Page 3 of Better as It

“I should go,” I whisper softly.

Her eyes flutter, “you don’t have to.”

Oh, yes, I do. The longer I stay, the more the lines blur. She’s eighteen. I’m twenty-three. I’m a prospect in a club that her dad leads. She is the kind of woman people protect from guys like me, not the kind who stay up and talk until dawn with.

However, I don’t move. “You ever been on a real ride?”

She seems to wake up at that questions. “Wide open, free?”

I nod.

She shakes her head. “Tonight, maybe. With you, it’s the closest I’ve ever had.”

“No, a ride without a destination. No purpose. Just open air, miles, and opportunity.”

She smiles slow, in a sleepy daze, “that sounds perfect.”

Without thinking, I reply, “maybe I’ll take you sometime.”

She smirks, “Yeah, maybe you should.”

And just like that, we’re something. We aren’t quite friends, no longer strangers. Not something that can be defined or explained.

We are something.

ONE

TOON

In the face of adversity stand tall and roar like a grizzly bear in the wild.

Catawba,North Carolina. My home. Double sits beside me at the bar nursing a Corona longneck bottle looking like a sad puppy. It’s not a good look. His road-name is Double because he’s literally a double take of his dad, Drexel “Rex” Crews. Rex is the Catawba Hellions President and overall one crazy motherfucker. Double, on the other hand is softer, but still lethal. The man is Rex’s son by blood, and our VP Shooter’s step-son. They have this weird family dynamic that works, but none of them are men I want to cross.

“Damn, it ain’t that bad,” I mutter taking a long pull of my beer. “It’s a girl’s trip. They will be back in a few days.”

Axel “Double” Crews slaps my shoulder playfully. “You ain’t been wrapped tight yet. One day, though, it’s gonna happen. A woman will come along and knock that cocky smirk right off your face. When she’s in the room, you won’t be able to be closeenough. Like a fuckin’ man starved you won’t be able to taste enough of her. And like an inmate in prison, she leaves, you’ll feel like you’re locked in a fucking box.”

“So poetic,” I joke even though inside I feel every bit of what he’s describing. “Yesnia know you got it this bad?”

He smiles with pride, “damn straight she does. I’m not ashamed of loving my lady.”

I don’t share with him that I already know what it is to feel boxed in from missing a female. Catawba, once my sanctuary now my personal, private jail. I gave myself a life sentence here. Not that I will share any of it with any of them. This is my burden to carry alone.

My brothers, absolutely they are family. Some days this club is the only reason I have to wake up. Double sits to my right, his younger brother Little Foot to my left. Hawk is on the other side of Double with Rex and Shooter, our club president and VP at the end of the bar. Apparently this weekend was dubbed “girl’s weekend, no men allowed” and every one of these fools is beside himself to be without their women.

I’ve been without mine for years now. Not that anyone knows it.

Four to be exact. After years of flirtatious friendship, I let things go too far.

For her, I walked away. For my club, I left the only good thing I’ve ever held in my life behind. She is my weakness. It puts her at risk. And I stupidly fell in love with by far the most important female to just about every Hellion outside of their own ol’ ladies.

For me, I live in purgatory knowing the very essence of having something good and leaving it behind. I won’t put her in danger. My feelings for her only escalated the value she is as a target to rattle the club. She’s always going to be on radar, she’s the overall President’s daughter, but I didn’t want to add to her importance to an outsider.

Rex stands and moves to the door taking my attention away from my own sorrows. When BW Crews comes in, they greet in a man hug, the uncle and nephew embracing, all while I sit in place wondering why he is here and did his whole family come?

BW and I have a history. Not a bad one. He’s a brother in the Haywood’s Landing Chapter and truly a man I stand behind, beside, or in front of. His damn name is legacy, but the man himself lives up to it. Blaine Ward Crews, known as BW is named for Blaine “Roundman” Reklinger, his grandfather and the entire reason the Hellions exist today. The whole fucking family lives for this club in a way no one else ever will.

It’s his sister that gets me twisted inside.

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