CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I wasn’t asleep long though. Ashley woke up about an hour later, startled by the new surroundings she was in and not remembering how she got to them. The sudden movements and sharp pants woke me up instantly and I turned on the lamp light that was beside me and I had to calm Ashley down again. It took a bit, but afterwards, both of us decided that the best way to get our minds away from Jonah was to distract it with a movie. I don’t know if it exactly worked for her, but it didn’t work on me. I was worrying to much about Ashley, but she seemed to be doing okay at least. She hadn’t started crying again, she just had a depressed feel about her
Once it was the morning, I grumbled a bit as I went to sit up in the bed. I turned to look at Ashley and was glad to see that the girl was still asleep. I felt her move and toss around every once in a while, but she was asleep for the entire night. At this point now, I just hoped that she wouldn’t have any nightmares. That was the last thing that the poor girl needed. She had to deal with working on Jonah’s funeral with his family and I knew it would be hard to do that. I knew it would be hard to go through his things. I told her many times at the hospital and in the dorm that she would do anything to help, but she didn’t know if Ashley would take it. Nor did I actually know if I could do it.
I forced myself out of the bed, holding my side a bit at first from the ache before I went to my dresser. I took an Advil from one of the packs that I had in my room that I kept in very high supply since I first broke my ribs. I needed a water bottle, but I also thought that I could make a start of cleaning the clubhouse right now if the guys made a mess last night before the guys yelled at me to stop. The clubhouse was dead silent, but it was about four in the morning so I wasn’t surprised.
Still in my pajamas, I made my way out of the dorm and to the lounge to get a water bottle, Advil pills in hand when I saw something that surprised me. Happy was sitting at the bar drinking a bottle of whiskey. He looked over at me when I walked in.
Fuck. My. Life.
I wondered if he or James told anyone what happened. If I was going to be getting a talking down to or if he was going to lay it on me himself. I did deserve it. I was a prospect and I basically backhanded a member of the club I was trying to get into.
What do I even say to him?
I tried the civil approach and I told him as I kept walking to behind the bar to get a water bottle, “I didn’t think anyone else woke up this early.”
He gruffed a bit before answering, “I’m usually not up this early. I’m up at five usually.”
I nodded and picked up the water bottle and opened it before setting the cap on the bar counter. I placed the pill in my mouth before I took a large gulp from the water bottle and swallowed both. I looked down at him. He was watching me. I took a breath and looked down at the bar counter. There was tension there. It was all mine and I knew it. I was worried about what he would say, what he thought of me.
So I decided to talk first.
I hate eating my pride.
“Look…” I started and turned my head to look up at him as I placed the water bottle on the bar and leaned my hands against it. He looked up at me and we stared at each other for a couple of seconds before I told him, “I’m sorry for what I said last night. I had a fucked up day and it wasn’t fair that I pressed that on you.”
I looked at him for a reaction and I just saw him staring at me, blanked faced. But there was something in his eyes. I couldn’t read it completely, but it looked like it was understanding with maybe a hint of superiority.
He asked as he put the whiskey down, “you just saying that so I don’t bring your ass to Clay?”
I shook my head, “No. Because it was an asshole move for me to do.”
I hated how I was biting back my pride for him and he just sat there, un moving. I shouldn’t have to explain and apologize for the shit that he blew over on me. If I was a patched member I knew that I wouldn’t, but I was under him. I had to kiss up to him. It pissed me off but it had to be done. Happy could be the one to be the deciding vote to let me in. I had to get him on my side. I didn’t have much time to do that. I would be patched in soon, hopefully. I was in the home stretch now. It was all or nothing.
He let out a sigh and I watched him carefully before he answered me, “at least you did it with your words. I’ve seen the guys go straight to fists.”
Wait…
What?
He looked at me again and saw the shock that was being placed on my face. Was he actually giving me some empathy here? He moved in his seat to lean back in the chair so he could look at me better. He told me, “and as you explained it so nicely, it seems as though that you have been having it pretty rough the last couple of days.”
