3. Bickering Fools

CHAPTER 3

BICKERING FOOLS

TROUBLE - 6 YEARS LATER

“Holy shit!” Hollywood announced as his focus turned from our game to whomever had just come through the front door. Without saying a word, he jumped up and practically ran for the woman.

“That’s different,” Flight said as he lifted the edge of the cards Hollywood threw down before he ran off. “Damn, the bastard would have won this hand too.”

“You don’t know that,” I argued.

He picked up the hand and showed the cards to me. “Well, fuck.”

“Whoever she is, I would have no problem taking her back to my room and tracing every single one of her curves with my tongue.”

I glanced back over to see Hollywood had his arm around the woman and his grin was spread so widely across his face, it gave new meaning to that old phrase ‘from ear to ear’. Something about her tickled a memory in my brain. She seemed familiar, but not someone who had been around recently. It wasn’t until one of the women who hung around the clubhouse often, trying to pick up a new old man, shouted for the woman who had come through the door, that I realized who it was.

“Trinity!” Shaina yelled above the din of noise in the clubhouse. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming tonight?” The woman ran and practically pounced Hollywood right out of the way.

“Trinity? As in Hollywood’s cousin?” Flight groaned at the realization that she might be off limits.

I laughed. “Not his real cousin. Her uncle and his mom have a long-standing situation.”

“Well, fuck. If I was Hollywood, I would make it known that she was not blood kin. You know? Then again, if my real cousin looked like that…”

“Shut the fuck up, Flight. Did you forget who her uncle is?” When he gave me back a blank stare, I shook my head. “Swear to fuck, you live under a damn rock. Her uncle is Bishop.” He still didn’t seem to catch on. “Bishop - as in one of the club’s nomads. The same one known as a mercenary for hire.” I knew from the look in his eyes that Trinity’s beauty no longer compared to what might happen if he went there and fucked her over the way he was known to do with women. I laughed at him as I stood and walked over to see if the little betrayer would have the decency to finally come clean for trying to ruin my life six years ago.

“Look who finally grew up!” I said when I was close enough for them to hear me. Trinity’s focus turned to me as Shaina stepped back and Hollywood pulled a little tighter on her shoulders, almost like he was comforting her because of my presence. If he knew what she had done, he might change his tune, pseudo cousin or not.

“Hi.” Trinity turned back to Shaina and hugged her again as Hollywood let go and then cocked his head to the side as he stared at me. That quickly, I’d been dismissed. She didn’t apologize, ask if all was well, or anything else. Then again, her plan failed and I was still with the club, so I guess she already knew her plan backfired on her.

“What’s up, bro?” Hollywood asked as he moved closer to me and let the girls have what looked like a reunion.

“Nothing. Just came to see for myself if it was really her.”

“Why?” It was understandable that he would ask that, since I never had much to do with her. I hadn’t confided in him about the way I wanted her to be mine six years ago. I’d wanted her, while she betrayed me. The tables had been completely reversed from when she’d been a little Freshman in high school with a crush on me. I kept it all to myself back then and stewed in her treachery. I hadn’t simply stewed, that wasn’t right. I waited for her to fuck up in a way that I would have something to hold over her head, proof of her trying to fuck a brother over, but it never happened. Then, one day, she was just gone.

“Bro, what the fuck?” I stopped staring at Trinity and turned back to Hollywood.

“Just remembered something,” I muttered and pushed past him to get to the bar. I needed a fucking drink and for someone to tell me why in the fuck Trinity was back after six years of radio silence. Considering I never told anyone, other than Natalie, about my conversation with Sweet all those years ago, no one else would understand why I needed those answers. Maybe, it had been a dumb thing she did as a girl to get back at me for making fun of her crush in front of most of our school back in the day, but then again, she might have carried on some crazy hidden agenda and brought it back with her. It was worth noting because my president had been in a shit mood for months, and there was no way I’d make it out unscathed if she tried that shit again.

“What’s up with you?” I turned to see Walker sitting there. Why the fuck the sad bastard sat at the bar most nights, and didn’t drink a fucking thing beyond water, was a puzzle for another time.

“Getting a drink.”

“That so?”

“Yeah, man. What’s going on?”

“Well, you’ve been staring at the bottles and when the prospect asked what he could get you, it was like you wanted him to read your mind instead of answering.”

