Page 23 of Empower
I shook my head with zero hesitation, “No. Nothing about you scares me, because I trust you. I just didn’t want someone who could try to bring the club down, hear your words, and decide to do something about it. Just food for thought.”
And not even a week later, Storm had his office soundproofed, along with room for church.
No one questioned it.
But I however got chin lifts with respect shining in their eyes from all the brothers as they saw me for weeks after that.
He never and I mean never tried to cross a line being that he was twenty years older than me but that didn’t seem to affect me as bad as you might think.
Age was just a number. And when someone was older, it just meant they were sent before you to make sure that your life was easier. So they could pave the way to make all your dreams come true.
***
It was four weeks later, after a lot of studying, and a lot of late nights cramming the study material.
“Lena, can you believe it, we graduate tomorrow, your twenty-second birthday is in two weeks and we both get to go work in the NICU at Saint Charlotte?”
My best friend Raine is just as ecstatic as me. When I moved here a little over four years ago, Raine told me about the accelerated program she was enrolling in.
She is two inches to my height. I'm still five foot one, yet she has dark auburn hair and hazel eyes. We are both pretty curvy and we always receive second glances and jaw drops everywhere we go, yet my Property of Wrath MC cuff that I never take off keeps them all at bay, which is fine by me.
Raine’s Property of Tank kutte keeps them away as well. We never wait in line anywhere; we never pay for our own drinks, and we rarely ever have to pay for our own meals.
“I know. I’m so excited. Just wait till we get to help save a baby and we get to see life taking its first breath.” Yes, I was squealing but I was so excited.
I got through college on a soccer scholarship playing goalie. I have only had thirty balls get past me since I was twelve and fell in love with the sport. Some said I should have turned pro, and I had a lot of scouts wanting me for certain teams, yet that wasn’t my dream; helping babies into the world was.
“Yay. So, I’m going to talk Tank into letting us go to that new club Juice for your birthday.” She wiggled her eyebrows.
Raine and Tank met when she was eight years old and he was nineteen. The story of how they got together still makes me sigh.
And I knew, right down to the deepest parts of me, that if Raine had met Tank when she was eighteen, it would have been love at first sight.
Instead, he made her his ol’ lady when she was nineteen and they married last year. They were even trying for a baby; I was going to be an Auntie, the best one ever.
“No worries, if I tell Dad that I want to go to Juice he will make it happen. No matter the cost, you know he hates it when I don’t let him do stuff for me.” And that was the god’s honest truth.
I rarely ask my dad for anything, and I know he hates it, believe it or not. All I asked for was a new phone when I got to South Carolina for the first time. He made me accept the money from him to decorate my new room and new clothes that fit me.
He made me throw out all the stuff I came with when I moved.
Then he bought me my Eurasian wolf gray puppy that I named Skylar, six months after I came to live with him.
Now, she’s a beast, she’s solid white and gray and weighs fifty-five pounds. She is the best cuddler and even stands guard when I’m using the bathroom.
However, let some idiot get within twenty feet of me and she becomes this stocky I’m going to rip your head off she-beast. She’s the best dog in the world and my third best friend, my dad, and Raine take the first slots.
“It was funny when you pulled up to the clubhouse in your jacked-up Ram 1500 and your dad got pissed because you didn’t let him pay for it.” My Ram is a 1500 crew cab jacked up with a four-inch lift sitting on forty-four’s all blacked out. I had started working when I was eighteen in the garage learning everything I could.
I still get tickled when I get asked if I can make it up in the cab. I’ve lost count of how many guys have offered me a leg up. I just grab a hold of the bottom of the door, jump to put my foot on the bottom step, grab the oh shit handle and pull myself up. I’ve got great muscle tone in my arms because of it too.
“I know I’m still hearing about it from him. Next thing I know he is going to get mad at me when I tell him I’m buying a house.” When I turned eighteen my mother’s lawyer contacted me.
Apparently, she came from a lot of money and my stepfather wasn’t aware of that. She left a third of it to Karly and the rest to me. Every time I look at my bank account, I am thankful that those seven zeros’ mean I get to donate to St Jude’s hospital every year.
“Oh, hell he’s probably going to insist on paying for your furniture at the very least.”
After our last class on Friday, she went to work at a tanning salon fifteen minutes from the clubhouse while I went and worked a few hours in the garage that’s attached to the clubhouse.