Chapter 6

TRAX

Was I dead? I didn't think I could feel this bad and still be alive. I cracked open one eye and saw my room. Nope, I wasn't dead. I was just in my own self-inflicted version of hell. The mostly empty bottle of Jack Daniels was a testament to that.

I was afraid to move. My head was spinning like an out of control top. My mouth felt dry and nasty and I needed a drink of water. Badly. Every muscle in my body ached, but it was when I gingerly sat up on the edge of my bed that my stomach decided it was its turn to fuck with me. I barely made it to the toilet in time as I puked up what little was in my stomach. Again and again.

That's when the scent of piss hit me. What the hell had happened in here? The toilet was a mess as was the floor. I was kneeling and touching everything and just the thought of that had me throwing up again.

I don't remember the last time I was this hungover. I could get a drunk on like the rest of my Road Devil brothers, but I always knew when enough was enough. What the fuck had happened last night? My memory was a blur.

When my stomach calmed down a bit, I shucked off all my clothes leaving them in a pile on the dirty bathroom floor. I turned in the shower and stood under the hot spray for a minute or two until my legs felt too weak. I sat myself down on the shower stall floor and let the water rain down on me.

Last night began to slowly come back to me. It started with Sophie. She was at the clubhouse last night. My Sophie was here but not with me, she was with Wolf. Once I saw that, it was one stupid move after another. I didn't even give her a chance to explain not that she needed to. We had a hookup in her car one afternoon. Not even a date, just a wild hour of sex that had me wanting more.

Even these few weeks later, I still wanted her.

Would I have a chance of getting her to understand?

Then I remembered Lola and the hurt in Sophie's eyes as she watched Lola go down on me. Just another stupid decision on my part. I slammed my hand on the wet shower floor. "Dixon, you are nuthin' but a fuckin' fool," I said to myself.

The shower had helped to sober me up some, but it also reminded me what an ass I had been. I had finally found the first woman that actually interested me in years and I couldn't have fucked it up more if I tried. Angry at myself, I stood up and turned the water off. I stepped out of the shower and shook my head at the mess I had made in my normally neat bathroom.

A Hellion would clean it for me since that was one of their jobs, but I felt bad for whoever it was. I made a mental note to tell Colt's ol' lady Marci that Lola would not be allowed in here under any circumstances. Marci controlled the Hellions. She made sure they did their jobs like laundry and cleaning in the clubhouse in return for access to it and us.

I had a towel wrapped around my waist with another one over my head as I towel dried my hair when there was a loud knock on my door. I tried to ignore it, but they knocked again this time louder.

"Open up, Brother. I got coffee for your sorry ass."

It was Merle or make that Sugar. Sometimes his old name came to me first. My blood brother was Merle, but my club brother was Sugar. It was hard to distinguish between the two at times.

"Comin," I called out as I headed to the door to unlock it.

"What you want?" I snapped at him. The last thing I was in the mood for my brother. He always knew the right buttons to push on me to piss me off. And I wasn't gonna need much pushing today.

"Came up to see if my baby brother was alive. Figured if you were, you'd need this cup of coffee."

I wondered what was up his sleeve. This was the first time in my life he'd ever brought me a cup of coffee. But I wasn't gonna look a gift horse in the mouth. "Thanks, bro," I said taking the mug from his hand. I sat down on the bed with the towel still wrapped around my waist as I took that first hot sip. Nothing beat that first morning jolt of caffeine, except when I looked at the clock next to my bed, it was after one o'clock. So much for the morning.

"So you gonna tell me what happened last night?"

"I'm sure there's a dozen different versions going around the clubhouse, choose one and go with it."

"Well, the one I particularly like has you both being high school sweethearts who got married when you graduated, but her Daddy made her divorce your sorry ass because he was rich and you were nothing but a poor piece of shit who married way out of his league. That was pretty inventive 'cept I know you never finished high school and no chick would've been caught dead with a Dixon in our horseshit hometown. So tell me brother, who's she to you?"

"Merle…" but when I looked at him, his eyes got dark and mean, "Fine…Sugar, it ain't no one's business who she was to me. It's over. Done and she's moved on to Wolf now."

"First of all, you hit a brother so that makes it club business. Then whatever the fuck you said had her slapping you in front of the whole club. That's fucked up, man. But it don't look like it's over for you or you wouldn't have drunk almost a full bottle of Jack Daniel's. Bro, that coulda killed you."

I quickly finished the coffee, which indeed did help me feel better. I padded in my bare feet over to the dresser so I could pull out a clean t-shirt, underwear, and socks. There was a slightly worn pair of jeans I had laid over a chair that I grabbed too.

