Blonde brows rose. "Was it his dad’s shit?"

"I have no idea." But I wondered for all of a second what had been the cause. Then I realized I didn't give care because it didn’t matter. A dick is a dick.

"You tell me if he's givin' you a hard time," Trip said. "I'll beat the dumbfuck out of him." His blue eyes flicked to the side. “He’s got so much in him, it’ll take a while.”

Something really reassuring settled in my chest at his offer. I couldn't help but nod and pat his arm. "Sonny called his kneecaps, you can have the rest of him."

He chuckled. His eyes had drifted down to where my hand rested on his forearm, his gaze sliding up and over my elbow, stopping on my bicep. My sleeve had rode up my arm at some point. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his hand clench open and close. His baby blue eyes flicked up to mine, his expression confused and curious.

Trip's lips parted for a moment before closing. Once, twice, three times.

I'd done this enough times to know what he wanted. Where his confusion stemmed from. Extending my arm out so he could take a better look at the scarring, he winced and instinctively reached out to touch it. It wasn't a good-looking scar. The flesh looked gnarled and silver-white against my healthy skin. After four different surgeries, I'd stopped caring what it looked like. Seeing it in the mirror didn't bother me anymore but I hated the looks I'd get from people.

Like I was broken.

Like there was something wrong with me.

I lost the name my mom had so carefully chosen and became a medical term.

A hand came down to smack Trip's fingers away. "What the hell are you doing?" Sonny asked, pushing himself between our two stools, his amber eyes going back and forth between Trip and I.

Trip didn't even seem bothered by Sonny's reaction. The look on his face was a little relaxed and a little more confused. "Hangin' out," he answered vaguely, keeping his gaze on Sonny.

Sonny narrowed his light colored eyes at his friend before turning his attention to me and pulling down my shirt sleeve as if it were a second thought. There were times when I'd catch him looking at my arm with an expression of pure, painful remorse. Like it'd been his fault that I'd gotten sick. Or maybe it hurt him to see it. I didn't know and I wouldn't ask. If I didn’t make a big deal out of it—AKA pretend there was nothing different—no one else would either.

"Ris, I'm going out for a minute with a friend," he whispered into my ear, putting both hands on my shoulders and squeezing.

A minute? Ha.

I tilted my gaze up to look at him over my shoulder. There was a pretty brunette standing just behind him, a possessive hand clasped on his arm. Interesting. "Okay. Is it fine if I go home or do you want me to hang out here awhile?"

He smirked and squeezed his grip. "You can go home. I'll be there later." The gross ass smirked again. "Way later."

I faked a shudder.

With more pressure to my shoulder, I saw him reach out to slap Trip on the back. He gave him a hard look that I didn't understand before disappearing into the crowd behind us.

A woman squeal loudly to my right and I found Luther leaning against a high countertop table with a young—probably around my age—girl tucked on his lap.

Gross.

Trip must have recognized the look in my eye because he laughed, either forgetting all about what he'd seen or choosing to push his question aside. “You get used to it.”

Not trying to be rude because obviously Trip knew Luther, I covered my dry gag by looking at him out of the corner of my eye. “But she’s… young enough to be his daughter.”

“She’s younger than his son, baby.”

I sucked in a breath way too loudly that made Trip smile wide. “But… but… how? Why?” Luther wasn’t going to win any awards in the beauty department. He wasn’t one of those men who had gotten better with age, or even aged gracefully. He was okay looking but that was as far as I’d compliment him.

Trip looked at me with a straight face and laughed, his beer bottle shaking in his hand. Once he settled down, he shook his head. “Because some girls don’t care if a man’s old enough to be their daddy as long as he’s the Prez.”

“The Prez?”

Trip nodded.

What the hell was the Prez? Even if he was the President of the United States, I’d have to get paid at least a few grand to go anywhere near his lap. Yuck.

“The Widows?”

Trip slapped a hand over the right side of his leather vest over where the white patch was stitched. “What else would he be the president of?”

I ignored his smart ass comment and focused on the men hustling around, messing with each other. "There's a lot of you guys."

“We got chapters all over Texas and the Southwest.”

Hmm. I still didn’t have a single clue what exactly it meant to be in a motorcycle club besides what I saw on television, or hell, the stuff my mom had told me about years ago when the club was mixed up in drug running. She hadn't told me much but it was enough to know that twenty-five years ago, the WMC wasn't a group of people that valued family and community service.

Though now, even after Sonny had explained that the Widowmakers had changed their ways, they probably still didn't hold bake sales but whatever.

As nice as Trip seemed, I figured I should probably hold most of my questions for Sonny. If anyone was going to laugh at me for asking dumb things, I’d rather it be him than someone else.

“If you would've gotten here last month you could've gone to our rally,” he mentioned.

"What do you at a rally? Get together?"

Trip nodded, clinking his bottle against mine. "We all drive down to Galveston and," he smiled wickedly, "party for a couple of days."

It was impossible not to miss the implication in his face. He had trouble written all over him, making me snort. "I bet you guys just party."

"We do," he insisted with another grin, his fingers inching up his neck to scratch at a two-inch scar that scissored his skin. "Now. Ten years ago... that'd be a different story."

That was something to think about and ask Sonny about later. I shoved that plan into the back of my head and raised my eyebrow at Trip instead, just as the same girl squealed once more. We both looked back at Luther and the twenty-something who had her face buried in his neck.

Sheesh. That was disturbing. I was pretty sure that Luther was definitely older than my dad. Yuck.

There were plenty of other men scattered around, some in their forties and younger who weren't unattractive, sure they were kind of hairy and had tattoos that would probably give me nightmares, but they weren't eyesores. So I didn’t understand why the girl was hanging all over Luther of all people. There was something really hard about his face that made me a little wary and added to the comment Trip had made about the club's activities ten years ago. If anyone had a face of a lifetime worth of doing risky things, it was Luther.

If Trip was right—and I knew he was—then the girl was just like any other little gold digger. Or groupie! She wanted the top dog even if he was in his fifties or sixties. And not so attractive. And more than likely had wrinkly balls, which I couldn't even figure out why I would think about to begin with.