Page 40 of Clear Your Mind

The rest of the ride to the clubhouse passes in silence. It’s not until we pull in that Kilt speaks again. “You know, veep, tell her. Everything. If she can’t handle it, it’s best to find out now. Before she’s too deep in our club and you’re too deep into her. Think about it. Do you want to be tied to a woman who can’t handle all of you? Because I can tell you for a fact, I don’t want the brothers who have my back and know where my bodies are buried to share a bed with a woman they can’t trust. More secrets are spilled in a bed than anywhere else.”

The weight of his words sinks into my heart. Kilt is one-hundred-percent right. It’s one of the reasons we vote on ol’ ladies. Everyone must trust in the people their brothers trust in.

“Don’t look so grumpy.” Kilt slaps my back with a smile. “She’s got what it takes. I’ll put money on it. Just maybe give her head first. Women listen a whole hell of a lot better in the afterglow. Orgasms open up the auditory canals.” He shrugs. “It’s science.” He laughs as he exits the van and opens the back.

“Stop thinking about my woman and how she glows.” I know I’m being salty, but something about Krystal makes me unreasonable. It takes me another heartbeat to exit the van, then it hits him. “Did you just make a joke?”

Kilt laughs…again. The man has laughed more times in the last two hours than in the last two months.

We escort Ripper around back to put him in the hole.

After depositing our burden, we lock up and head inside. “Seriously, veep.” Again with the neck-jarring attitude change. “If she’s for you, for this life, tell her what she needs to know, and she’ll be there when you need her most. If you can’t trust her with your past, then don’t ask us to trust her with your future.” His face takes on a pained look for just a second before he adds. “The cost is too fucking high.”

With that, Kilt enters the clubhouse, leaving me staring after him, wondering at the deeper meaning of his words. There’s a story there, and by the sound of it, not a pleasant one.

However, it is a story for later. For now, I have a story of my own to tell. As I shuffle inside with all the enthusiasm of a man going to the gallows, my phone rings.

Knowing who it is before I answer, I take a deep breath. “Yeah, prez.” I’d texted enough to keep my prez in the loop but not enough that can bite us in the ass later. Most is convincing him that we have it covered. There is no need for him to rush to the rescue. It’s one of the perks of being in charge, delegation.

During the phone call, my eyes shift toward the stairs more times than I can count, the need to go to Krystal is almost visceral, but the club comes first.

I divert my attention back to relaying the events of the day in great detail and yet again convincing prez that we have it in hand. He’s already slated to come back tomorrow, so why not let him have a good night?

“Oh, one last thing, prez. I claimed Krystal, but it might not stick. I’ll let you know tomorrow if we need a vote.” I listen to prez laugh and go on about getting my cock caged for as long as I dare before ending the call.

Stepping around the yet-unfinished bar, I grab a shot of bourbon, then another. Relishing the burn in my throat, but the one in my arm, not so much. I need to get it looked at, or at the very least, cleaned a bit better than the hasty job done in the back of Krystal’s shop.

I look down at it and smile. “She did good in a pinch.” I step back around the bar and head for the stairs when Maxi comes down them. I turn my head back toward the front stairs, then back to the ones she’s descending.

Typically, Maxi uses the front stairs unless she’s cleaning.

“Hey, Max, do you think you can help me glue this together?” I unwrap the gauze circling my arm. Leaning in, she squints in a strange manner.

“This but a scratch,” she says in a bad English accent. “However, it’s a wide one, so glue won’t work.”

When her bad English accent drops, the slight cursive quality of her words become prominent.

That’s when I notice she’s carrying a half-empty ice cream tub and more than a half-empty bottle of spiced rum. I raise my eyebrow.

“Whose ass do I need to kick?”

“Humm?”

I take the ice cream from her hand, sniff the tub, then wave it in her face.

“What asshole did something so stupid it called for Captain Floats?”

I expect tears or cursing, what I don’t expect is uproarious laughter.

“What’s so funny?”

“The thought of you kicking your own ass.”

“Me kicking…what bottle is that, your third?”

“Nah, our first. But you’re the reason for the floats or, rather, this whole day.”

Our? I don’t need to ask to know who she was drinking with. Hell, the woman deserves more than a bottle, considering what she lived and relived today.

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