I chuckled and shook my head, raising my hand to push it through my hair. I forgot to brush it this morning so I saw some struggle of knots, but my hand and fingers pushed through them. I chuckled and told him, “just a bit…either way it wasn’t fair for me to run off you like that.”
He shook his head, “I haven’t been making things easy either.”
“No, you’re doing what a member to a prospect does. I’m just not used to it in this form,” I answered, “and that’s my fault.”
Happy shook his head, “no, I kept testing you, trying to see how much you could take before you brought back your pride and stood up for yourself. The guys were telling me that I went too far a couple of times, but I promised them that you could speak on your own. I was just waiting for it.”
I raised my eyebrows, listening to him. I was mad. Annoyed. He treated me like shit to see how far that I would go, how far until I cracked.
“Are you fucking serious?” I almost hissed it.
For once, his face changed and he smiled, “the guys told me that it wasn’t fair for me to do it since you were in the prospect position, that it would compromise what you would normally take. That impressed me too. You knew what being a prospect meant, what you had to earn even though I could tell that you didn’t like it. That’s what it means to be a prospect, but I knew that you would stand up for yourself sooner or later, or at least you would tell me off in time.”
“So you were waiting for me like a ticking time bomb?”
“Basically. It came off a lot more civil than I thought it would. You seemed like a girl who would throw a punch than use your words.”
I stared at him for a bit longer, anger still boiling as I shook my head, my mouth open as I watched him take another drink, a grin still on his face. He told me, “you earned your prospect patch, Row. You knew what to take for the cause but you also knew when it was time to give yourself some credit. The anger just helped to bring it out.”
“You are such a…” he interrupted me.
“Careful now you are still a prospect.”
My mouth made a weird twitch that it went off to the side with a slight cracking sound. I let out a breath and gripped the bar hard before letting out a deeper breath to calm myself down. Happy told me, “if it makes you feel better, you earned your way in with me. The guys say that they kept telling me that you hated me, thought that I hated you. You were dead wrong.”
I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Although the real reason that I decided to listen, to hear what he had to say, was because he said that I earned my patch. He thought that I should be here too. Was I seriously this wrong? The guys kept telling me and telling me and I didn’t listen. Although Happy had a big poker face to hide what he felt and the way he acted around me made it seem so too. But he did this to see how long it would take until I broke off that chain and came after him again. He was a dog barking on the street, edging me on and I was the one tied up to my fence. He wanted me to break that chain and go after him. He wanted me in the club, or at least that was what I was making out of it. He said I earned my way in by his standards. He was on my side.
Happy was on my side.
I decided to ask him questions. I mean, I deserved them didn’t I? He led me around like a chicken with its head cut off to do what he wanted and it was to put me on a test?
“So when exactly did I earn my way then?” I asked him, “when was I Sons material?”
“You’re going to hate me for saying this, but it was before I even met you.” Happy said, waiting for my reaction.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
“The tabs that the guys gave me on who was prospecting, I knew you and the other three were good to prospect. They explained all of the things that you guys did, your attitude was in numbers of conversations, what you did to be a part of the group. I knew you were set to be a Son before I even met you,” Happy explained.
“Seriously?” my tone was one of surprise.
He nodded, “and when you came up to me and stood up for what I called you, I knew they were right. You walked around the club like you belonged, but that you were still not a full patch. I knew right then from watching you talk with the others your personality, that personality that is new but needed to the club.”
I nodded and asked him, “so you are an observer?”
He nodded, “I’ve been watching you this entire time. I wanted to patch you in the instant that I saw you get out of your jeep that you let be torn apart for the club, for protecting us as we road and for getting them off our tail on that run because I know that not many guys would do that or even think to try. I wanted to give it to you when you came the next day and we knew your ribs were cracked at least and you hung your head high. Your pride needed to be knocked down. Chibs offered to do it. You learned something that day too. Your pride can be let down for us and I knew that was a step for you too.”
