2. 1 - The Foundation

1 - The Foundation

Two years later

“Are you sure it’s okay for me to be here?”

Shaina rolled her eyes at me again. “Stop worrying. Your sister is babysitting. You have a night off. You’re still young and free. It’s time you enjoyed yourself.”

She wasn’t wrong. It had been more than a year since I’d been out on a weekend night. That was mostly because I made my best tips at the bar on the weekends. They were closed down for a private celebration and my skills weren’t needed. Since I already had a sitter for the night, Shaina made me take advantage. It was time to start living a little.

“Maybe you’ll find a sexy biker tonight who can dust out the cobwebs.”

“Shaina!” I hissed as the two men standing outside the clubhouse chuckled. We weren’t even through the door, and I was already mortified.

Considering I worked at a strip club owned by the S.H.E. MC, you would think I wouldn’t be intimidated walking into a party at the Aces High MC clubhouse. Still, working for female bikers had to be very different than partying with the male variety.

“Relax,” my best friend huffed. I hadn’t realized my shoulders were tensed up damn near to my ears. I dropped them back down and gave a little roll of my shoulders to further release the tension.

“We don’t bite.” A man whispered gruffly into my ear as he passed by on his way to the bar that ran along the right side of the common area in the clubhouse. As I tracked his movements, Shaina squealed and then took off across the vast room like a bullet. Her blonde curls billowed out behind her and bounced along as she skittered to a stop in just enough time to jump onto the man she had her sights on. She showed every bit of her thighs and a little bit of her ass as she wrapped her legs around the man’s waist and her skirt drifted further up her legs than would have been appropriate anywhere else.

“Are you kidding?” I called after my friend who couldn’t hear me and wouldn’t have stopped even if she could. She had her eyes on a very specific biker and once she saw him, I was all but forgotten. Since turning into a wallflower in front of the door wasn’t an option, I made my way over to the bar to my right. The biker who had whispered in my ear stood on one end with his back to the bar and a bottle of water in hand as he surveyed the scene before him.

“Are you security or something?” I asked with a tip of my head toward the bottle.

He shook his head. “Don’t make the best decisions when alcohol is involved, so I don’t touch it anymore.”

I ordered a bottle for myself, and the same man chuckled. “You won’t offend me if you order something stronger.”

“This is my first time here, and the one person I know already left me to fend for myself. I think keeping a clear head will be a wise move on my part.”

He tipped his bottle up to me in a weird salute as his dark hair flopped forward into his face. With a quick flick of his head, it was back out only to flop over once more.

I laughed at his expense as he nodded to my wrist where I kept an extra hair tie. “Mind if I borrow that?”

In response, I held my arm out to him and shivered as the very good-looking biker slid the hair tie from my wrist, over my hand, and left a trail of pebbled gooseflesh in his wake.

“Thanks,” he called while he gathered his thick, brown locks back with both hands and twisted the tie around to hold it back from his face.

“It feels like maybe you’re not used to all that hair.”

“Kept it short for a lot of years. Been trying something new. It’s a bitch to grow out.” The sheepish smile he shot my way sent all the hormones in my body into overdrive. I was a sucker for a humble, sexy man.

“Hey Walker, you ready to play with me tonight, sugar?” A barely clothed woman asked while purposely stepping between us. I turned my back on the spectacle to search the room for Shaina again. Considering I’d seen her greet Wash the way she had, it would be a miracle if they hadn’t gone some place private.

“Don’t know how many times I have to repeat myself. Never gonna happen, Tay.”

“If you claimed me, I wouldn’t be a club girl anymore.” The girl’s argument sounded wild even to me as an outsider.

“Never dated you. Never fucked you. Don’t know why you think I’d lay claim to you.”

“No one else will have you after what you did to your ex-wife.” The woman he called Tay piped up. She all but ran across the room after delivering that blow. I turned back to see the man she called Walker damn near crushing his water bottle.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Fine.” He growled out the word, making it clear he was anything but fine.

“Okay then.” I turned back to look for Shaina once again. Having an adult fun night no longer felt fun or worth the price I’d have to pay my sister for babysitting my two kids.

“Sorry, please, don’t let me ruin your night. My ex-wife is a mood-killing topic.”

“Was she that horrible?” I asked, unable to stop my curiosity in its tracks.

“No. She was sweet and always a bright spot in anyone’s day.”

“What happened?”

“Long story short, I was an asshole back then. Cheated on her instead of manning up to our situation.”

“That was a shitty thing to do.”

He nodded. “Cost me the love and respect of a good woman and nearly cost me my place in the club.”

“I didn’t think biker clubs cared that the men cheated on their women.”

“Most don’t. Her brother and the man she’s married to now are also members of another chapter of this club. They weren’t happy when I checked in on her to make sure she was doing okay.”

“It’s sweet that you did that.”

He laughed. “Once a cheating asshole, people don’t see that type of thing as sweet.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Did you come off as stalkerish?”

“Maybe a little.” If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear the man blushed. “What brought you out here tonight? No offense, but you don’t seem the type to hang out here.”

