Page 5 of Strider's Misstep

“It’s a fuckin’ intervention,” I surmise.

Shotgun grimaces. “I suppose you could call it that.” He nods toward Buzz, who steps closer to me and curls his fingers in a gimme gesture.

“Don’t make me take it from you,” Buzz threatens.

I’ve gone head-to-head with Buzz before in the ring and know he’s a more than competent fighter. Right now, I’d prefer to keep my ribs and jaw intact. Doesn’t stop me from giving him a healthy glare as I surrender my gun. When that doesn’t satisfy him, I also pass over my knife.

“Bit over the top isn’t it?” I spit at Shotgun while Buzz parks his backside on his rocky perch again. When the VP shrugs, I narrow my gaze. “Don’t worry, I’m happy with my revenge served cold.”

He snorts at my threat. “Cold doesn’t worry me. It’s how hot-headed you’ve become that does. I’ll take my chance of payback after we’ve had our say.”

Tapping another cigarette out of my pack, I light up, breathing in deeply. Through the resultant exhale of blue smoke, I rasp, “So what’s this a-fuckin’-bout?”

Tequila leans forward, putting his joined hands on his knees. “How are things going, Prez?” His voice is gentle, full of genuine concern.

These three men aren’t just my most trusted brothers in the club. I’ve been riding with them for years. Long before I got my president’s patch. They know everything about my life, all the parts I keep secret from everyone else—the shame, the sadness, the inevitability of a train wreck coming that I’m unable to stop. Rather than snapping, I say in a voice heavy with deep emotion, “Don’t go there, Teq.”

“You’re a complicated fuckin’ man, Brother,” Shotgun starts. “For a while, I thought you were getting things balanced out.” Confused, I raise an eyebrow, prompting him to continue. “No one… no one could blame you for going with Jasmine, but none of us can understand what’s happening between you now. For the past few months, you’ve been like a bear with a sore paw, and your mood seems to correlate with the distance you’re keeping from her.”

Jasmine. I turn my head, refusing to look my brothers in the eye. She’s the woman who haunts my nights, the one I can’t get out of my mind. She’s been intruding into places where she’s no right to be, inside my head all the time.

“She’s nothing to you anymore? That it?” Buzz asks. “She available now? ’Cause from where I’m sitting, we’re supporting a club whore who doesn’t work on her back.”

“Or laps or any flat surface for that matter,” Tequila interjects.

“You letting her loose, Bro? You going to let her open her legs to the rest of us?”

They might have disarmed me, but that doesn’t stop me from flying at Shotgun, catching him by surprise and throwing him backward off his makeshift seat. I’ve got one heavy punch to his face when a bullet hits the ground far too close to my feet.

“Knock it off!” Buzz growls.

I stand back with my hands raised.

Ruefully rubbing his cheek and checking his nose is still firmly affixed to his face, Shotgun first gives a chin lift of thanks toward Buzz, and then states, “Guess that answers our question. Jasmine is still off-limits.”

“Then we need to discuss what the hell she’s doing in the club other than taking up space.”

I spin around to Tequila but can’t seem to do more than let my mouth open and shut. The wordsshe’s minehave to be swallowed down into my throat. She’s not, and I can’t think of the time when I hope that she would be, as that only acknowledges my upcoming loss.

“You haven’t fucked her for months,” Buzz observes.

Now that I can address. “You keeping a check on how often I get my dick wet?”

Buzz chortles. “Your mood says it all, Prez. As does hers.”

The sun is beating down mercilessly, and their interrogation is making me sweat. I wipe moisture off with my bandanna. Then, in a monotone voice, I remind them, “She got pregnant.” I brush a hand back through my hair, gathering it up and retying it into a ponytail. “She got fuckin’ pregnant.”

“And she sorted it.” Shotgun’s eyes narrow. “Is that what the problem is? She aborted your kid?”

It can’t be. I’m the one who told her there was no way she could have my child. She did exactly what I wanted, and no one but me knew how much it hurt that she did. How my guiltwas magnified as I knew how much she regretted it. “She got pregnant,” I repeat, sticking to safe ground.

Buzz snorts his frustration. “Didn’t think this was quite how this talk was going to go, Prez. But seems like you need to know some facts about the birds and bees. It takes two to tango. Jas didn’t get in the family way all by herself.”

She hadn’t. I’d gloved up. Used a condom fresh from a pack. But still, she got pregnant. But for some reason, I can’t stop blaming her more than myself.

Until then, I’d had a willing female partner to let me use her body whenever the urge took me. Hell, I’m no monk. I’m a red-blooded man who gets fed up with only using their hand. She’d offered me everything I needed—no emotions involved, just a joint physical need, itches that needed to be scratched.

Jasmine had walked into the club, a broken woman in need of a home. I’d seen her, taken her, monopolised her time. Pulling the prez card, they all knew she was mine. Not liking to share probably comes from me having grown up as an only child. There had been some murmuring but nothing serious. The brothers had enough other women to keep them satisfied.

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