“So…you’re basically telling me that you pushed me to do your stupid shit and treat me like shit so that you could test me to see how much I could take and how loyal I could be to this club?”
He chuckled and answered, “in its basic terms. You learned what it meant to be in this club more. You learned when to let your pride down, when to hide it, and when to fake it and when to let it lose. You knew what it meant to be one of us by letting your pride down.”
I was a bit calmer. I didn’t like how he did that. How he basically played me like a guitar.
But I knew that it got his point across both to him and to me.
He looked at my chest as he took one last drink before setting down the bottle and asking, “how are you doing by the way…your ribs I mean.”
I sighed and finally let go of the bar before I looked down at myself. I pulled up my shirt to show him the damage. The bruises weren’t terrible now, but they were still prominent. He looked them over as I answered him, “not bad, but it still hurts to do anything drastic. Still no running for me.”
“You ran the other day,” Happy commented.
“That was for the club, and it made things worse. Every morning I usually go for a run for a while. Get rid of my pent up energy. Can’t do that now,” I explained to him.
He nodded, “I know how that is. Usually lifting weights does it for me when I feel like I need to let out some charge.”
I smiled a bit. He understood a bit then. He knew my need that was bugging me not to run. I couldn’t even lift or do any other exercises to put in my energy. It made me grumpy and fidget a bit more, but not so much that the guys took notice, but it was there. Or at least I noticed it because it made me even more annoyed about the situation.
I watched as his eyes trailed off to my side to where my dragon tattoo was and I saw the spark of interest hit his eyes and it was the only thing that I could see. There wasn’t even a barrier of coldness that he usually had anymore. His attention was on the tattoo. And considering that I have seen most, if not all of his tattoos, I knew that he had an interest in them. He asked me, his voice a little less rough, “that’s amazing work.”
Just to be sure, I asked him, “my ink right?”
He nodded. I thought he would break into a grin but apparently I was wrong. I kept my shirt up and folded it a bit under my swimsuit before I pulled down the side of my pants so he could see the tattoo fully. He sat up so he could look down it, his focus on the ink that made the form of a Chinese Dragon. Happy leaned foreward and he looked at the ink on my skin carefully. From the stomach view he could only see the red and green head and a bit of the neck, but now he could see the full body form, the only thing disrupting it was my underwear line, but he could see well without it.
Everything on his face hinted of being impressed. He was obviously someone who could appreciate the form of art that tattoos were. He told me, “it was done amazingly well. Must’ve cost a fortune.”
“It did, but I’m really happy with how it turned out.” I gave him a smile. No one really commented on my tattoos before other than ‘that’s hot’. I’d seen the stuff he got. It wasn’t as bold and artsy as this, more like outlines and thin symbols like the happy faces, but he knew what he was looking at and the effort to make it look that nice was.
“I would be too. Is this your kickass biker girl tattoo?” he asked.
I chuckled and shook my head, “Not even close. Got this my first year of college. May have saved up to get this instead of some textbooks.”
He grinned and looked up at me. I explained to him, “I kind of call it my inner spirit tattoo. Like some people associate their soul and spiritual being a bit with a type of animal. I always saw mine as a dragon, mostly a Chinese one.”
He nodded and he grinned up at me as I fixed my sweat pants up again and he told me, “I think I’ll have to agree.”
I smiled and told him, “my badass tattoo is the gun I have on the other leg.” I brought it down a bit enough for him to see the tattoo of the look of underwear holding the gun on my outer left thigh. I had the dragon on the right that would also blend into my stomach and then go down my thigh a bit. It was a bit older fashioned style of a gun, but it made me look hot. It made it look like I was wearing garters.
I was more into sharing my body art now that I saw he had an appreciation for it. Looking at the gun, he grinned and said, “even that looks well done. Seems to fit you well too.”
Smiling back at him, I told him, “thank you. Had a lot of fun with this one.”
“Does it go all around?” he asked.
“It does.” I answered.
