Scars of Yesterday (Sons of Templar MC 8)

He shrugged. “Or at least that’s what I remember my mom telling me. She died when I was six, so I don’t have a bunch of memories. She didn’t have extended family that wanted to take on a six-year-old, so I went into the system. Just missed being attractive enough for a rich, barren couple looking to adopt. So I bounced around foster homes for the next ten years. I’d say I ran away, but running makes it sound like someone was chasing me. No one cared enough to chase me. Fell into the crowds that got me fast money and the prospect of prison time. But I didn’t get caught. I was lucky. More than that, I found a talent in the underworld. Many talents. Got enough of a reputation that I ran in the same circles as the Sons of Templar MC. Liked the idea. I was eighteen years old. Riding bikes, livin’ free. Yeah. Liked the idea. Liked the life. The brotherhood. Family.” He paused, rubbing a hand down his handsome face. “Went fine for a long time. Better than fine. I was a kid who didn’t know shit about brotherhood, certainly not freedom. Not to mention the money that we made. More than I’d ever seen.”

He glanced back at the clubhouse. “Didn’t bother me at first. The illegal shit. I wasn’t scared of prison. Sure as fuck wasn’t scared of death. And I liked breaking the rules. The law. Sticking it to the man. See, I’d spent my whole life taking orders. Got no say in where I went, who I lived with. So yeah, had enough anger at the world to feel like I was doing some good.

Probably wouldn’t have even left the charter if Gunner, my best friend, hadn’t died. His Old Lady too. Drugs. Bad shit.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Woke me up. Made me question shit. Look at the future. I’d like an Old Lady. Kids. Never want to let go of the patch, the club is my life. I was already considering requesting a transfer someplace new when I heard what this chapter was doin’. . But Washington charter had been my family for over a decade. Didn’t have it in me to just leave. Then the war happened, the one that took your Old Man. Saw it as my opportunity to help rebuild. And here I am.”

“Here you are,” I agreed, slightly dumfounded by all the information he’d dumped on me.

All of the men in the club had pasts, some uglier than others, but all dark enough to push them toward this life. If you’d been here as long as I had, you might know about some of it, maybe even most of it. But never all of it. That was reserved for each man’s Old Lady. And it took a lot to get them into the sharing kind of mood.

Yet here was this guy, laying out his past honestly to a complete stranger.

“Kace,” he said.

I blinked.

“My name. Kace. Figured I should’ve said that first, but then again, I’m not exactly a man who’s known to do what he should.” He winked, got up and walked away.

Just like that.

Okay. That just happened.

He just came over and spilled his entire life story, unfiltered and completely honestly. Purely because he thought that him knowing my history—only the facts, definitely not with any of the personal details he’d told me—and he thought it was unfair for us to be on uneven ground.

Who the actual fuck was this guy?

I didn’t have time to think about that, because I was already watching the women leave their respective Old Men to converge on me and demand to know why I was talking to a man. A single, hot, younger man at that.

Not that it was like that. But it didn’t matter. I couldn’t have that conversation. That attention. I was emotionally tapped out.

So I did what any sensible, adult woman would do in my situation. I ran away. I walked quickly, avoiding all their meaningful looks and ‘come here’ gestures. The kids were still glued to the movie, Lucky included. I kissed Lily’s head on the way past and winked at Jack, doing my best to look like I was holding it together.

I wasn’t even sure where I was going. The bathroom was out. There was at least a ninety percent chance that one of the women, if not more, would follow me in there, thinking I was either having some kind of breakdown or needed to talk about the interaction with... Kace.

The hallway was empty, thankfully, most of the doors to the rooms closed. Ranger had never had one of those rooms, not with us being back together when he patched in. He never lived that bachelor life that so many of the men had, the life a few were still living.