The others chuckled.
“Good to see you haven’t changed too much,” Blue said.
No, not deep inside, Travis thought. He was still a loose cannon, liable to snap the moment someone aggravated him.
“You don’t need to talk about it or anything, do you?” Ajax asked, a pained expression on his face.
Travis gave him a look like he was the one who was crazy. Had hooking up with Sophie turned him all fucking touchy-feely?
“Fuck no.” He lifted his glass and took another sip. “She’s not worth it. She’s never been worth it. We have bigger things to focus on.” Right now anything was preferable to thinking about his mother, or the fact that he’d probably just blown any chance he ever had of fucking Billie again.
“Good.” Ajax patted his jeans pocket. “Because I was going to give you my phone and tell you to call someone who cared.”
Travis couldn’t help but smile. Deep down he knew Ajax and Blue did care. Whether they wanted to or not, they cared about each other, about the Deacons and about Priest, or they wouldn’t fucking be there.
“Why don’t we go for a ride?” Blue suggested. “Clear our heads and then work out our next step.”
“You know I’m always up for that.” Ajax pushed off the stool. “You coming, Cash?”
Travis didn’t even flinch at the name he’d discarded when he left ten years ago. Instead he put down his half-full glass and pushed it back toward Sophie. “Okay.” Maybe a ride was just what the doctor ordered. It had to be better than drinking himself stupid.
Without saying much, he followed his two old friends out into the secure alley behind The Priory where they’d all been keeping their bikes. Blue and Ajax were already in their leathers, their Deacons cuts in pride of place. They climbed atop their machines and Travis realized they looked like bikers, ready to rule the road, and he looked like a nobody. No longer a businessman in his scruffy jeans and black T-shirt, yet no longer a biker. It was like he was in limbo—stuck between the only two worlds that had ever meant anything to him.
“What’s wrong?” Leon asked, glaring at him as he stood beside his bike.
“I haven’t got my leather.”
“What?” Ajax screwed up his hard face. “How the fuck did you ride into town?”
Travis shook his head. “I meant it’s next door. With the rest of my stuff. At the gallery.”
Both men’s expressions grew dark. “We need to talk about that,” Ajax said. “A fucking gallery in the Deacons clubhouse. But later. For now, why don’t you just walk on in and get your shit?”
Travis swallowed. Because that would mean facing Billie. And although he felt no remorse for the way he’d treated Lorna, an unfamiliar feeling sat in his gut whenever he thought about Billie witnessing all that. He guessed she’d want to have it out with him and…
Blue interrupted his musing. “It’s the art chick, isn’t it?” He actually cackled. “Lorna isn’t the only woman fucking with your head. Man.”
“You fucking her?” Ajax asked.
That had been the thing about the club—everyone knew everyone’s business, and while it had seemed the norm back then, Travis liked to keep his sex life private these days. “What if I am? Not gonna let it stop me going for a ride. Back in a minute.” And with that he strode out of the alley and marched in the direction of the gallery.
He psyched himself up for a run-in with Billie, but when he arrived he found it wasn’t necessary. The loser Rolley was there, playing with his forks and spoons. The mermaid paintings he’d trashed had been cleaned up and there was no evidence in the gallery of the altercation. Rolley looked up when Travis stalked past the piano and then went quickly back to his work. Good. Travis wasn’t in the mood for discussion, especially not with that hippie.
He barged into the house, stormed through the kitchen and tried to ignore the lingering scent of strawberries, which evoked memories from last night, as he went into his room. Besides the barely slept-in bed and the bag on the floor, his clothes and other crap spilling out of it, you could hardly tell he’d been here. Maybe he shouldn’t have been. If he’d stayed in The Priory or at a hotel, he’d never have run into Lorna, but neither would he have met Billie. He pushed that thought aside—she was nothing more to him than a good lay—and dug down to the bottom of his bag.
“Bingo,” he muttered to himself as he pulled his cut out of his bag. He held it up in front of him and stared at it as if it were something planted by aliens. Why had he brought it with him? He’d tucked it away in his wardrobe the last decade, wondering each time he moved whether he should toss it into the trash, but he’d never been able to bring himself to do it. Why? Had his subconscious been harboring thoughts about wearing it again one day? No. He shook his head as he shrugged himself into the leather vest.
He’d kept it because it was part of his past, part of what had formed him into the man he was today. If the Deacons hadn’t found him, fuck knows what would have become of him on the streets. Not wanting to dwell on all this anymore, simply wanting to lose himself on the road, he threw everything back into his bag, picked it up and slung it over his shoulder. Then he walked back out of the house, and out of the gallery, to join his brothers.
“What the fuck took you so long?” Ajax growled and then revved his bike, making no comment on Travis’s attire.
Travis didn’t reply. He simply dumped his bag inside the back door of The Priory, yanked on his helmet and then climbed onto his own bike.
Ajax rode out first, then Blue, with Travis following close behind. At first it felt strange cruising down the streets of the French Quarter, the wary eyes of tourists turned on them—like he’d traveled back in time—but as they drove farther out and hit the open highway, the magic of the wind against his face, his brothers riding alongside him, started to pour through his body.
He’d been riding solo for a decade and while there was still a buzz in that, there was nothing like riding in a pack. For a split second he couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to come back, to join forces with Ajax and Blue and to revive the Deacons. But although the thrill of the ride had gone to his head, in truth there were too many reasons not to leave his new life behind—his apartment, his company and the fact that he didn’t have to look over his shoulder wherever he went. Besides, without Priest at the helm, the club wouldn’t be the same. In reality, nothing was ever the same the second time around.
Travis tried not to think anymore as he roared along the road close behind Blue. They rode for what felt like hours, cruised past a few plantations, and then on their way back into town, Ajax slowed at a bend in the road. Immediately Travis knew what this spot meant and why they were here.
His body grew cold as he parked on the edge of the road next to the others, then climbed off his bike and took off his helmet. The three of them stared at the cruddy cross on the side of the road, a Deacons logo etched into the wood. It looked pathetic, far too insignificant for a man of Priest’s magnitude. Emotion Travis hadn’t let himself feel, not when he’d heard Priest had died, not even at the funeral, washed over him. His eyes prickled and his breathing slowed as he finally came to terms with the fact that his president wasn’t coming back. The only man he’d ever looked up to was dead, and the police weren’t doing anything about it.
“It wasn’t a fucking accident,” Ajax said, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t care what anyone says.”
“No way,” Blue agreed.
“I know.” Travis’s jaw locked and he wiped his eyes with the back of his palm, finally admitting what his gut had told him all along. What he’d been trying to ignore because he’d told himself it didn’t matter. But, it did matter. “My bet’s on the Ministry.” He scowled as he recalled the run-in with Blade and the others last night.