Red (Hell’s Jury MC #5)

5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

Stella

I’m still processing what happened when Lachlan comes barreling through the door, followed by Hangman and Joker. When he sees me, he stops so suddenly the other two almost run into his back.

“I told you to get the fuck out of here!” Hangman snarls, but it’s like Lachlan barely hears him.

Instead he explodes at me. “Why the fuck are you still here?”

Tears spurt to my eyes, not because I’m afraid, but I really liked this guy and now he hates me. “I just wanted to apologize to you. For mom… and me. This wasn’t your fault.”

He stomps over, towers over me, his face furious. “Yeah thanks for the news flash.” Then he pokes my chest with his finger. “You know what you just did? You fucked up my chances of getting my daughter. This is gonna be all over fuckin’ town and no one’s gonna listen to the second part of the story where the fuckin’ charges were dropped.”

“Step back, Lachlan,” his vice-president says. “Or you really will get charged with assault.”

Lachlan hesitates as he holds my eyes, then steps back, drops his hands to his sides, but his fists are balled.

He won’t hurt me, I tell myself, mostly because I believe it’s true.

“Get lost,” he says to me.

“I know… I know we screwed things up for you.”

“You don’t fuckin’ know anything about me or my life. And we’re keepin’ it that way. You got me? I never want to fuckin’ see you again.”

I’m fumbling for the right words to say. “I’m sorry. I can try to fix it. I can talk to them – your ex-wife, family services. Explain what happened and?—”

He points his finger again but doesn’t touch me. “Don’t you fuckin’ come near me. Not you. Not your lunatic mother. You hear me? I don’t give a shit if you live in my neighborhood. You stay on your fuckin’ side and don’t cross the road.”

He walks backward a few steps before turning his back on me.

“Get the fuck going,” his president snarls at me. “And do what he says or you’ll have the whole club dealin’ with you.”

Chills go up my spine. “I’m going.” I’m crying harder than I did at the end of Marley and Me. Who wouldn’t when faced was such hostility? But it’s more than that. I feel my heart breaking just a little bit. Then I remember something that might earn me a few points. “I locked up your house and shut your garage door,” I call to Lachlan.

He stops mid-stride and swings around. “My fuckin’ keys are inside the house so thanks for nothin’. Now I gotta break in.” He sucks in a breath. “Probably gonna get arrested again.”

“Oh,” I reply feebly. “I could break in and get them. No one will call the cops on me.” Oops. Things not to say to a guy your mom just got arrested.

His face gets red. “Sweetheart of the neighborhood, are you?” He steps toward me again, but the VP grabs his arm.

“Enough, Lachlan. She ain’t worth your time.”

“Don’t I know it, brother,” he replies as he turns his back again and heads toward a beat-up green truck.

They fire up their vehicles, then squeal their tires as they roar away. I wipe my eyes and nose as I watch them leave.

That went well, Stella. You finally meet a guy who might not be a jerk, then you get him arrested and lock him out of his house. And he’s so mad he’ll never talk to you again.

Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe he is an asshole, my inside voice says.

No. He’s not an asshole.

I feel the slide of another tear as I think of why he’s so mad. I mean, anyone would be pissed if they got falsely arrested but it’s worse. He said that this might mess up his chance to get unsupervised visitation rights to his daughter.

I unlock my car and fold myself into it. Maybe dad can help Lachlan. Dad’s as judgy as mom, but for a state prosecutor, he’s got a sense of fair play. And he’s got a few friends on the other side of the courtroom.

Then I do what I always do. I text my best friend, Lexie.

I have just had the worst day.

Lexie comes right back.

Are you crying?

Yeah.

Then it’s bad.

I start typing my explanation when she interrupts with a hand emoji.

Meet me at Daisy Duke’s Pit Stop. We’ll talk.

I spend a couple more minutes pulling myself together, then head to Daisy’s.

Lexie’s already there when I arrive, two milkshakes in hand. Strawberry for her, chocolate for me. It’s our thing when we have a bad day. Ice cream therapy.

I slide into the booth opposite her and take a huge drink of my milkshake. Than another. Finally, I come up for air. “These are the best milkshakes.”

“Don’t know if it’s worth five dollars, but it’s pretty fucking good.”

I stare at her. “Are you seriously quoting Tarantino while I’m in crisis?” She’s got a thing for Tarantino, but there’s a time and a place.

“Sorry. It’s a reflex.” Lexie wraps her hands around her cup. “So, what happened? You sounded like you ran over a puppy.”

“It’s way worse than that.” I explain it from the moment I met Lachlan to the moment he told me to get lost.

“Holy shit!” Then she starts laughing.

“Not funny!” I snap at her, then start to giggle, then giggle more, then our giggles turn into full-blown laughter. We’re both holding our sides when we finally get ourselves under control.

“Okay,” she says as she hiccoughs. “What’s the worst-case scenario? He’ll eventually calm down so your parent’s house won’t get firebombed.”

“The worst is that he’s trying to get visitation rights to his six-year-old daughter and this might have blown it for him.”

“Let me get this straight. This guy Lachlan not only rides with Hell’s Jury, a criminal bike gang, he’s got a permit to carry a concealed weapon even though he has a record. He’s got a six-year-old daughter who he can’t see without supervision. He’s got a temper and his president and vice-president are scary…” She leans forward and says under her breath, “…motherfuckers.”

