Fallon (Henchmen MC Next Generation 3)

When I'd finally earned the right to open my chapter, Grandpa had been my first choice to bring with me. He probably would have been more at home in the mother chapter with more men his age around, but we'd always had a bond, which I'd exploited to bring him with me. And with Grandpa came Pops and Junior. Which I wasn't mad about either.

See, Grandpa had been a sort of father or uncle figure to me as a kid. He'd been the one to remember when I had field trips or needed money for the book fair. He was the one patching me up when I fell off my bike. And fetching me from parties where I'd gotten shit-faced. He was the closest thing to an actual friend I had, since I knew his love and respect for me wasn't conditional.

"They're nice tits," Grandpa said, shrugging. "But you get to be my age, you've seen a fuckuva lot of nice tits. I'd be more impressed if they came along with an interesting personality. No offense to Shanny, but..."

Grandpa was always the tactful sort.

Me, not so much.

"Has a head full of cotton?" I supplied.

"She's a nice girl," he said. "But she's like a magpie if you try to talk to her. Always getting distracted by shiny things."

"That's... not an unfair assessment," I agreed since I'd once been talking to her about whether she could bring her girlfriend over or not and she'd literally squealed and run off to pick up some random piece of crappy jewelry someone had lost on the sidewalk.

"How're things?" he asked me, pinning me with his light brown eyes. "You look like you haven't been sleeping again."

Grandpa hadn't wanted to sign on with any official title. Save that for the young and hungry guys was what he'd told me. But he liked to act as a sort of advisor or sounding board, having been around much longer than me, and been through the best and worst that being a one-percent biker had to offer. Including a stint in jail just after he'd knocked up Pops's mother—a local clubwhore that had raised him until Grandpa got out of jail, then dropped him right back on his doorstep to be raised in the club.

"Things are okay," I told him, nodding for emphasis when he raised a brow at me. "We stole our business from the Henchmen. They doubled down on what we hadn't gotten our fingers on yet, so there isn't a lot of upward mobility at the moment. But we have good contacts bringing us in-demand guns. Which should help us get our name out a little more in the area, get us more business. As it stands now, though, we are good. Salaries are being met and bills are paid."

"What about you?" Grandpa asked, giving me a long look. "Are you getting paid? Don't think I didn't notice all that cheap ramen spiced up with hot sauce you were eating for months."

"Hey, don't forget the ninety-nine-cent freezer pizzas," I said, shooting him a smirk. "No, I'm getting paid again now too. And I'm even socking some money away for a rainy day. We're doing alright. We all know how it works when a new chapter opens up," I reminded him.

Sometimes it was slim pickings for a while.

We were Vultures, after all.

Always picking off the remains.

Sometimes, you had to learn to deal with an empty stomach for a while. But it was still easier than trying to set up something from scratch every time.

"Good. That's good. You know what I'm thinking? A smart leader might look at all of this," he said, waving his beer around at the room, "and see a lot of potential."

"Yes," I said, taking a swig of my drink. "A smart leader would do just that," I agreed. "They might even have a whole plan in the works."

"Without the unwanted input of twenty-something half-drunk men."

"Exactly," I agreed.

"That's good. You're doing good," he told me. "I know no one tells you that, and how important it is to hear it once in a while."

"I appreciate it," I said, feeling the uncharacteristic sting at the back of my eyes. I mean, I wasn't a robot. I cried. But I did it in private and silence, making sure there were never any traces of it afterward. That said, crying had always come after a lot of pain or frustration.

But hearing Grandpa give me some praise after the hardest phase in my life where I'd suffered, by necessity, in silence? Yeah, it was making me feel a little sappy.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," I grumbled as Ransom reached out, grabbed Shanny, and dropped her down on her knees between his thighs.

Sure, public blowjobs were nothing new around the clubhouse, but they weren't exactly my favorite thing to witness either. Especially because I knew, eventually, Shanny would move on down the line to suck off several of the guys. How she didn't get lockjaw was completely beyond me.