Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76381 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76381 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“I get that. Just remember that you don’t have to socialize if you’re not up to it, even if they all are. It’s fine if you just want to hang in your room and read a lot of the time.”
I had a feeling that was what I was going to want to do, but also that it might not be the healthiest thing for me at the same time. So I was going to try to be around people. How else was I ever going to be able to get a job, an apartment, my own life again?
“How long until we get to the clubhouse?” I asked.
“We’re going to try to get on the road early tomorrow. And then we should be able to get there by dinner.”
Wow.
That was sooner than I was expecting.
I don’t know if I was more relieved or terrified. Both feelings seemed to be fighting for dominance in my heart.
“And you’ll be there, right?” I asked, hating how needy I sounded, but unable to keep the question to myself.
“Yeah, darlin’, I’ll be there all the time.”
“But you said you live on the road.”
“Not right now, I don’t. Raff and I were promised a long break after this run. So we’re grounded in Shady Valley for a while.”
I didn’t know how long ‘a while’ was, but I silently prayed it was long enough for me to be able to get a job again, get on my feet.
Because as much as Riff had offered to get me my own place, to pay for my bills, I couldn’t let him do that.
“Any other questions?” Riff asked as he cleaned up our mess. “About the club or the town or anything?”
“I have one more,” I admitted.
“Shoot.”
“What’s your real name?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Riff
As far back as I remembered, everyone called me Riff.
I guess it was a combination of reasons. One, it was a small town we were raised in, and a lot of people used nicknames in the area. Two, we were often getting into little bits of trouble, hence the riff/raff thing. But, more than anything, I guess the nicknames played back to the fact that both Raff and I had real names that started with Rs.
“Reid,” I told Vienna. “Not as interesting as Riff, but that’s the name on all my government papers.”
“No one calls you that? Not even your brother?” she asked, brows pinched.
“No. I think the last time I heard someone say it was when Raff and I were in a really dicey situation, and I hadn’t responded to Riff several times, so he called out my real name.” The memory of it still made my chest hurt, the raw panic in my brother’s voice as he said it.
“How long ago was that?” she asked.
“Couple years.”
She pressed her lips together for a second. The cracks were getting a little bit better, but they still looked painfully dry. “Reid,” she said in that sweet voice of hers, the sound of my name on her lips doing something to my chest, making it, I dunno, kinda drop or something like that. “I like it,” she said.
I never really cared one way or the other. But, suddenly, I really hoped she kept calling me by that name from now on.
“If you want to know Raff’s name, you’re gonna have to ask him yourself.”
“I’ll do that,” she said. “So, wait, are those names of your brothers not their names?”
“Some are, some aren’t. Obviously, Slash isn’t his real name. And Coach is a nickname he got on the inside. His real name is Saul. Bikers often go by ‘road’ names. Just a part of the culture, I guess. I mean, there’s a guy at the mother chapter who goes by the name Pagan.”
“I guess the road names sound more… intimidating than most real names,” she said, nodding. “What’s a mother chapter?”
“The original MC,” I explained. “We are what is called a ‘sister’ chapter. And we have another sister chapter in Golden Glades. Florida,” I added at her blank look. “And there’s a new club opening in Texas,” I added.
I’d been looking forward to that, thinking that it might allow for Raff and I to slow down a bit, since they would almost be a halfway point between Shady Valley and Golden Glades. Which might allow for us to just travel back and forth to Texas rather than all the way to Florida ourselves all the time.
“Oh, wow. I didn’t realize there were so many, you know, chapters. Do you visit with them?”
“Raff and I spend a lot of time in Golden Glades, but no one else does really. And the only ones of us who have been to our mother chapter in Navesink Bank are Slash, Sway, and Crow.”
“Where’s Navesink Bank?”
“New Jersey,” I told her.
“So you have clubs on, like, each coast,” she concluded, and it was the first time I realized that was probably exactly why the president of the mother chapter had opened where they had. To kind of own the exports on each border.