"Man, listen. I'm fine now. I got it out of my system last night. She's nuthin' to me. If Sophie wants that pretty boy Wolf, she can have him. The only thing I want now is another cup of coffee and maybe some toast. Stomach still ain't 100%."

I dropped the towel around my waist to the floor and slide into my boxer briefs. Sugar along with every guy here had seen me butt naked at some point. Guys pissed showing their dicks, and we openly fucked the Hellions in the clubhouse. I had seen more dick over my years here than most whores. Sugar and me grew up together, so we knew what the other was packing.

"Wolf didn't take up with her. Even though you never claimed her, hell no one even knew about her, he backed off."

"Why are you here tellin' me this shit?" By now I had my 501's on and was popping my arms out my shirt.

"Cause it was me to come talkin' to you little brother or Striker? He's our motherfuckin' Enforcer for a reason. Cold cocking a brother ain't cool."

No, it wasn't. What the fuck was I thinking?

"And I ain't never seen you act this way about a piece of ass, Trax. What the fuck happened?"

And I had never seen me act this way about a piece of ass either. Maybe that's because she was more than that to me. But that's over and done with.

As I was tying my boots, I gave him an abbreviated version of the story. "Her car broke down so I stopped to help her with a flat."

"And?"

"That's it." I knew I was lying, and he did too.

"No. That ain't it. You don't go slugging a guy over a chick you met changing her tire. You fucked her didn't you?" I looked at him before I stood up before glancing around trying to find where the hell I put my cut. "Brother, you so fucked her. Did you do it right there out in the open? Man, I bet that was hot."

I knew he was never gonna drop this until I told him more. "No asshole, we didn't do it against the car where everyone could see. It started to rain hard so we waited it out in her SUV. We ended up in her backseat. That's all I'm gonna say except I was stupid not to get her number. Guess I lost my mind when I saw her with Wolf. That dude can have any chick he wants, but Sophie was mine."

"Yeah…was."

"Don't gotta rub it in. I fucked up. What else is new?"

"She's living with Diesel and his ol' lady, you know. You could stop by."

I looked at my brother like he was out of his mind. Not only was he playing matchmaker, but he was serious about this too. Suppose he should hear the rest of it. "Maybe, 'cept I fucked up even more. Doubt she wants to see me after catching Lola trying to give my drunken dick a blowjob. I was so drunk I barely knew what I was doing. Naw, it's time to forget and move on."

Sugar was still leaning on my doorframe as I tried to leave the room. "Out of my way, Bro. I need more coffee if I'm gonna get my ass in gear today."

He started walking down the hall but stopped for a second looking back at me. "She sure was a pretty one, Trax. Not sure I'd let her go so easily."

Who was this man? My brother was crude and was never like this. "Man, you've never dated anyone for more than five minutes what the hell you talking about?"

I saw a flash of sadness pop into my brother's eyes before he looked away. "There was one when I was at Fort Bragg. Her name was Daisy. We had talked about getting hitched when I got home, 'cept when I got back she was gone. Hadn't gotten a letter from her in a few months so I should've known she was in the wind. Never saw her again. Never wanted to go through that again."

He then walked off ahead of me leaving me standing there in stunned silence. I never knew this had happened to him. Seemed like Dixon men sucked at finding love. I could still tell after maybe thirty years, my brother still hurt over that girl. It made me look at him a little differently now.

I followed him down the stairs. He went off toward the game room we had and I headed to the kitchen where there was always a pot of coffee on thanks to Ellie. She had been an ol' lady to Digger who had gotten taken out by a rival club about five years back. Ellie stayed around and started cooking for us. Nothing special but we had a hot breakfast and dinner available every day. She took care of us and we'll forever take care of her. Family is Family.

Not it was time to try and get my stomach to settle and maybe find some aspirin for my aching head.

It was also time to stop thinking of what could've been and get on with what is.

And I owed an apology to Wolf.

Fuck.

Sophie

The sun was barely making its morning appearance as I pulled my SUV behind Angel Cakes Bakery. I had the opening shift four days a week so it was barely six as I parked and headed in the back door of the bakery. It was two weeks after that horrible night at the clubhouse and my life had settled in to somewhat of a routine.

I had the opening shift at the bakery four days a week and worked at Heavenly Gardens a few afternoons. I sold baked goods or flowers depending on the time of day.

I had noticed that many of the businesses here in Angel Valley took advantage of the Angel theme. It seems the only people that went the opposite way were the Road Devils.

