Your brothers want it for you. Their old ladies want it for you. The only one who isn’t lookin’ for that for you is you.”
Joker turned away, lifted his beer, and took another tug.
“Your call not to let that sink in,” Tack said, and Joker felt him move to drain his beer and slide off his stool
But he wasn’t done, and he left his kill shot for last.
“Now, not many people on this earth I would rather sit and have a beer with. But, see, my woman is up the mountain with my sons. And you got my love, Joke, I got all the time in the world for you. But straight up, I’d rather be up the mountain watchin’ my kids tear my house apart and my woman struttin’ around thinkin’ that shit’s cute when it’s not than down here with you, watchin’ you wallow in shit that’s history. You know how I feel about my Club. Think about that.”
Kane Allen was a wise man and a strong one, so Joker thought about it.
And Joker thought about Rider and Cutter and the fact that Tack was not lying. Those boys were hoodlums and neither of them had reached double digits yet.
He then thought about Tyra, her tight skirts, her ass in those tight skirts, the class act she was from top to toe, and the fact that the only man on earth she’d let tap her ass was sitting next to him.
And then he thought that he did not want to be the kind of man who wallowed in history. But he was thinking he was.
And last, Joker thought all of that was something to think about.
“Go,” he muttered, throwing back another swallow and not looking at his brother.
“Tyra will reach out. We’ll get Carissa in that house.”
Joker gave him his eyes.
Tack kept going.
“I see I didn’t sort your shit, and that troubles me, but they’re your terms to come to, you choose how you do it. Now you need time. But you need this again, Joke, I’m at the stool next to you. I’ll repeat it until I can’t talk anymore. I’ll do it as many times as I have to until you get it. That’s what you mean to me. So now, I’m goin’. But you need me back,” he tipped his head to the bar, “that’s where I’ll be.”
Then, after taking out his wallet, throwing some bills on the bar, and clapping Joker on the shoulder, Tack strode out.
Joker watched him go.
Then he finished his beer.
He ordered another one.
Well, kiss my ass, dickhead. Over a year and this is the first time you come to see me?
God took my boy. Then He gave me you.
You need me back, that’s where I’ll be.
These thoughts in his head, Joker took his time over his second beer.
When he was done, he put the empty bottle on the bar, went out to his bike, home to the Compound, and right into a clean room.
With mostly clean sheets.
Chapter Eight
Feeling Lucky
Carissa
“I think he likes you,” I said to Big Petey through a smile.
Though, with the way Travis, who Big Petey was holding, was trying to gobble up Pete’s nose, I would say it was more like love at first sight.
It was Tuesday, late morning, and I was standing at the bar in the Chaos Compound next to Big Petey, who was on a stool and had just taken hold of my son.
“Ooo, he’s so cute. I remember the days when they were all warm, squiggly, bundles of goodness,” Tyra, standing behind the bar, cooed.
Pete avoided having his nose amputated by baby teeth and gums and did this slanting his head and blowing a loud raspberry on Travis’s chubby cheek, making my baby giggle and squirm more, which made me smile bigger.
Once he did this, Pete turned to Tyra and ordered, “Don’t get any ideas, woman. Your man is already saving up, not for future college tuition, for future bail money. He don’t need no more headaches in the form of hooligans.”
I looked to the two dark-headed boys currently wrestling around on the floor of the Compound, grunting and giving it their all, something Tyra was ignoring, so I guessed it was normal, and thought Pete was not wrong.
“Tack would give me ten more kids if I wanted them,” Tyra returned.
“Definition of crazy in love,” Pete muttered, turned his attention back to Travis and advised gravely, “Learn early, little man, find an ugly woman so she’ll bend over backward to do your bidding,