Page 106 of Reaper

twenty-two

Pinky,Twitch, Midnight, Twinkie, Colt, Trigger, and Wrath take their spots around the table. I look at Colt on my right then turn toward Wrath on my left.

“Let’s get started,” I tell them. “Who would like to start?”

Twitch rests his forearms on the table. “I need help at the shop. Admin shit.” He cringes. “The office is worse than usual, and no one wants to deal with it. I would, but I’m in the middle of a project that’s taking up all my time.”

“The ‘65 Lincoln Continental restoration project, right?” I ask.

“It’s going to be a beaut when I’m done, but right now, it’s being a cunt.” He shakes his head. “I’ll stop now. Otherwise, I’ll start ranting about it,” he says, making everyone laugh.

“I’ll stop by this week. I need to apologize, I haven’t spent as much time there lately.”

“You’ve been busy,” Midnight says.

“How’s the tattoo shop?” I ask him.

“Good. In the next few months though, I’m going to need to hire another artist.”

“Just give me the resumes and I’ll run checks on them before they even come in,” Trigger offers.

Midnight dips his chin toward Trigger as Pinky speaks.

“Sunny is becoming suspicious why I haven’t brought her around lately. I tried to tell her it was because of a safety concern but…”

“Why don’t you just bring her around?” Colt asks.

“I’d rather not until I know it’s safe. We have a baby at home and things are just different now, you know?”

My jaw tics. I hate that I’m causing issues in his marriage, even if it’s not me directly.

“Let’s plan something.” I look around the table and make eye contact with each man. “Speaking of women, Natalie brought some concerns to me.”

Midnight frowns. “What’s up?”

“Did she see something?” Wrath asks.

I shake my head and look at my friend. “Not in the way you’re thinking,” I address the rest of the table. “She came to me concerned about the sweetbutts.”

Twinkie opens his mouth to cut in but holds himself back when I raise my hand, cutting him off.

“After everything that happened with Tara, she had concerns. She doesn’t think they should go or anything like that but she wants to help them.”

Trigger leans back in his chair and steeples his hands. “What does she have in mind?”

“Well, apparently we failed to think about getting them all on birth control.”

Each man cringes as I continue. “We’ve just always assumed they would handle that, but she thinks the club should foot the bill where they service the club.”

“Makes sense. Hell, I’m surprised we haven’t had any little surprises as it is,” Wrath says.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Colt flinch.

“You good?” I ask him.

“Yeah, sorry. I tweaked my shoulder the other day and now it’s angry if I move just right,” he tells me.

“Get that checked out.” I turn back to everyone else. “Along with the whole birth control thing, she wants to come to some sort of agreement between us and the sweetbutts. She doesn’t like that they feel obligated to sleep with us when they don’t want to in fear of us kicking them out.”

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