Page 10 of Ox

“Dig in,” Ox encouraged, handing me one of the two plates the waitress had given us.

I grabbed a mozzarella stick and a few jalapeno poppers. Nibbling, I asked, “So, what’s it like to be in an MC? Besides German, I’ve never known anyone in one before. And Ghost doesn’t count,” I added with a full body shiver. “I can’t say I know him well at all.”

Ox popped a mozzarella stick into his mouth and chewed. “What do you want to know about it?”

That was a loaded question. I’d read some romance novels and they had been pretty spicy in regards to what the men got up to in those Clubhouses of theirs. Not feeling like I could ask such intimate questions though, I left it open ended. “What does a Club Enforcer do on a daily basis?”

“Well, today, I woke up and drove down to California. I met up with a beautiful woman who needs my help with some biker thug who can’t take no for an answer. I took her out to dinner and now we’re enjoying some good food and even better conversation.”

My cheeks flamed at him calling me beautiful. “I mean on days when you’re not saving damsels in distress.”

Ox placed another mozzarella stick on my plate then and said, “You need to eat more than that. You’ll wither away on me if you don’t. I promised Maddy I’d keep you safe and in good health. If I break my word, she’ll have my hide! Redheads can have a temper if you piss them off. My Brother Hammer is a prime example. He’s all laughs until someone gets on his bad side. Then, his inner redhead kicks in and you better watch your back!”

I rolled my eyes at his overdramatic words. “I’m hardly in danger of withering any time soon.”

I was in good shape, I knew that much. I was a lifeguard, a busy waitress, worked out at the school gym when in session, and ran as often as my schedule allowed. But I was nowhere near “withering” territory. To put it bluntly, I had ample padding to keep me going through the winter months, extra mozzarella stick or not.

Our burgers arrived then and I realized Ox was dodging my question about his involvement with the Club. I wondered if that was because all of their business wasn’t on the up and up or if there was another reason entirely. That was definitely something to ponder.

Thinking about my friend Maddy and her super caring, loving boyfriend German then, I couldn’t help but wonder if it were possible to be so different and still make a relationship work. She’d been born into extreme wealth. I’m talking private schools, mansions, yachts, and fast sports cars, kind of money. And her boyfriend German was in an MC and led a far less sheltered kind of life. I’d have to talk to her about what it was like to date a biker when I had a minute alone with my busy friend. See what her take was on the issue.

But I was getting way ahead of myself. This man wasn’t asking for me to date him. He was here merely as a favor to a Club Brother who’d asked him to deal with a rival MC that had gotten out of hand. The fact that he’d called me beautiful didn’t mean anything. He was probably just being sweet, like he was with LuAnne whenever she stopped by to check in on us. I was reading way too much into this. I needed to take a breath and a step back before I embarrassed myself and added to my already long list of problems.

Ox created a little puddle of ketchup on his plate for his fries and handed me the bottle. “Tell me how it all began. Ghost’s obsession, I mean.”

Squeezing some ketchup onto my burger and a dollop on the side for my fries, I took a deep, bolstering breath. “During the summer, I lifeguard at an outdoor public pool and there’s a main road that runs past it. Ghost stopped by one day to buy a Pepsi from the vending machine near my lifeguard tower. For whatever reason, he started talking to me and asking me all about the area. I thought he was just killing time on his way to somewhere else, but then he asked me out.”

Ox wiped his mouth on a napkin. “I’m assuming you said no?”

“Yeah. Even the first time we met, I felt he was off. Like there was something just not right about the guy. I can’t explain it. It’s like, he’s predatory. He actually kind of frightened me.”

“You have good instincts,” Ox told me. “I’m not trying to scare you, Kayla, but Ghost isn’t the kind of man you ever want to get to know.”

Coming from a hardcore biker, that meant something. “Yeah. Like I said, he was off. And not just quirky, but strange. He was so intense and was constantly mining me for details about my personal life no matter how I tried to shrug him off.”

“You made a solid choice, avoiding his advances,” Ox commended. “It must have been hard to turn him down, as persistent as he was.”

“I guess,” I said, dredging my fry through the ketchup. “Besides, I don’t date often. I need that spark. You know what I mean? When you feel it down deep and nothing else seems to matter but that other person?”

Ox studied my face hard. “Yeah, I know.”

My cheeks grew pink as I realized how much I’d just overshared. “Well, Ghost just wouldn’t take no for an answer. He kept showing up at my job. Using the soda machine as an excuse to come by and stalk me. It creeped me out so much, I called the police station and they told me there was nothing I could do about it. The pool was public property. And, technically, he hadn’t made any threats, so he was within his rights to be there.”

Ox snorted. “The cops are useless in situations like these. They can’t do anything until some asshole beats up a woman or worse.”

So true. I’d thought those exact sentiments when I’d hung up the phone with them. I knew it wasn’t their fault. They were sympathetic to my plight, but the law was the law. And, until one was broken, their hands were tied.

“That’s when I told Maddy about my situation. When she and German came to campus and he was wearing a cut, I thought he might be from the same Club as Ghost. That’s how I learned about the Devil’s Riders and their dislike of the Watchmen,” I ended delicately.

“Yeah, our Clubs couldn’t be more different from one another than day is from night,” Ox said, taking a large bite of his burger.

I smiled. “Thank God for that.”

Ox smiled back. “Not God. Just my Prez Reaper. He’s a good man. He’d never allow the shit that goes down at the Watchmen Clubhouse to go down at ours.”

“Maddy said nearly the same thing. She knew your Club would help me, even when you weren’t obligated to. I’ll forever be in your debt for this,” I spoke earnestly.

Ox looked uncomfortable with my praise. “German told me Ghost tried to run you off the road as well?”

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