapters,” I say, leaning forward so we’re at eye level. “No one else in the family can claim that.”

Ma-Poppy looks across her mother at Justice and smirks. Her sister instantly snarls.

I stand up and sigh. “This is a good day. I am happy. This is my happy face.”

“When do we meet your dream girl?” Tuesday asks as she texts someone.

“You’ve already met Lola.”

“Yes, we’ve had a few run-ins,” Tuesday mutters. “Ooh, bring her here for dinner. We’ll have her sit at the end of a long table so we can all stare at her.”

I try to imagine Lola McGraw at the homestead. The image in my head feels like a lie. She’s mine yet also a creature trapped in a very specific location. I can’t imagine her in my parents’ house or living at the homestead.

In fact, she lives and works in Basin Rock. Her family runs the town. Is commuting even possible?

I’ll likely need to give up my plans to live at the homestead. Before today, I hadn’t thought about the Blood-Red Suns Motorcycle Club or Basin Rock. I didn’t give Duke McGraw much mind, either.

The reality of what I’ve agreed to hits me while the house fills up with people. I don’t show my panic, but I’m suddenly aware I might have bitten off way more than my flawless teeth can chew.