Page 25 of Devil

“You were with Bailey’s mom? I thought you were dropping her off?” I asked and frowned.

“I’ve known Claire a long time. We went to school together. What is the big deal?” Romeo asked me.

“Claire is bouncing back—” Romeo interrupted, cutting me off.

“You think I don’t know that? I’m glad you came to your senses where Bailey is concerned, but—”

“Dad,” Flirt said and stopped his dad from continuing. Romeo looked over at Flirt.

“No, you boys get the respect for being this club’s leadership, but you don’t get to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.” Romeo faced me again and continued where he left off, “I know everything Claire and her daughter have been through because I was here. I stood on the outside and watched them at their lowest and then I witnessed the strength in both of them as they pulled themselves up. Not saying any of this to hurt you, Devil, or any of you. But each one of youactslike you are the only ones who have seen or done bad shit. The only ones to make bad choices. Grow up, pull up your big boy underwear and look around you. Most of the men in this club have served in the military at one time or another. They’ve lost wives, ol’ ladies, friends, comrades.” Romeo didn’t give us a chance to answer. “I’m going to sit with my brothers,” was said as he turned to walk off.

“What crawled up your ass, old man?” Flirt asked, and Romeo kept walking but turned his head and spoke over his shoulder.

“Nothing other than you don’t have the market on regrets.” Romeo keptwalking,and Flirt looked over at me.

“What the hell was that supposed to mean?” I asked, and Flirt shrugged.

“Who knows? I need a beer. These old men give me a headache.” Flirt hit the bar to get Stem’s attention.

“You think that is how they felt when we did shit growing up?” I chuckled. Stem sat Flirt and me a beer on the bar.

“Yeah, and a whole lot worse.” I nodded inagreement,and we turned to head where the others were. As we approached the music shut off. Stroker stood and shook Speed’s hand and patted his back, then Wild Bill stood and did the same. When I looked atCrusher,he wore a smile.

“You couldn’t have Brax tell me that when he called?” Crusher asked asFlirtand I reached the table. I went and stood behind my dad’s chair.

“Hell no because you wouldn’t have come.The onlyway to pull you away from your ol’ ladies.”Strokerlaughed.

“We could’ve done this later,” Speed said.

“What is going on?” Flirt asked.

“They wanted to celebrate Sami accepting Speed’s proposal,” Jag answered.

“And we couldn’t do that later?” I asked, and my dad started chuckling.

“Did we interrupt your time with Bailey?” he said over his shouldertome

“Yeah, you did,” I answered.

“Get over it. Hopefully, Speed only proposes to one woman.” My dad laughed when Speed glared at him.

“They wanted to do it while Keg and I were here. We are heading back to Haven tomorrow afternoon,” Wild Bill, Sami’s dad and president of Haven, said. While the men explained the other members around us laughed.

“Hey, maybe you boys can implement this into the by-laws. We could call it the ball and chain get-together.” Stroker chuckled at his own joke.

“I’ll get right on that. Now I thought you said we were here to celebrate. Start the music up!” Crusher yelled.

“First round is on me. I couldn’t have handpicked a better man for my little girl.” Wild Bill held up thebottleof beer he already had in the air and everyone whooped and whistled. The music started back up, the girls started dancing, and beers started being handed out.

The last thing I remembered was telling my dad the next party would be mine.

Chapter Eleven

Devil

Fuck! I opened my eyes a crack, then shut them quickly when the light that shined through my window hit my eyeballs. Iswallowed,and my mouth felt like someone had shoved it full of cotton. I groaned and rolled overontomy stomach and buried my headunderthe pillow.

“Damn, you need to open a fucking window. You need to get up and take a hot shower and sweat the rest of that shit out of you.The priceyou pay for shooting Jose and chasing it with beer. That was asking for a disaster,” Coast said, then I heard the window open.

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