Page 3 of Demo

That said, Steel headed back towards the clubhouse. Throwing his head over his shoulder, the President added, “And Demo? Get yourself to the fucking doctor!”

Demo grimaced. He was a fucking adult, yet he felt like he’d just been scolded by the principal. “How does he fucking do that?”

Pumpkin shrugged. “I have no clue.” His eyes narrowed on Demo’s hand on his shoulder. “What’s going on?”

Demo tried to push it off. “It’s just being out in the cold.”

“Bullshit,” Pumpkin snapped. “What’s going on?”

Rubbing the healed wound, Demo tried to alleviate the stabbing pain. “You have a baby to take care of,” he reminded his friend. “You don’t need to be worrying about me too.”

“Having a kid doesn’t change the fact that you’re my friend and are hurting. Tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“It’s phantom pains,” Demo explained. “The nerves were damaged by the bullet. The doctors repaired what they could, but it will likely always be there.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that the body is a remarkable thing,” Demo mocked the doctor’s explanation. “It can remember an injury long after it’s healed.”

“Can they do anything, give you anything?”

“I’m not getting hooked on drugs,” Demo snapped. He pulled his hand away from his shoulder, even though he hadn’t actually stopped the pain. Sometimes, when it got too bad, he would ram his shoulder into a door frame. It would hurt like hell, but it made the throbbing go away faster.

‘Remarkable thing’, my ass, Demo thought cynically.

“Come on,” Demo encouraged, starting to follow behind Steel. “Let’s get you back to your kid.”

He heard Pumpkin’s footfalls in the snow trailing after him. “I’m only letting you change the subject because I do want to get back to my kid. But I still want to know what’s going on with you.”

Demo said nothing. The doctors said the pain would eventually go away. His body just had to remember he wasn’tcurrentlyshot. The nerves would settle. At least, that’s what the doctors claimed anyway. Until then, he just needed to grin and bear it.

He could handle the pain.

CHAPTER 1

Demo sat at the bar with a beer in his hand, watching the chaos around him. He was never so grateful to be single in his entire life as he was in this moment.

When Demo had first joined the club, he’d seen it as a way to reconnect with society after the military and his medical discharge. The explosion that had taken the pointer, middle, and ring fingers on his left hand forced him back into a civilian lifestyle he was no longer used to. He had seen the club as a way to have that camaraderie with fellow veterans without the illegal shit most motorcycle clubs were known for.

And he was also willing to admit, he saw it as a way to get a lot of convenient pussy.

In the nearly eight years since the club had been formed, they had gone from keeping their hands clean to dirtying them for the right reasons. Demo did not have issues with breaking the law, so long as it was to protect and not to harm the innocent.

The club had grown a lot, especially in recent years. Jenna had been the only ol’ lady for five years before Harper came around, followed closely by Tessa and Abby, then Jasmine. Though not an ol’ lady, Jasmine brought her best friend, Sophia, with her. The sassy minx was anywhere Jasmine was and had somehow become a fixture amongst the club’s ol’ ladies. She might not be claimed, but Demo wasn’t blind to the looks a certain club brother gave the other single men if they got too close to her.

Not only was there now a distinct feminine touch to the club, but the club kids seemed to be multiplying. In the nearly five months since the club Honey position had been dissolved, the clubhouse had become more of a family hangout center.

Demo didn’t mind, per se, but his blue balls raised the occasional argument. There was something nostalgic about once being able to just curl his finger at a Honey from across the room and know he was about to get blown.

Now, Demo was watching the chaos unfold and just prayed that, if he ever did find his woman, she was on the best birth control on the market.

Following the December holidays, Lucky and Bear had made the announcements that their ol’ ladies were pregnant—again. Shortly after that, Harper had been found in the clubhouse reorganizing the bar and putting laundry away inside the refrigerator. Shortly afterthat, Tessa had been discovered on the kitchen floor surrounded by half-eaten tubs of ice cream, a bottle of maple syrup, salt and vinegar chips,Skittles, and a jug of orange juice while crying and watching aTitanicdocumentary on her phone.

Nearly a week after those instances, Tessa came storming up into their Church meeting to demand where Maggie was because she’d forgotten her daughter was at her in-laws’ house. After Bear had calmed her down, he’d taken her back to their house to rest. The meeting had gone on for another hour or so until Sara, one of their prospects due to be patched over in another month, had come up to get Lucky.

Harper was down in the clubhouse in a panic because her car wouldn’t unlock and she had to get Conner, their son, to a doctor’s appointment. Lucky had to calmly explain that she wasn’t holding her car keys, but the television remote. Then he had to remind her that Conner’s checkup appointment wasn’t until the next day and that Lucky would be going with her.

These instances seemed to be just the tip of the iceberg for this round of pregnancies.

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