He looked the tattoo over before he asked, “where do you get your tattoos done?
I shrugged and fixed my pants again, “got this one in college too, near the end.”
He nodded, looking over me before looking back up at my face. You would have thought that I was still angry with him, and truthfully I was just a tiny bit, but I understood what he was doing…I would also just have to make sure that I would get back at him for some point too.
But for now I was glad to be on the same level with him for a bit. Or at least to be talking civilly to each other. For now we were getting along and I didn’t need more grief. I had enough to deal with right now. I didn’t want more anger and fighting.
“Do you have any other tattoos?” he asked me.
It was apparent that he was trying to be civil too. I was glad for it.
Nodding, I answered him, “yeah. I have a rose on my shoulder, a scorpion on my foot, a key on my inner arm, and a sister tattoo.”
“I’ve seen the key one a couple of times. Really interesting and done well too. I like the gothic tone to it while having a skull with diamond eyes.” Happy answered me.
I gave him one more smile before I told him, “thank you.”
“What does it mean?” he asked.
I got quiet a little bit before I looked at the tattoo where it was on my arm and I told him, “my dad always told me that even in death you can open a new door.”
Happy was silent for a moment and he told me, “I’m sorry…Heck told me last night what happened after you left.”
I shook my head, “it’s fine. You didn’t know.”
He tried to take the topic off and make a new subject before he asked me, “what about your sister tattoo. It’s not some weird heart is it?”
I chuckled a little. That’s what most girls got for sister tattoos. Something girly. I shook my head and moved from out of the bar so that I could show him my ankle and on the heel he could see it, a black spade that had designs to it. He stared at it and I explained to him, “this was my first tattoo. My sisters and I all got one. There are four of us, and there are for types in a deck of cards. We fit what matched our personalities the best. My eldest sister Rachel is the Club, my older sister Rhea is the Diamond, my younger sister Rebecca is the Heart…”
He finished for me, “and you are a Spade. That actually fits well.”
I smiled and nodded. “Yeah, it did. I have three sisters and then my two younger brothers have brother tattoos. We’ve been trying to look for a family one, but we don’t know what to make it as yet.”
He nodded in understanding. I looked over my shoulder and sighed, “I’m going to try and get some more sleep. I was going to do some early cleaning but you guys didn’t actually make a mess last night.”
He chuckled, “yeah, Clay said that we should keep everything a bit on the low so that you guys didn’t have to clean up anything.”
I sighed and looked around, “I could go for the distraction. I don’t want to wake up Ashley. I’m guessing everyone made it here for the lockdown.”
He nodded and said, “you can sleep on the couch if you want. I was going to head back to my room after a couple of glasses.”
I shrugged and looked at the couch, “no, I’d be a bother to the other guys when they woke up.”
Happy shook his head, “trust me, you wouldn’t. The guys wouldn’t come near the room.”
I chuckled, “why? I’ve seen the guys fall asleep on the couch and no one really bothered to do anything to keep quiet.”
Happy looked up at me and he asked me after a couple of seconds of silence, “do you really want me to answer that?”
I nodded and he sighed, “because when Chibs did it, it was because his mother died, when Tig did it, it was because of his divorce becoming final, and when he did it again it was because Colleen got primary custody. When Gemma did it, it was because John died. You weren’t around for those. We’ll be quiet because you had to stay strong for Ashley and be there to watch your friend die before you.”
I was frozen as I looked at him.
Perhaps I didn’t want the answer.
//thought that it was time to get things to calm down for Rowen and for there to be a reason behind Happy's actions...even if she is still mad about them :P Also, to look at the tattoos go to this link: http://row-theonlyfemaleson.tumblr.com/post/106149997623/dragon-tattoos-where-it-is-gun-tattoo-where-it#notes . This is a blog that helps me sort out things that I want in the fanfiction and such. And I tell you that you can look around on the blog, however, I am not liable for the spoilers that you could find on it. I hope that you enjoyed the chapter, please tell me what you think :)