Shit.

I bounced my shoulders in an indifferent shrug, then leaned across the bar and snagged a bottle of whiskey, a glass, and scooped some ice before I sat my ass on a barstool. “Lost in my own head, I guess.”

“That much was obvious.” Walker snickered and then sipped on his water as he continued to watch me. I wasn’t close to him. He wasn’t close to many people in the club, and Hollywood and I often wondered why that was. We were still prospecting for the club back when everything blew up in Walker’s life. He imploded his own marriage by constantly fucking around on his wife, and then when he realized how badly he fucked up, he’d been knocked back to prospecting for basically stalking the woman. If anyone knew about the dangers of getting involved with the wrong woman, it was Walker. Not that his ex-wife had been the wrong woman, but his actions because of her had landed him in a world of shit. I almost suffered a worse fate, thanks to Trinity. Sweet hadn’t given me the option of being busted back to prospect. He’d told me if he heard that shit again, I was out. He didn’t even ask for proof. I know he didn’t because there was none to be had.

“What’s got you ready to explode?” Walker’s eyes tracked movement just behind my left shoulder and when I glanced up into the mirror that lined that bar, I saw why. She was headed our way. Why the fuck was she headed our way? “Ah, so it’s woman troubles?”

“No.” My quick denial only made him laugh.

“Considering what I’m known for, if you ever need to talk before you get yourself in a world of hurt, let me know.” Walker got up and left the common area after he dropped that bomb and I was alone at the bar when Trinity came up beside me.

“Hi,” She offered.

“Said that already,” I muttered back to her.

“Yeah, I guess I did. Sorry, everything has been a little overwhelming.”

“Why’s that?”

She made some sort of noncommittal noise in the back of her throat and then ordered a beer from the prospect. “I’ve been gone for six years. It’s strange coming back. In some ways, it feels like everything was put on pause while I was gone. In others, it feels like time kept marching on.” There was a sadness in her tone that I couldn’t place, but then again, she was the bitch who tried to ruin me, so it wasn’t something I cared about.

“Well, sweetheart, you aren’t that important. Time didn’t stop for you and everyone else kept living their lives without even noticing you were gone.”

“What the fuck, Trouble?” I turned to see Hollywood staring daggers at my back as Trinity flinched and took several steps to the side. “What’s your problem?”

“No problem, just not in the mood for entitled little snots.”

“Entitled?” Hollywood’s head swiveled between Trinity and me. “What the absolute fuck are you talking about?”

“I doubt he even knows,” Trinity quipped. “Leave it be, H. I’m ready to get out of here anyway.” She took a singular sip of the beer she had ordered, set it on the bar, and then leaned in to give my best friend a hug.

“You don’t have to leave because Trouble is an asshole.”

“I have to get back anyway. Can’t leave her alone too long.” We both watched as Trinity left the clubhouse and then Hollywood smacked me on the back of the head.

“What the fuck, man? She just got back. Why are you treating her like jailbait with a crush again?”

I shrugged and took a sip of the whiskey in my hand. The burn down my throat felt more like molten fire because something in the back of mind told me that I’d just beat up on a woman who was already down and out. “Who does she have to get back to?”

“Her mom. She’s dying. Cancer or some shit.”

“Damn,” I whispered into my glass.

“Yeah, so maybe next time she comes to get a break from watching her mom die, you can have a little fucking sympathy and keep your damn mouth shut.”

I gave a quick nod as Hollywood walked away and then I downed the rest of my glass and refilled that bitch. I didn’t want to feel bad, considering she almost got me kicked out of the club, but it was fucked that her dad bailed on them, her brother died, and now her mom wasn’t far behind. Who did that leave her with?

Not my fucking business.

I’d keep telling myself until it sunk in. Fuck the feelings that started to grow for her back when she was 18. Fuck the fact that I had been waiting until she graduated to make a move. I chuckled into my glass at the irony of that very thing. I planned to make a move on her, but wanted to wait until she was out of high school, because I knew it wouldn’t look good. She was the one who made up lies that I was fucking around with high school girls at the same time I had been making plans to make her mine. Remembering why it stung so much that she had been the one to fuck me over made me realize, once again, that she didn’t deserve a damn bit of sympathy from me. Fuck her.