Page 58 of Jackal

“Yep. Fuckers. But we’ll fix it. It’s all going to work out. You’ll see.” I tried to soothe her.

Lacy sniffled and pulled back, nodding. “I know,” she said with her bottom lip still trembling. “But I thought it was all set, and I found a dress I really wanted to try on and everything. Then he told me we have to wait.”

“Why?” I asked, wiping the pools of moisture from her cheeks.

Her blue eyes popped from the redness. “Same ole story. It’s not safe. But I don’t understand why it was safe when we went and not now?”

“Not that I agree with them, but I bet that guy stalking us over there has something to do with it,” I told her.

She nodded, and Daisy and I tried to console her. Mama Hen came outside, barking orders at one of the members while shooing Eagle back inside. The other member put a cooler down by my chair, then Mama Hen waved him off. “Go away now.”

He gritted his teeth but went back inside. Eagle was at the door still and yelled out, “I’m sorry, baby. We’ll fix it! I promise!”

“You’re fucking right you will! Now go away!” Mama Hen called over her shoulder. She leaned down and handed each of us a beer. “Here, girls. I know it doesn’t make it better, but at least it’ll take the edge off.”

I took mine, then pointed to the cooler. “Why don’t you have one with us?”

She smirked, then fished a beer from the cooler. “Don’t mind if I do.”

We all sat down around the unlit fire pit in the chairs. It was still light out but getting close to dinnertime and Eagle and Falcon hadn’t been home long from work. Jackal went out somewhere earlier, and he hadn’t been back long either, but greeted me, then said he had club business, so I had decided to get some fresh air when all hell broke loose.

“So,” Mama Hen started, “looks like we gotta push the wedding a bit.”

Lacy nodded, swiping a stray tear off her face before she took a long sip of her beer.

We all sighed and followed suit. After I swallowed mine down, I said, “I’ll call them and see what we can do. We may lose the deposit.”

“Serves him right,” Daisy said, before throwing another middle finger toward the clubhouse.

Mama Hen leaned over and patted Lacy’s hand. “I know you’re upset and you have every right to be. Make him sweat a little. Butwe’ll figure this out, hon. Don’t you worry.”

“I just wish I hadn’t set the date. I was fine when it was all up in the air. But then we set the date and signed the contract. It all felt real, ya know?” Lacy said with another sniffle.

“I’ll talk to them before I call. Seriously, all this shit was happening anyway. So one idiot followed us. Who cares?” I asked, waiving the beer as I spoke.

“Well, good luck with that,” Mama Hen said. “Hawk apparently didn’t want to do it to begin with, so I doubt he’ll budge.”

Sighing, I took a swig of my beer. I wished I could find whoever they were looking for so we could get on with our lives. This was getting really old, really fast.

Standing, I told them, “I need to go talk to Jackal. I’ll call the venue and see what we can do if I’m unsuccessful. Maybe we can move it without losing the deposit.”

Heading inside, I looked around and found Jackal sitting with Eagle and Hawk. Hawk saw me coming, and while he certainly wasn’t scared of me, he at least had the decency to look sorry.

He tipped his glass tumbler in my direction then said, “Hey, Doc. How’s it going?”

I slammed my bottle on the table. “I think you know. Also, I don’t recall saying you could drink that,” I said, motioning to the brown liquor in his glass.

He pushed the glass away but held his composure. “Listen, now’s not a good time. I know y’all are disappointed, but it’s for the best.”

“I see. And what changed between you getting shot and now? That seemed pretty intense, but you agreed to let them have the wedding. So what happened?”

Hawk’s eyes shot to Jackal and he stood, his arm snaking around me. “Let’s go talk.”

Rolling my eyes, I grabbed my beer. “This is mine.”Yes, supertough, Shiv. You take your beer.

Jackal walked us out back. I’d only been on that side of the clubhouse a few times. There were more chairs, a horseshoe pit, fire barrels, and a decent walk away was a shed. It was quiet out there, but noise coming from the garage meant there were some guys around.

“Lil Bird, you can’t talk to Hawk like that.”

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