I nod glumly. “That about sums it up.” I take a sip of my milkshake. “But he’s really nice and I kind of like him.”

“Because he’s tall.”

Lexie’s tall too. She’s shooting guard on my team and she’s a five-star prospect, already being head-hunted even though she’s a junior at college. I’m a three-star center and figure only cannibals will be interested in me after I graduate.

“Not just because he’s tall,” I reply defensively. “He’s cool, you know? And nice.”

Lexie rolls her eyes. “And makes your heart go boom-boom.”

“Yes!” I exclaim defensively.

“So did Grayson. And Zack and —”

“Not even remotely like this.”

She sits back. “This is what you need to do. Wait a few days. See if you still have a thing for him. He’ll have cooled down by then and you can approach him without being afraid for your life.”

I hear her, she makes sense, but I feel like I have to do something to help fix this. “I’m gonna get his keys.”

Lexie narrows her eyes. “How are you gonna get his keys?”

I grope around for a plan, then say, “Break in. It’s like he said, if he does it, someone will call the cops. But I’m the neighborhood sweetheart.” Yeah, I’m quoting Lachlan, but what he said was kind of cool.

Lexie grins. “I hate to break it to you, but your sister’s the neighborhood sweetheart.”

“No way Selma is the neighborhood sweetheart.”

“And after what went on today, you’ll lose whatever traction you had catching up with her.” She sucks up the last of her milkshake. “And she’s smaller so she can climb through windows easier and she?—”

“Don’t you dare say she’s more athletic than me.” Selma is my older sister by three years and yes, she is more athletic than me, though I’ll never admit it to her. She’s point guard for our team, 5’6” and probably will make it to the WNBA

“I was gonna say, smarter.”

“Remind me again why you’re my best friend.”

“Because you love me.” Lexie stands and offers her hand. “Text Selma. Tell her to meet us in an hour. Not your house. Somewhere neutral like the elementary playground.”

“Now you think you’re smarter than me.”

She grins as she pushes me towards the door. “I’ve always been smarter than you. Let’s go for a run and release some tension.”

I follow Lexie’s orders like a good little soldier. I love to run and do it practically every day. Lexie does too and as a running partner, she’s perfect. We can talk without getting too winded, we keep pace with each other and like me, she can run forever.

We don’t today though. Forty minutes later, we’re back in Daisy’s parking lot, wiping the sweat off with towels we keep in our cars.

“Let’s get moving.”

She’s kind of bossy though.

Selma is waiting for us when we arrive, sitting in a swing, pushing herself gently back and forth. “What’s up?”

For the third time today, I explain what happened. Selma doesn’t find it as funny as Lexie did. She’s a bit like my mom that way. “Are you nuts! A criminal biker! And his president sounds like Satan. What are you even thinking?”

His president does sound like Satan, and looks like him too, but that’s a thought for later. “It doesn’t matter. Mom got him falsely arrested and I want to make it up to him.”

“By breaking into his house.”

“Yes. To get his keys.”

Selma looks at Lexie. “I can’t believe you’re on board with this.”

Lexie shrugs. “Practice is getting hot and heavy. We all need to let off some steam.”

Selma huffs. “Let’s say we break into his house, find his keys, which by the way, we don’t know where they’re at so we’ll have to search the place.’”

I feel a thrill at getting to look through Lachlan’s stuff. See his life behind closed doors.

Locked doors, Stella.

Right.

Selma’s still talking. “How’re are you going to give them to him?”

I twist my lips as I try to think through the flaw to my plan. “Well… um… maybe he’ll have something inside with his phone number on it. Like a power bill or something.”

“Maybe he’ll have a computer. We could find it on there,” Lexie says.

“You two are genuinely insane,” Selma says.

“I don’t hear you coming up with a better idea,” I reply defensively.

“The better idea is not to do it at all.”

I finally pull the helpless younger sister act, which I despise, but it is remarkably effective. “Selma, please. We need you. I need you. Your brains, your reason.” Okay, the last part was sarcasm.

“You’re full of it, Stella.” She squints up at the sky. “I can’t believe I’m letting you get me involved in this.”

I grin at Lexie, who grins back. Slam dunk!

“Did he have his phone on him when the cops searched him?”

I shake my head. “Just a gun.”

“A gun!”

Oops. Didn’t mean to let that one slip.

“He has a permit, so why not a gun?”

“Just because he has a permit, doesn’t mean he won’t shoot you. They aren’t mutually exclusive.”

Mutually exclusive? Maybe she is smarter than me. “Well, he won’t be home so how will he catch us in the act?”

“How do you know he won’t be home?” Lexie asks.

I give her a what-the-hell-!-you’re-supposed-to-have-my-back look.

Sorry, she mouths.

I say to Selma, “Because they said they were going to back to their clubhouse to sort everything out.”

Selma takes a deep breath and releases the tension in her shoulders. “Okay, fine. If you can’t find his phone number, then I guess you can hide the keys outside and put a note on the door, telling him where they are.”

“Then won’t we also be telling the whole neighborhood where the keys are?” Lexie asks.

I give her that look again.

Sorry, she mouths again.

“Well,” I reply. “He’s big and looks scary, so I don’t think anyone in our neighborhood will have the guts to approach the door.”

Lexie nods. “Girl’s got a good point.”

Selma shakes her head. “Then we may as well just leave them in the lock.”