“My friend.” I pointed in the general direction she’d gone last time I’d seen her. “Shaina dragged me along because I needed a night out.”

“Then your friend promptly ditched you among strangers in an MC clubhouse?” Walker asked, getting unnecessarily angry on my behalf.

“It’s okay, really. When we set out tonight, I knew it was a very real possibility. Plus, I work for S.H.E. MC, so it’s not like I’m a total stranger to the life.”

“What do you do for them?”

“Bartend mostly.” He didn’t need to know that I’d also taken more than one turn on a pole at their club, Paramour, when I needed the money. I was one of the few women who did so masked. They allowed it, so I could protect my identity since I had children to worry about and we lived in a small town with a lot of big mouths.

Walker nodded again as our conversation lulled. Just when I was about to text Shaina to find a ride home, Walker tapped my shoulder. “Want to head out there where it’s quieter? I can’t think with all the noise in here.”

“Sure.”

“Bullet, two waters.” Walker ordered before he turned back to me with a grin. “Unless you want something stronger. Coke? Dr. Pepper? Orange Juice?”

I laughed and shook my head as he palmed the two water bottles and escorted me outside to where a few picnic tables were arranged haphazardly.

“It must be nice to have all this entertainment space for parties and whatnot.”

“The club is a huge family, especially when all the other chapters come in. What about you? You have a big family?”

“Mom, sister, me and my two.”

“Your two?”

“Kids. Four and 15. Boy and girl.”

“You have an old man?” He notably slid further back from me like he might catch infidelity, which was ironic since he told me how he lost his ex-wife.

“My husband – the kids’ father – died two years ago in an accident at work.”

“Shit, darlin’, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay; you didn’t know.”

“My real family was shit.” Walker admitted after we sat there silent for a bit. “Mom was a club whore looking for an old man. Dad was not the greatest example either. Pretty sure I have a few half siblings running around Florida, maybe other parts of the country too. I transferred here when the chapter was started to get away from their shit. Best thing I ever did was get that fresh start. Then I met Poppy, and she became the best thing until I let my own bullshit fuck that up.”

“Poppy is your ex-wife?” He nodded. “So, why cheat on her if she was the best thing to happen to you?”

“Wasn’t good enough for her.”

I laughed. “Men are idiots and you’re no exception.” His brow kicked up in question but there was a hint of an amused smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. “You proved your own point to her instead of proving yourself wrong. She married you because she knew you were good enough. She stayed married for the same reason, until you turned things around.”

Walker grinned but it quickly devolved into more of a sad glower. “Couldn’t really prove her wrong because my body was the problem. She wanted kids badly. Turned out I couldn’t make them.”

“There’s adoption, sperm donors, and…”

“And she would have been happy with any of those options, but I felt like a failure. Couldn’t give my woman the one thing she wanted. A family.” He shrugged and took a healthy swig of his water before frowning down at the bottle.

“Water doesn’t offer that kick to the gut you need to numb the self-loathing, huh?” I chuckled as he agreed.

“What do you know about that?”

“It’s my fault my husband is dead.”

“Thought it was a work accident?” Walker questioned.

“It was, but I was the reason he went in. Josh was a lineman. There was that hurricane that ripped through the panhandle, and they offered double-time pay to any of the guys who would travel to go help the crews there get power back up. Josh didn’t want to go. He wanted to stay home and enjoy some time off and go hit the casino with his buddies.” I blushed at the last admission.

It took me almost a year after Josh’s death to take the rose-colored glasses off about our relationship. Even though I had been ready to leave him before he died, suddenly death made him the man he was in the beginning.

Our marriage and finances had been in trouble before he passed away. He may not have been cheating on me with another woman, but gambling was the mistress he lied for and about all the time.

“He gambled away our savings and then started to dip into the money we needed for bills. I told him if he didn’t go work that job to get the extra money to cover what he’d lost of our bill money, that I’d take the kids and leave.”

“Fuck. Sounds like that was still a Josh problem and not a you problem.”

“It was, but his family blamed me anyway. They don’t even visit our kids anymore.”

“Sounds like you and your kids are better off.”

I winced. “It’s hard to reconcile my late husband – the gambling addict version of him – with the man I fell in love with. On the same note, his parents were always kind, loving, and supportive before his death. It hurt to have them turn on me, but especially on the kids as well. That was when I started blaming myself because my children were losing out on the relationship they should have had with their grandparents because I forced Josh to do the right thing, and it got him killed.”

“Did they know about the gambling?”

I shook my head. “If they did, they kept their heads in the sand and hid from the truth.”

“If you think they’d be a good support system for your kids, you might want to give them a hard dose of reality about why their back the money he lost.”

“Maybe,” I hedged. Part of me wanted to be able to give my kids their other set of grandparents back. The other part didn’t feel inclined to. While I understood grief made them pull away, what would happen if I let my kids get close again and they decided to drop my children once more? It wasn’t worth the risk of their future heartbreak to me.

“Do all the people here hold it against you?” I asked to change the subject.

“What I did to Poppy?”

I nodded as Walker sighed. “Some do, especially the old ladies of members. The ones who were around then, including Angel Girl and Keys.”

