Page 3 of Jet

“Is it safe to sit on the bed?” I joke as he shuts the door behind us.

“The sheets are clean on today,” he says, sitting down and patting the bed next to him.

“Actually, I think I need to pace,” I say and then do just that, ignoring his concerned gaze for now. Max knows all about my shitty parents. His were the same. Never there, never cared. “I got a string of texts and missed calls from my mother saying they needed to see me urgently. I was close by, so I did. Turns out Brian isn’t my dad, and a biker named Kenny, from Oregon, is.”

Max’s jaw drops in shock. “Holy shit.” He gets up and pulls me into another hug. “Do you want to find him?”

The moment they told me Brian wasn’t my real father, I knew I was going to find him. He might be no better a parent than they were, but he also might be better.

He might be the parent I deserved.

“I do.”

Max smiles at me.

“Let’s find your dad.”

Chapter two

Booker

The gentle hum from my tattoo gun ends as I finish up on the art piece I’ve been working for the last forty-five minutes.

“It looks perfect if I do say so myself,” I tell Lacey, my client, who just rolls her eyes. “Hey, no need for that look. It’s not big-headedness if I’ve got the talent to back it up.”

“Are you always so cocky, Booker?” she says as I clean her up and dress the tattoo.

“Always, baby.”

“You know,” she starts to say, and she’s right. I do know exactly what she’s going to say. “There is this cute guy who always comes into my bakery, and I think he would be absolutely perfect for you.”

There it is.

Lacey has got a heart of gold. She is one of my regulars who has been coming into my tattoo store for about a year now, and every time without fail, she tries to set me up with a guy who visits her bakery every day. I’m sure he is very nice, but that’s the problem. I may want a boyfriend, want something real, something more than just hookups, but I don’t want just nice.

I want fire.

Rex says it’s good I know my worth.

Speak of the devil. The door to my tattoo shop slams open. The fucker never opens a door like a normal person.

“Booker, you’re needed. Church.” A man of many words is my club brother and co-owner of Tats The Way. We’ve been friends since we met at the DV shelter as teens. When his mom went back to her abusive ex, my mom took him in, and we moved out here to Vigo Falls. He’s not my brother by blood, but that doesn’t mean shit. He’s my brother in all the ways that matter.

I nod at him and turn back to Lacey, giving her all the aftercare instructions she already knows, but I need to say them anyway.

“Did Prez say what it’s about?” I ask as the door closes behind her.

“Just that it’s urgent,” he says with a look. Shit. Urgent means trouble in our world.

After moving here, my mom met and married Kenny. He’s the kind of man she deserved, and they had Reed. I guess he’s technically my half-brother, but we don’t see it like that. He’s just my brother.

Kenny is the president of the Fallen Gargoyles motorcycle club. MCs get a bad rap, and a lot of it is justified, but not us. Fallen Gargoyles was started by Kenny’s dad, Grandpops, a former FBI agent who became disenfranchised with the whole law enforcement system back in the eighties. He started the club, made up of mainly queer former cops and vets, to help out those more vulnerable members of society. On the face of it, we raise a lot of money and support for women’s refuge shelters and homeless queer youth.

Behind the scenes, we do a lot more to protect these people.

So if Prez says something is urgent, we fucking roll.

“Rex and I have club business. You okay to handle any walk-ins?” I call out to Chez and Ophie, our two employees who aren’t members of the club.

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