Page 54 of Monk
And the emotion I see in his eyes is shame.
He clears his throat. “Well… if nothing else, at least you know what I am now.”
Before I can say anything, he closes the door of the van and heads over to his bike, leaving me sitting there, staring after him through the windshield, unable to say anything even if I want to.
Right now, I don’t even know what to think about any of this.
Chapter Twenty
Monk
Standing at the back of the clubhouse next to the bar, I look at Kasey but say nothing for a long moment. Instead, I take a long swallow of beer. We’re the only two in the clubhouse right now—club leadership is in the other room deciding what’s going to happen next, and I can’t help but feel a bit anxious about that.
Kasey is sitting at a table in the middle of the room, her arms folded over her chest, a scowl on her face. She’s completely oblivious as to what’s being decided right now. If she has any inkling, she’ll be as worried as I am. Though I don’t think they’ll go to the extremes, we’ve never dealt with something like this before. Not in the time I’ve been riding with the club.
“You want something to drink? Soda? Beer?”
“No. Thank you,” she fumes.
I sigh and lean against the bar. Our clubhouse is fairly large—twenty by twenty. It’s all done in light pine, but the tables and bar are done in a darker wood, and it’s all polished to a near mirror finish. On one wall hangs a massive American flag, and behind the bar, all of our unit patches are mounted to a blackboard and kept behind glass.
Prophet had a statue of our logo crafted in black iron. The head-to-torso bust of the Egyptian god Anubis sits on a pedestal next to the door. His long, pointed ears stand up from the half helmet, and his long muzzle protrudes out of it, a pair of sunglasses covering his eyes. He’s got bandoliers of bullets crisscrossing his bare chest, and he’s holding a sidearm in his hand. The subject image aside, it’s actually pretty exquisite work.
The one thing I appreciate most about our clubhouse is that Prophet insists the place is kept spotless. Clean enough to pass a military inspection. Everything has a place, and everything is in its place. That’s one of the biggest rules around here. The prospects are usually the ones doing the shit work, but that’s just the circle of life in an MC.
The front door opens and Max walks in like he owns the place. He sees me staring at him and stops.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I say to him, ticked off. “Clubhouse is closed.”
“Oh, shit. Sorry, man. I didn’t—”
“Go wash my bike, Prospect. Detail it. I want the chrome to shine.”
Without another word, Max turns and walks out of the clubhouse, closing the door behind him. Kasey looks at me, an expression of contempt on her face.
“It’s the way things are in the club,” I tell her and shake my head. “I don’t know why I bother. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Yeah, I don’t understand a lot of things apparently.”
“What were you thinking, Kasey?”
“What was I thinking? Why didn’t you stand up for me? Why didn’t you tell them who I was from the start?” she hisses. “You just stood there with your fucking thumb up your ass. They were going to kill me, Jacob. And you stood there and did nothing!”
“I wasn’t going to let it get that far,” I tell her.
“You did, though.”
“And then I stopped it, didn’t I?”
She sits back in her seat, glaring at me with furious eyes. This is exactly why I knew I shouldn’t have let myself get involved with her in the first place. It’s why I’d pushed her away this morning. The last thing I wanted was for her to get mixed up in this bullshit.
“Those were drugs you sold to those guys, wasn’t it?” she asks.
I run a hand through my hair, then take a long swallow of beer. My gaze drifts over to the statue of Anubis by the door simply because I can’t bear to look into her eyes right now.
“Answer me, Jacob,” she insists. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
The answer burst from my mouth before I can think to stop it. “Yes, Kasey. It was drugs. We sell weed to other clubs, all right? Happy now?”