“Why?” Those two women were among my big bosses. They were the women at the top of the S.H.E. MC Empire, but they were also each married to a member of the Aces High MC.

“They caught a lot of flak for not having Poppy’s back. Not only did they know what I was up to in my drunken, pity parties and didn’t tell her, but they offered her no support when the shit hit the fan.”

“That’s shitty, but their actions were their own. Well, their inactions.”

“True but I was at the root of the problem. The women of S.H.E. aren’t like normal old ladies. They’re busy running their own world too.” Walker shrugged as he excused them from helping his ex-wife. “They get mad at me all over again whenever they visit the Cedar Falls Chapter in West Virginia. That’s where Poppy lives now. My ex-wife refuses to speak to or acknowledge them. Last time they tried to have an intervention of sorts to get her to talk to them. Poppy ended up shouting down the clubhouse. Something to the effect, “I didn’t exist to any of you when I needed a friend. I don’t exist to you when my life is good either. I have real friends now and I’m tired of you bothering me to assuage your own guilt. I moved past it a long time ago, and it isn’t my job to make you feel better about being a shitty former friend.”

“Wow, good for your ex. She sounds like a strong woman.”

He grinned. “She is.”

“You wish her the best, don’t you?”

“I do. She deserves it. As much as I hate to say it, her new man is perfect for her. He’s given her the family she always wanted, and he has her back in all things. I’m happy for her that she has that, especially after the shit I put her through.”

“We all screw up, you know? You shouldn’t let your past mistakes define you.”

Walker stared off into the distance for a good while. “Been working through my penance. Club took my patch for a bit. Got that back but didn’t want to involve anyone else in my shit until I could prove to myself I’m capable of being the man someone deserves.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“What the fuck?” He snapped back at me.

“It’s bullshit. You can’t be the judge. Only the person who chooses to be with you can judge that. Besides, you carried the burden of the consequences of your actions. That tends to change a person.” I pointed out his bottle of water. “For instance, you know drinking doesn’t make you a good person, so you no longer do it. If you ask me, it sounds like you’re a man capable of learning from past mistakes.”

Walker grinned at me. “Thought the party line for women was ‘once a cheater, always a cheater’.”

“Nah. I believe circumstances play a huge part. It’s true for some people. For others, I think there’s a catalyst to start the behavior and another where they learn from their mistakes and never want to repeat them.”

“Sounds more like wishful thinking,” he argued.

“My late husband was an addict. Wishful thinking got me through the last two years of our marriage.” It was a truth I rarely admitted to myself. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Seems to be what we’re doing tonight – sharing secrets or maybe skeletons.”

“I was going to leave Josh anyway. I’d given him the ultimatum, but while he was gone, I was packing up. That’s the real reason his parents hate me. They think I sent him on a fool’s errand, and he died for no good reason. They didn’t know about the gambling. I think they assumed I had someone else on the side. It was pretty obvious when no man manifested over the past two years that their theory was wrong, but whatever.”

“So, you decided he was stuck in the cycle and wouldn’t learn?”

“He was. I didn’t have hope that he’d pull back out of it. His friends encouraged his behavior, and they became more important than me, my opinions, or our family. With them, he had enablers. With me, he had a nag of a wife. He placed importance on the people who made him feel the best.”

“I see.”

“That’s how I know you are the latter type of man – the one who learned lessons.”

“How do you figure?”

“The woman you turned down earlier. She offered to make you feel good. The bar you sat in front of, full of liquor that could make you feel better and make bad decisions feel right, was ignored. You chose to take the path with the most resistance in both cases. There may have been a time when you didn’t deny your impulses and base needs, but you had no qualms about doing it tonight. I guess, where I’m sitting, it looks like you’ve already grown past your mistakes.”

“Reesa!” My head snapped around toward the voice of my friend, Trinity.

“Trinity?” She wasn’t one to hang out around the MC because one of the members rubbed her the wrong way every time they interacted. “What are you doing here?”

“Fucking Shaina!” She hurled our other friend’s name out like it was a curse. “At least she’s a good enough friend to send me to check on you.”

“She ditched me the minute we got here.”

“That bitch. She told me she was taking you out to have a good time and then she couldn’t even leave that asshole, Wash, alone for five fucking minutes to see to your happiness or safety?”

I laughed at my friend who was indignant on my behalf. “No harm done. Walker and I were swapping sad-sack stories with one another.”

Trinity wrinkled her nose up as if she smelled something foul. She had been around the MC a lot over the past decade because her mom dated one of the older members. “You ready to head out?” She asked.

“I guess I better go. My sister won’t be happy when she finds out her Friday night babysitting gig was because I was out living life rather than working.” I turned to Walker. “I really enjoyed getting to know you.”

“Me too,” he offered back as his eyes continuously shifted between Trinity and myself.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you around.” I started to walk away while silently hoping he would call me back and ask for my number. To my disappointment, he didn’t. His eyes tracked me all the way to Trinity’s Jeep, then he continued to watch as she pulled out of the parking lot.

“Didn’t anyone warn you about Walker?” Trinity asked as we both settled in for the ride home.

“Yeah. He did.”