“Christ,” Trip whispered, sitting back and scraping a hand along his bearded chin. He shot a quick glance at Judge whose face was back to being unreadable.
Once again neither of them said anything for what seemed like forever, though it might have been only a few short moments.
“This is gonna have to go to the table,” Trip finally said. “Need to figure out where we go from here. Where you go from here, if you ain’t willin’ to let her go. Assumin’ you’re not, right?”
“If I could, I would,” was the best answer he could give. “This whole thing between us was a goddamn surprise for me, also, prez. I could lie and say I’ll untangle myself from her, but that’s what it would be. A damn lie.”
“We already went over what’ll happen if you lie when it comes to any of this.” Trip paused and frowned. “Guessin’ you wanna keep your colors?”
“Fuck yeah,” Rook breathed. “But get it if I can’t. Don’t wanna do shit to fuck up this club, this brotherhood. Earlier you talked about how long and hard we’ve worked to get this far, to build somethin’ solid. If keepin’ her means I gotta step out, I gotta step out.”
But, fuck, he didn’t want to do that. Just the thought of that made his chest tight. He was an important part of this club and the club was now an important piece of him. It also gave him a reason to keep himself out of jail and roll his ass out of bed every morning.
He also wanted to stand strong next to his baby brother and Dutch.
For once in his life, he wanted to do his old man proud. Sticking to something for more than a few months, like the club and his job at the shop, might do that.
“But you wanna keep her ‘cause you love her, right?” Judge asked quietly. “Not just ‘cause she’s a good lay. Wanna make her your ol’ lady.”
Jesus fuck. Judge’s words hit him like a solid kick to the gut.
He did love her.
Of course he hadn’t told her, because he hadn’t even realized it himself until it had been mentioned in this very room. But if he thought about it—really thought about it—it had to be what he was feeling, even as foreign as it was to him. “Truth? Don’t think I can live without her. Like I said, I’d be lyin’ if I said I could quit her. Hate that I can’t, but I can’t.”
Trip rolled his lips inward for a second. “Yeah, you got it bad. I fuckin’ have no clue how we’re gonna handle this or if this thing between you two is even gonna fly. If the exec committee votes for acceptin’ her, then we’re gonna have to take it to a church meetin’ for a vote. Needs to be unanimous from every fuckin’ patched member, Rook, every goddamn one. And you know why. This brotherhood’s our fuckin’ life. She gets a guilty conscience, regrets her actions, or you piss her off, that life could be flipped upside down lickety-fuckin-split. None of us wants to catch another bid. Not one of us wants to spend another fuckin’ second behind bars. She could be a real fuckin’ threat to that.”
“For me, too.”
“Yeah, all that shit that’s happened up on that mountain…” The Fury president sighed. “You ain’t the only one who could do a life-long bid if any of that surfaces. She worth that risk?”
He wanted to say yes, but he knew the risk involved more than him. It involved every Fury member.
“She’s a Bryson by blood, Rook,” Judge reminded him. “That blood’s thicker than anythin’ you could ever fuckin’ give her. If she puts her family first, you’re fucked. We all could be fucked.”
“Christ,” Trip said on a sigh. He stared at the club’s insignia carved into the center of the table. “If we allow this, we’d need to make rules. For her, for you. Rules that can’t be fuckin’ broken. My job as prez, Sig’s as VP, Judge’s as sergeant at arms… the first priority for us is to protect what we’ve been workin’ so hard to build. Hell, to rebuild.” Trip sighed again, ripped his baseball cap off his head and tossed it onto the center of the table. “I had a goddamn dream, Rook.”
Rook released a slow breath. “Hear ya.”
“That fuckin’ dream came to life. I was buildin’ a life I could be proud of. Stel and I got plans. A weddin’, kids… Makin’ Jet your woman might even put my future kids at risk. You think of that?”
Rook got what they were getting at. He did. “Yeah. Like I said, I fought it, but she got under my skin. If it comes down to it and I got no choice but to flay off that skin, I will. But, truth? I really don’t wanna.”