I wasn't banished from the clubhouse. Lucky me. Apparently, both Diesel and Wolf spoke up for me. As long I as played by the rules, they would be allowed back. So far I had managed to steer clear of the club and Daryl. With any luck, I'd never set foot inside that place again.

It was the last day of my work week at the bakery. While the early hours were tough, I did enjoy the job. The bakers were a rowdy, fun bunch who were usually gone by noon. They did most of their work during the long night hours. The bakery was popular, especially during the morning rush. That's when the owner, Maddie, would come out to help me. Working here enabled me to meet more of the people who lived here and get away from the MC world.

I had just shifted my days from Sunday through Thursday to Monday through Friday as one of the other girls needed Fridays off. It made no difference to me so I easily changed my work days.

It was early afternoon and we had a lull in customers, so Maddie went back to her cake decorating leaving me out front. I started to wipe down all of the glass display cases when a nondescript black van pulled up outside and parked. The driver's side door opened, and a man stepped out heading toward our door.

"Damn it," I said under my breath. I immediately say he wore a Road Devils cut. I didn't recognize his face and I hoped he didn't recognize mine.

He strutted in as if he owned the place and broke out into a big smile when he saw me. "Good morning, darlin'. I ain't never seen you here before. This just turned into my lucky day."

"And why's that?" I had to ask.

"Because you just came into my life." His smile was big and overconfident.

"Well, that will last…" I looked at his name on his cut, "…Brick, the amount of time it takes me to ring up your order and not a second longer. So what can I get for you?"

"Doll, you're breaking my heart here. Do you believe in love at first sight?" I had to give him credit for trying. He was cute in a rough sort of way but definitely a lot younger than I was. His dark hair was pulled back in a short ponytail. He did have a pretty solid body, but no matter what this wasn't happening.

"No, I don't. Donuts, muffins or pastries what are you looking to get?"

"Just you, darlin' since you are the sweetest thing here."

I couldn't help but laugh at the line. It was bad, sweet, but bad. I saw the reflection of the back of his cut in the glass case behind him that was full of Maddie's incredible cakes. I had him, he just didn't know it. "Brick…Prospect, this is never happening. I'm sure Diesel, whose ol' lady is my very close cousin, would agree with me. Now, what can I get you?"

His smile dimmed, but he didn't back off. "Diesel is one big motherfucker for sure."

"And a patched member, Prospect." I had picked up quite a bit of MC dos and don'ts over my weeks living with Diesel and Chrissy. I knew that prospects never wanted to piss off any patched member if he wanted to be voted in. Unless Brick did something outrageous, my words were only words. I was flattered by his attention, but there was no way this would ever go any further.

"Yeah, yeah I get it but you're breaking my heart, doll. Just know that."

"I'm sure you'll get over me just fine," I laughed. He was a cute kid. "What can I get for you?"

"I'm picking up the club's standard order."

Hmm. Maddie hadn't told me to expect this. "Let me check in the back. I'll be right back."

And sure enough, Maddie confirmed that the MC sent someone by every Friday in the afternoon to pick up an order of sweets. They let Maddie choose what they got each week. She handed me two big bakery boxes and I brought them out to Brick.

"Here you go. Maddie said it's fifty dollars."

Brick handed me a hundred dollar bill. "I'll get your change."

"Nope. Bear said to tell Maddie she doesn't charge enough. Apparently, the guys love these at church, which if I don't get back right soon, they'll have my head. See you next week, Doll!"

I watched Brick settle the boxes inside the van and wave as he drove off. Why did it seem that everything I did lead me back to the Road Devils? The more I tried to keep my distance from that club and the thoughts of Daryl, the more they stayed in my life.

That these big bad bikers had a sweet tooth for donuts and pastries put a smile on my face. I could only imagine them with powdered sugar in their beards. That actually made them more human than devil.

And that made me think of Daryl.

Everything made me think of him. For a man I hardly knew, he was in my head all the time. It was so confusing that I had a hard time comparing the man I got to know that crazy afternoon and the one I saw at the clubhouse.

Night and day.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Who was Daryl who changed my tire after giving me two of the best orgasms of my life? But it wasn't just the phenomenal sex. I genuinely liked him. A lot.

But not Trax. He, I hated. He made me feel cheap and dirty. He was a cruel man that I never wanted to see again. Unfortunately, that meant I would never see Daryl again.

Moving to Georgia wasn't any better than being in Kansas. Men were dicks wherever I went. Apparently, I was great at finding the biggest losers around. Just my luck.

I went back to cleaning the display cases wondering when my life turned so crazy.