Page 86 of Ice
How was I supposed to get through a whole day without seeing Ice? Or speaking to him? Messaging with him… why couldn’t I at least message with him? What if he wasn’t okay? What if this enforced isolation pushed him back over the edge?
I sat in my kitchen nursing a coffee, having taken painkillers for my head, and watching the time click up on my phone, one agonising minute at a time. My doorbell actually sent a rush of excitement through me. Someone was here! Even though I knew it was highly unlikely thanks to his presidentially imposedlockdown, I hoped it was Ice, but honestly right now I’d accept any visitor at all.
“Alicia!”
She was one of the last people I’d expected, but I was pleased to see her, until I realised that she might be bearing bad news.
“Oh god, is he okay?”
She nodded, stepping in and hugging me, before I closed the door.
“I thought you might like some company. Reacher was getting on my nerves, so I had a prospect drop me off.”
“My god, you were right, thank you. I’ll get the kettle on.”
We sat with drinks, and she stared at me for a long moment.
“I think Reacher needs your help.”
Of all the things I thought she’d come here to say, that never even occurred to me.
“I think the only thing Reacher wants from me is my absence from their lives.” I might have been feeling a little dramatic.
“I get it, you’re pissed, and I would be too. I mean, I am. I’m pissed at him for trying to mess with Ice’s relationship, after what his club did to me and him. He just accepted it, you know? I don’t get to wear his fucking name, his ink, because one or two of his asshole brothers decided I’m bad for the club. Me!”
I got up and found a packet of biscuits, bringing them back to the table.
“Can that decision be overturned?”
She took a biscuit and dunked it in her coffee.
“I think so. I mean, they’re going to revote at some point, but how the fuck do a bunch of guys in a club get to decide who their club president can be with?”
“You’re married though, right?”
She grinned. “Sort of a loophole, see, they can’t stop us marrying, but the old lady title comes with club ink, and that’swhat they voted against. Weird that I can be his wife, but not his old lady. Bikers can be real bitches.”
I wished I knew more about the whole club situation.
“Can you tell me more about how things work there? Just in case I’m allowed to be back with Ice?”
She cursed as half a biscuit fell into her drink.
“Every bloody time.” I offered to make a fresh one, but she just shoved her fingers into hot coffee and dug it out, while she cursed some more.
When she was composed again, after licking coffee from her fingers, she sat back.
“So… club life. You think it’s for you? It’s pretty much, uh, well like you saw the other night, lots of macho bullshit and it always smells of socks. I don’t know what that’s about. It’s not their rooms, I don’t think. It’s just the place in general. It really needs a woman’s touch.”
“Uh… Ice says the club was different before Reacher took over. Does he ever say what it was like before, or what the old president was like?”
She narrowed her eyes at me.
“Why would you ask that?”
“Just curious. I saw the photos in the bar, and you can literally see the club evolving from picture to picture. They seemed permanently angry in the old pictures, but in the newer ones, they’re laughing and more relaxed. It looks like a serious regime change. And the club changed name too? I saw a patch showing the name ‘Godless Warriors’, but the club’s called Phoenix MC now, right?”
Alicia twirled her hair around her fingers.
