Amber walked around her tiny flat waiting for the jug to boil so she could make a much needed coffee. It was 4pm, she had been asleep for a long time which had surprised her, she had been expecting a restless sleep thinking about her battered and bruised friend. Instead she had slept like a log, her mental and physical exhaustion not allowing her to do anything else but rest.
Looking out her window she felt a little panicked at the sight of two large men leaning against their motorbikes. She allowed herself to think, the cuts they were wearing and their bikes told her they were from a MC of some sort, the fact they were black told her they were not Darby's boys. She relaxed a little.
From the safety of her front door she called out to the men lingering at her mailbox, "can I help you boys?"
"You Amber?" one called back
"Yeah,"
"We're friends of SAMCRO. Tig asked us to keep an eye on the house until you went to work, don't mind us act like we're not here."
She eyed them for a moment but went back inside as her phone began to ring.
"Yellow?"
"Hey babe, everything okay? I've called a few times today," her boyfriend's voice sounded a mix of concerned and annoyed.
"Was asleep, had a bit of a shit night," she answered not feeling she owed him any explanation.
There was an aggressive sounding knock at the door, "hold on a second."
She opened the door expecting to see one of the big men but instead found her little old landlord.
"I will not put up with this," was all he said and handed her a bit of paper.
"You there Tommy," her voice sounded flat
"Yeah,"
"I just got evicted."
"That's great, I was planning on asking you to live with me anyway. Oh this is great. I talked to my boss and he said you can work for us so you don't have to worry about commuting to Charming. We can redecorate and ..."
She hung up on him.
Amber had been so happy to find this flat. It was small and came fully furnished, just what she needed. Now her silly old landlord was evicting her because he didn't like the look of the gun toting, bike riding guys at her mailbox.
She walked around grabbing all her clothes and the few photo frames she had, she boxed up her old Care Bear teddy and her laptop and loaded them in her car along with a big box of CDs and vinyls and equipment to play them.
"Where you going girl?" asked one of the mailbox men
"Work. Ah, I'm moving out so you guys don't need to watch the house any more but thank you."
The men, who she could now identify as Grim Bastards looked a little confused but helped her with the boxes and waved her off.
When she got to work there were several black Harleys out front, with a heavy sigh she got out of her car and headed for the back entrance.
There were no Nords in sight.
Her first task was to wipe down all the tables so she started off with the table that was on the opposite end of the room to where four SAMCRO men were sitting. She was only onto her second table when Tig came over.
"Amber, hey doll," he said leaning on the table.
"I got to work Tig," she said without even looking at him.
"You can work and talk. I got a call from my boys in Lodi, they said you told them you were moving out did you find digs in Charming?"
She continued to clean.
"Shit what's up your arse? I'm trying to help you for Christ sake, I don't have to but I am so would you at least fucking look at me."
When he grabbed her shoulder he hissed at him, "look in the last 24 hours I have shot someone, seen my friend bloodied and beaten, been evicted and dumped my boyfriend. I appreciate your help but I'm really not in the mood to deal with this shit right now."
"Evicted?" he put his hands on his hips, clearly he wasn't going anywhere.
Another sigh, "my landlord wasn't a fan of the Grimm Bastards, he's a cranky old fuck who is most likely a little racist and so he kicked me out of my flat."
"You could have lived with your boyfriend why dump him?"
"Seriously Tig, can we talk another time when I'm not working?" She threw the cloth down of the table and began wiping again.
Tig felt frustrated, he was not use to a female telling him what to do or ignoring him. He walked away from Amber without another word and headed back to his table where Juice, Chibs and Half Sack were sitting having a beer.
"Come on Chibs let's get out of here, Juice you stay here with the Prospect and keep an eye on shit. If you so much a smell a Nord you call me. Clay is fucked off that they were selling here and we didn't know about it so we have to make that right."
Tig and Chibs headed out the door and got on their bikes.
"Tell me brother, are we keeping an eye out for Nords or babysitting your girlie?" asked Chibs
"What are you talking about? We need to keep the Nords under thumb and we need to make sure they know we are watching them." Tig gave him a look that suggested he would be in trouble if he didn't shut his mouth and so they hit the road.
Amber was happy to go about her shift without any problems. She chatted to some of the regulars and played some pool with them on her break. At first she was happy to let Tig's friends get up and get their own drinks but when her boss saw she was avoiding them he had a fit.
"Amber, I know you are new to the area but you should know already how things work, SAMCRO boys should not have to get up to go to the bar, you go to them you hear me?"
He was a middle aged bald man with a beer gut that made him look nine months pregnant. He never made eye contact with her because he was too busy looking at her boobs in the skimpy top she was forced to wear.
"Okay, I'm sorry I will look after them from now on."
To show him she meant it she went straight over to the pair and asked them if they needed anything.
"Nah we're okay, I'm Juice by the way and this is Half Sack, he also goes by Prospect or Hey You."
Amber couldn't take her eyes off Juice's hair, she couldn't decide if it was a stupid hair cut or a genius one.
"Right, I'm Amber nice to meet you. Guess I better get back to it."
She made sure she kept an eye on the level of their drinks and every now and then would take a mini pizza or some fries over to them. Once closing time came around they were the only customers left and they were rather drunk.
"You boys can't ride like this, I wouldn't feel safe being on the road at the same time as you."
She put them in her little car and drove them to the Teller-Morrow garage which she knew doubled as MC HQ. The fact she was homeless and had a night sleeping in the car ahead of her was momentarily forgotten as she laughed at the two drunken fellows singing Sweet Home Alabama in the back seat. By the time she pulled into the T-M lot she was singing along with them.
She was not surprised to see that there was a party in full swing full of leather clad men and women and many bottles of alcohol being passed around.
She would have been happy to drop them off and zoom away but before she knew what was happening they were out of the car and pulling her out from behind the wheel. They dragged her around and she was introduced to every patched SAMCRO member as well as a few nomads and hang arounds.
It wasn't long until she was sitting on Chibs lap sharing a bottle of Jack with him. She was talking to a few woman who were wearing very little clothing and had multiple piercings and tattoos, her kind of people.
"But I told him that if he didn't start paying child support I would kick his arse all the way to court," one of the girls was saying as Amber nodded and pretended to care about the girls relationship problems.
"Did you get much sleep once you got back to Lodi?" asked Chibs sensing that she was getting sick of the girlie conversations that were surrounding her.
"Yeah, basically passed out and slept all day, how 'bout you and Tig?"
"Ah, no. When we got back here we had to do all sorts of club shit and what not. That's why Tigs not around now, he's a man who likes his sleep so he's in the apartment having a nap."
"Aw shit I'm sorry. I just panicked and Tig had given me that number so I just dialled. Thank you so much for coming though." She gave him a hug.
"Aye no problem. Tig told me you were evicted, you sorted with somewhere to stay?"
A large man who she knew as Clay had joined them and was listening to the conversation.
"My car will do for now," she said with a shrug.
"Nah nah, Clay you don't mind if Amber stays in the apartment tonight do you?"
Clay ran a hand over his face and gave her the once over with his eyes, "yeah, one night only." He pointed a large finger at her, "one night. We're not a homeless shelter."
She gave him an awkward smile and stood as Chibs offered to show her the room.
He opened the door to reveal a sleeping Tig sprawled out on his back.
"Christ by the look of him he's out for the night," laughed Chibs. "Well he will get a nice surprise when he wakes up with you in the room wont he," he laughed again. It was a loud booming laugh and Amber found herself being very entertained by it.
Thanks for the reviews and all that guys. much luv.