Valen (Henchmen MC Next Generation 6)

“Didn’t expect the club to be up and buzzing already,” Valen admitted, giving Brooks an apologetic shrug. “Won’t happen again. Thanks,” he said, catching a bottle of water Voss tossed at him. “Did we miss anything?”

“Louana made breakfast,” Brooks said. “And cleaned the whole kitchen.”

“You cook?” Valen asked, looking taken aback.

“And doesn’t shirk her responsibilities. Which means your asses are on the bikes and cars today,” Brooks answered for me. “After that, the lawn needs to be mowed. And errands need to be run. And to be clear, I am talking to you and Voss, not Louana,” Brooks said, making his way back out of the kitchen.

“Trying to show us up?” Valen asked, giving me a hard look.

“Not hard when you don’t show up at all,” I said, tossing the hand towel at him as I made my way past.

I wasn’t planning on getting away.

In fact, I was planning on having him follow me as I made my way through the common room and then out the front door.

“The fuck is this, Lulu?” Valen asked, the door slamming behind him as he followed me out.

“This is me getting a jumpstart on the bikes,” I told him, waving at them.

They were clean already.

Brooks probably made them wash them damn near daily just as busy work.

“That’s not what I meant. You know that’s not what I fucking meant.”

“I don’t know where you get off cursing at me,” I said, not bothering to turn around. “I’m pulling your and Voss’s weight right now,” I told him as I went to the front spigot and started to unwind the hose.

“You never wanted to be a biker,” he insisted, standing over me, giving me a little shade.

“You don’t know what I wanted to be,” I said, grabbing the end of the hose and turning on the water.

“Bullshit. I knew you.”

“For, what? A few weeks?” I shot back. “And you thought I would be that same person after all these years? Grow up, Valen,” I said, pleased when he seemed suitably pissed by that comment. “Go get some soap and sponges,” I added when he opened his mouth to speak again.

He was going to snap back at that, but then Brooks and Voss were moving out of the door, and he turned to get the rest of the supplies.

“Voss,” I said, nodding at him when he came up toward me.

I had nothing against Voss, per se. Sure, he was good friends with Valen, but he knew a different version of the man than I did.

“That one yours?” he asked, and the sheer sound of his voice had me straightening and staring a bit. I mean… the man sounded like he gargled rocks. It was both kind of threatening and pretty sexy.

“Huh?” I asked, shaking my head a little to knock some sense into myself.

“Bike,” he clarified, nodding his head toward it.

“The bike… oh… yeah,” I said, following his gaze to my very shiny, very new bike.

I’d splurged a little on it, not wanting to seem like I was new to the whole biker lifestyle even if I totally was. Sure, I was a lot more experienced than I’d been back when I’d been scared to get on Valen’s bike for the first time, but I was by no means an expert on the damn things.

The dude at the dealership had to have been sick of me and all my questions that I’d tried to commit to memory so I could spout them off if anyone questioned me at all. I figured I’d made up for it by getting one of the more expensive bikes they had, getting him a hefty commission.

“Nice. Expensive,” he added.

“I had a little money saved up. Decided to splurge.”

“Money from what?” he asked, and I figured that his short, incomplete sentences were just some sort of personality quirk.

“Jobs.”

“What kind?”

“What kind of jobs did you do before you got here?” I shot back.

“Fair enough,” he said, nodding, letting it drop. “Junkyard,” he said.

“What?” I asked, seeing Valen coming back from the clubhouse.

“Worked junkyard security,” Voss told me.

“Like… like a junkyard dog?” I asked, feeling a smile tug at my lips, totally able to see that.

“With a nastier bite,” Valen said, dropping the buckets stocked with soap and sponges down on the ground. “You two catching up.”

“She was,” Voss said, making Valen’s eyebrow quirk up.

“Seems like it isn’t very brotherly not to share shit,” Valen declared as I started to fill up the buckets.

“Seems like sharing is a two-way street. I answered Voss’s question.”

Voss clearly didn’t fully agree with that, but he didn’t say anything about it.

“Let me guess, now you want me to answer one before you will,” Valen said as I started to spray down the bikes.

“That’s how it works.”

“Fine. What do you want to know?”

“Where’d you get that scar on your neck?” I asked, having been curious about it since the moment I’d seen him again.