Page 7 of Smooth Sailing

His gaze drifted to Tack Allen then to Hopper Kincaid, and finally to Hound Ironside.

Yeah.

With Big Petey, they’d made her safe.

He still felt the change from then to now.

This was what Pete said it was. It was what his ma told him Tack was building.

It was family.

He heard a chair scrape and looked to his side to see Rush, Tack Allen’s son—and his heir, since Rush was now president of the Club, a position Tack used to hold—was dragging another beat-up white chair to Harlan.

Once he got it where he wanted it, Rush sat in it and slouched, testing that old chair’s viability in a way that Harlan, who had to have at least fifty pounds on the guy, would never consider doing. Rush took a drag off his bottle of brew and kept his Oakley sunglasses aimed to the forecourt.

“You gettin’ it?” Rush asked.

“Hard not to,” Harlan answered.

“No one has to know,” Rush assured him.

It was a laid-back day. Sunny. Autumn was coming in, but the weather was still great. He’d had a brat and a burger and some of the best homemade potato salad he’d ever tasted. And these were clearly good people.

He didn’t want to get pissed.

“Not ashamed of it,” he stated tightly. “Ma wasn’t either.”

Rush looked to him and repeated, “No one has to know.”

He got it then.

If he joined, he’d be in the brotherhood, but that didn’t mean they owned him. That didn’t mean they got every piece of him. That didn’t mean he owed them dick.

He came as he came. He gave what he gave. And both were his choice.

Harlan had to admit he was surprised about that.

Especially coming from Rush.

“So how does that work, considering what I know of this business, you join up, it’s all in for life?” he asked.

“You do your time as a prospect,” Rush explained. “Warning, it’s gonna be shit. It’s not about hazing. It’s about duty. Loyalty. Commitment. The brothers decide you’ve done enough time, we patch you in. Through this, and after you earn your patch, you work the store or the shop. You get paid like any brother, a percentage of the monthly take. Except it’s less as a recruit. You patch in, you get what we all get.”

More surprise.

“Equal?”

“No one is above anyone else in the Club, Harlan.”

“No matter the time they got in?”

Rush shook his head. “No matter anything, outside your status as recruit or patched-in brother.”

“And that’s it?”

A smile curved Rush Allen’s lips. “You haven’t been a recruit. It sucks bein’ at the beck and call of a bunch of assholes who might be in the mood to bust your balls.”

That did not sound fun.

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