I took care of making the food.
Three bites into eating our dinner, Edge and Christian came into her kitchen smelling like road and leather. My fork was two inches from my mouth when I saw him. His eyes met mine and he blinked at me with obvious surprise.
“Hey you,” Edge greeted.
I put my fork down and before I got completely to my feet, Edge was lifting me up off the floor in an embrace. When he set me down on my feet, he kissed my temple. “How’s my favorite Valentine?”
“It’s been a day,” I muttered.
“Oh yeah?” he asked.
“Sit down, boys. Got a whack of fusilli a la vodka with pancetta here.” Delia got up from the chair she’d just sat in at the kitchen table.
Edge kissed her on the cheek and then Christian did the same.
“Hey handsome,” Delia tapped Christian’s cheek affectionately.
Because Delia was the mother charter Prez’s wife, she got treated with love by everyone in the club. And she deserved it. Edge sat beside me at the six-seater kitchen table and Christian sat across from me but one seat over, like he didn’t want to have to look directly at me.
“Christian,” I greeted.
“Jojo,” he said in a deep, warm voice that made my belly tilt and goosebumps erupt on my arms.
However, he did not look at me. He stared at his hands which were braced on the tabletop.
Delia put a large bowl of pasta in front of him and then another out for Edge and put beers out too. She pulled the rest of the bruschetta that I’d also made out of the warming drawer and then topped up my glass of red wine.
I forked up some pasta while Delia got up and cleaned her kitchen because in typical Delia fashion, she’d moved her bowl to the counter and would take the odd forkful of her dinner between scrubbing pots and counters while talking to us. The woman rarely sat to eat, unless it was a dining room dinner. If we were in this kitchen, she was forever up and wiping things, refilling things, getting more of this or more of that for someone. I’d given up asking her to sit and eat eons ago. She told me that the fact that she kept moving while she ate was her secret to being able to eat pasta without having to unbutton her jeans afterwards.
“So, Jojo here was visitin’ Lick’s mom today and found out that a young lady is claiming that her baby was fathered by Lick. First, this one claimed it was Ride’s baby, but then switched her tune to Lick when Ride gave her the heave ho, ho. Jojo met up with her to talk to her, wound up looking after the baby and the bitch took off and left her sick kid with Jojo in a filthy apartment. Stole Jojo’s purse and her car.”
Edge had been shaving fresh parmesan onto his meal and he looked at me with eyebrows up at my misadventure. “No shit? This that same bitch that Shelly used to try to scare Jenna off?”
“What?” I asked.
“Yeah. When your ma got herself beat up and went to the hospital to get her arm put in a cast, she told Jenna Rider had a kid. Ain’t true, of course, and your ma likely knew it but used it to try to run Jenna off.”
I made a face of disgust. “My mother,” I grumbled.
It was just like her to try to break Rider and Jenna up. She wanted everyone to be all about her, especially her sons now that she had no one to clean up her many messes.
“Sorry to bring her up, baby cakes. Just tellin’ the story.” Edge gave me a look of regret.
I waved dismissively and pushed my hair out of my eyes before taking another mouthful of food, thinking back to when Jenna got back to the clubhouse that day. She had been upset and trying to hide it. Rider took off for a few days at that point and then those two called it quits temporarily. I’d bet money it was because of my mother using Melanie’s game to her advantage.
My mother was the opportunistic jackal in our midst always, making the fact that she’d worked with the Jackals and other enemies no surprise.
My phone buzzed with a text, so Delia unplugged it from the charger on the kitchen counter and passed it to me.
Rider: Your car’s here. Mel drove it here to me at the clubhouse. Tell me