Page 9 of Savage Outlaw

It was a secret that had kept him away from claiming her as his old lady.

He loved her enough to give her freedom even when it was a veiled sense of it.

She wouldn’t hear thetruthfrom him. Though itkilledhim.

“You don’t usually go wrecking ball.” Half-grinned Preacher, as he tossed wrenches up onto the workbench.

Butcher was too much in his own head to banter along.

He felt like an idiot for giving a fuck. For not realizing this day would come eventually. Roux was twenty-one, of course she’d want to fall in love with someone, to have that man be at her side. Be her everything.

She lived in the same cutthroat world as he did and yet, they were worlds apart. She knew and understood the rough standard of living more than any other female could. The few times they’d spent together, he loved that he didn’t have to dumb shit down for her or keep anything back. She got the way bikers lived and she lived it herself.

“Bad day,” he finally answered. Preacher never quit once he got his teeth into someone if he thought they had a problem. He’s worse than Snake. Thank god the bodyguard was in Wyoming visiting his prisoner BFF or Butcher would find his steps dogged by Snake.

“You wanna grab a beer?”

Butcher arched his brow. “At two in the afternoon? Nah, I’m good, Preach.”

“Tonight,” he persisted. “We’ll grab a beer at Otis’.”

He only answered to get Preacher off his back. “Sure, sounds good.”

“Yo, Doc.” A voice called out from the entryway and Butcher saw Reaper standing there. A burgundy beanie hat pulled low over the guy’s ears; his hands stuck down in the pockets of his leather jacket. “Get cleaned up, I need some help.”

Butcher shrugged; he was done fighting with the bike anyway.

He did a fast wash up of his hands at the sink, pushed the coveralls down his legs and grabbed his jacket.

“I don’t need a babysitter, you know, Reap. You never need any help on your rounds.” He got into step with the other guy and strode over to where their motorcycles were lined up.

“Maybe not, but you look like you could do with a break before you snap.”

There was a time not so long ago, Reaper was the quietest man any of theSoulshad ever met. He ghosted around the club, barely opening his mouth to anyone. He did his job, he pitched in, he was one of them but was apart from everyone at the same time. No one pushed him to be who he wasn’t. Reaper was accepted for himself, idiosyncrasies, and all. It was a whole different story now that Reaper had his wife back. He was the poster boy for how having an old lady was the making or breaking of a man.

Butcher felt his spine snapping with tension with each step he took. Relief came when he lifted his leg over his bike, roared the beast to life, the rumbling vibrations going through his bones.

Unlike Reaper’s story, this was no fairy tale. He didn’t get the girl in the end.

Roux was out of his reach for good now.

If she was engaged, if she was …in lovewith someone else, he had to stay away, for his own sake and for hers.

“Where we headed?” He asked, finding his voice, pushing this shit to the back of his mind where it belonged.

“Gotta do some collecting. Hitting up the gambling first.”

Sure thing. The job was monotonous, and Butcher could handle that kind of shit right now. The pair rode out of the compound and headed into town.

No one ever suspected that there was an illegal gambling den under the flower shop run by a sweet old lady. Both men smiled at her as she opened the counter hatch and let them through, closing it behind them. She went back to arranging a bouquet of flowers as though she hadn’t opened the door to two hardened criminals.

Chicks loved flowers, he thought.

But not Roux.

If he ever had a wild hair to send her something like that, she’d probably rip them to shreds and scatter them on his grave.

She’d prefer food. Or a game for the PS4. Even a set of tires for her car would be a better gift than flowers.

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