Joy (Hell's Handlers MC 7)

“Wanna talk about what happened?”

“No.”

“Man, you’re a hardheaded fucker, prez,” Jig said with a snicker. “How about this. I’ll guess. Shell told you she was pregnant. You freaked the fuck out. Thought only about yourself and what you need and want. Then you said some stupid shit that probably has your woman crying by herself at home. Last but not least, you stormed out.”

Why the fuck couldn’t he just kill Jigsaw with his glare?

Another of those damn laughs, and Jig was dead. The guy was better as a surly fuck. This happy and sensible version of Jigsaw didn’t make sense.

“Shit’s heating up. The Chrome Disciples are gonna be a big fucking problem, Jig. I can feel it in my bones. I got enemies. Men who’d love to piss on my grave. Men who’d have no problem targeting my family. It’s irresponsible to add to it.”

“You think you can’t keep your woman safe? Can’t keep Beth safe? Think the club won’t have your back? Keep you breathing? Protect your family?”

“What, no, that’s not it. I have full faith in the club, but we can’t always prevent the bad shit, Jig. You of all people know that. This whole club knows that. How much shit have we gone through? I wasn’t able to stop any of it.” All of a sudden, fatigue hit him hard. Be it the large quality of alcohol he’d consumed in a short time or just life in general, he needed a fucking break.

“You know, you were one of the people to convince me life went on after a tragedy and that it was okay to live again. To be with my woman. Have a family.”

“I don’t have fucking dementia, Jig. I remember.”

“Then maybe you should stop being a chickenshit and take your own advice.”

“You’re getting on my nerves, Jig.”

The other man smiled, making the scar on his face even more pronounced. “I know it. Tell me the rest.”

“That’s it.”

“Nah, brother. That’s not all. Tell me the real fucking reason you’re freaked the fuck out.”

“The real reason.” Copper reached for the bottle again, but Jig was fast, snatching it out of reach.

“Yeah. The one you’re burying so deep, you’re afraid to even admit it to yourself. The one that made you react like a fucker instead of a man who loves his wife and wants nothing more than another strawberry-haired, blue-eyed baby to dote on.”

A bone-rattling, blood-chilling, heart-stopping fear snaked its way to the forefront of Copper’s mind. Shell was his fucking world. He loved that woman. For some reason, she loved and wanted him as well. Despite him being sixteen years her senior. Despite him being the president of an outlaw MC. Despite him being an ornery motherfucker. Despite the fact there were details of his club he could and would never share with her. None of it mattered when it was just the two of them.

The thought of plodding his way through the rest of his life without Shell by his side had Copper feeling something he was wholly unused to.

Fear.

Dread so great he could breathe through it, so he shoved it down and refused to allow the thoughts to penetrate. Fear so consuming, it made him act like a complete and utter asshole, yelling at his pregnant woman and leaving her alone and crushed.

Fuck, if any one of his men had acted this way toward their ol’ ladies, Copper would be the first to beat their ass.

“She had an emergency C-section with Beth. Everything was great through the entire pregnancy, until it wasn’t. Until she was bleeding so bad, she nearly died. It was close, Jig. Closer than she’d even admitted to me. I saw the records.”

With a snort, Jig shook his head. “Don’t want to know how you got your hands on those.”

“I had to know. Won’t apologize for that. But it was bad. And she’s at a high risk for it happening again. Too much is out of my fucking control. I can’t…” He cleared his throat as it tightened, and an unfamiliar tingling buzzed in the corners of his eyes. Fuck, when had he become such a pussy? He could barely get the word out without wanting to curl up in the corner and cry.

“I get it, brother,” Jig said, not a trace of humor or disgust on his face. “As you said, I get it more than most.”

“Sorry if this stirs shit up for you.”

“I’m good,” Jig responded. “I had to embrace my own fear, or I’d have been howling at the moon these past nine months.”

Copper grunted in response.

“You know the doctors will keep on her, right? They’ll monitor the fuck outta your woman and your baby. Won’t be the same this time around.” Some of the other men wouldn’t’ understand. The ones without women, mostly. Even some of the men with ol’ ladies had never experienced the threat of something happening to them.