Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 50311 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 252(@200wpm)___ 201(@250wpm)___ 168(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50311 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 252(@200wpm)___ 201(@250wpm)___ 168(@300wpm)
“Not feeling it?” Toon asks, eyebrow cocked. Sometimes I swear he does this to fuck a woman out of his system. But he never gives a single clue as to who it is.
I shrug. “They look like the kind that post your ass on the gram after.”
He laughs. “Man, when’d you get so jaded?”
I tip back the bottle. “Around the time I realized having a full rocker doesn’t mean shit if your own family still looks at you sideways.”
Toon’s grin fades. “Axel still riding your ass?”
“He’s cooled down. But I see it. Feel it from him. That doubt. Like he’s waiting for me to fuck up.”
“Shooter too?”
“Shooter’s worse. Says all the right shit, but his eyes are always looking past me. Like I’m still the kid with something to prove.”
Toon leans back, tapping ash from his smoke into an empty shot glass. “Maybe you’re seeing this shit wrong. Maybe they see the change, the way you’ve slowed down. They just don’t know how to tell you.”
“I got the same blood in my veins.”
I take a shot, letting the amber liquid burn all the way down.
“Dads are different man.”
“I don’t want him to be a dad,” I say, jaw tight. “I want him to see me as a Hellion. A brother. Someone who earned their seat.”
Toon nods slow. “I get it.”
He does. Toon is from the Haywood’s Landing chapter, but he’s been in Catawba a few years now most folks forget he ever started somewhere else. He was one of the few that treated me like a man back when I was still wearing the bottom rocker of shame. That counts for something.
“I thought getting patched in would fix it,” I mutter.
“It never does,” he says. “It just gives you more to carry.”
We finish our beers and make our move. While I don’t find chasing tail as fun as it once was, I am a man. Sex is sex and no sex is ever bad sex as long as I can bust a nut.
The women are exactly what they present—flirty, fake, and ready for a night that means nothing in the morning. We slide in smooth. Toon leans into the brunette, his hand already resting on her hip like he owns it. The blonde sizes me up and smiles, dragging her finger along my forearm.
“You’re a Hellion?”
I smirk. “Darlin’, I am the Hellion… for you for tonight.”
She giggles and presses closer. I let her. I let the act take over. The charm. The swagger. The carefully constructed mask of a man who doesn’t give a damn.
But inside, I still hear Axel’s voice. “You’re not ready.” Even now, five years later, full patch on my back, that shit still echoes. When will it stop eating at me?
The night dissolves into shots, music, and the kind of flirtation that’s more about momentum than chemistry. I laugh at the right moments, I touch her in all the places that make her lean in closer, and when we finally pile into a cab and head toward a nearby motel, it’s all on autopilot.
The motel is a dump, but it’s familiar. Cheap furniture. The hum of a wall unit. The kind of place where no one asks questions. We split one room—two beds, no boundaries.
Clothes fly. Bodies move. It’s wild, messy, and loud. Exactly what it’s supposed to be.
Except it’s not enough.
The blonde falls asleep on her side of the bed, hair tangled, lipstick smeared. I sit up, sweating, staring at the ceiling. My patch lies on the chair, catching the glow of the parking lot light leaking through the blinds.
It should feel like everything I ever wanted.
Instead, it feels like nothing. I grab my jeans and slip out onto the motel balcony. The night’s heavy with Carolina humidity. I light a cigarette, the end flaring red as I lean on the rusted rail. The parking lot is nearly empty. A couple cars. Our bikes.
Toon steps out beside me a minute later, hair damp, jeans half-zipped. “She asleep?”
“Like the dead.”
He lights up too. “You look like you didn’t even enjoy it.”
“I didn’t.”
He exhales smoke. “Something’s eating at you. Release is still release, brother.”
“You ever wonder if this is it? Just bars, bikes, bullshit?”
“You sound like a man having a quarter-life crisis.”
“I’m serious, Toon.”
He leans against the rail. “You got patched in. You’re in good standing. Rex has your back. Hell, Axel’s trusts you with everything. You’re the only one doubting your place. What’s it take? What’s missing?”
I let the question hang.
What is missing? What will it take? The truth is, I don’t know.
There’s a hole inside me, one that patching in didn’t fill. One that even Shooter’s praise can’t cover over. Maybe it’s respect. Maybe it’s just purpose. But whatever it is, it sure as hell isn’t in this motel room.
“I just want to matter,” I say finally.