Roll Me Away: A Smokey's Roadhouse Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

cut, no less?
    He must be a prospect, and I could think of only one reason he’d be in this meeting. They must be trying to show me they didn’t need us. Well, kid or no kid, they were wrong.
    “Smokey. Sarge. Doc. Good to see you. Hi, Dad.”
    No one smiled. The kid, whose name I couldn’t quite call to mind, was standing. Good. He hadn’t earned a seat at the table, which meant he was so new he was still wet behind the ears. I nodded at him, and took a seat, looking over at Smokey as I sat down. An expression of annoyance crossed his face, but I’d made my point. I waited for him to speak first.
    “Jake. For your dad’s sake, we’re gonna set aside the disrespect you and your buddies showed the club. Sarge tells us we got some mutual interests, your crew and the Devils. Whatcha got in mind?”
    I hadn’t studied these geezers my whole life for nothing. I knew the first to make an offer loses, so I kept my mouth shut, staring Smokey down. He waited a few minutes, until the kid got nervous and shifted.
    “All right, this is going nowhere,” Smokey continued. “So I’ll lay in on the line. You kids fucked up. You think you cain’t be replaced, and you waltz in here actin’ like your shit don’t stink. Say hello to Zach Hayes. He’s gonna do somethin’ for us in Sturgis. Then he’s comin’ back here to audition. Get it? You can be replaced. Now, if you want to climb down off that high horse and show some respect, we may be able to do bizness. Your call.”
    I won’t lie – it pushed my buttons. This wasn’t going the way I expected, but it was critical I get this deal done, or I was done, and I knew it. I glanced at Dad. He had that stubborn look on his face I knew meant he wasn’t about to give me an inch. Fuck it, the time to negotiate was past. Never had been possible, now I thought about it. I’d fucked up, and now all I could do was try to save face.
    “Smokey, we never meant disrespect. You, Dad, and all of you built something good here, and we appreciate it. It’s just, we could see times getting tough. We wanted to try something to bring in some scratch.”
    “How’s that workin’ out fer ya?”
    Shit. I had nothing to say to that. “It’s taking a little longer than we expected.”
    He could have gone on, and completely humiliated me in front of my dad, the prospect, and the others. I saw the glance he cut at my dad before he went on.
    “You ready to re-join, or are we talkin’ about a mutual job between two clubs?”
    Re-joining wasn’t what I’d had in mind, but the way he asked let me know my answer would let him know how to proceed.
    “I’d need to take something back to my crew, let them know what to expect. We’d take a vote. Not saying we wouldn’t look hard at re-joining, but what would that look like?” It was a fair question. If we had to start over as prospects, it wouldn’t be so good. My crew might still go for it, but I wanted them to know what they were in for.
    “I notice you don’t have a patch with your club name,” he said. “Why is that?”
    “We haven’t been able to agree on one. What does that have to do with anything?”
    “If you were an organized club, we’d be able to patch you over, after you proved you were in for good this time. Since you aren’t, we may have to let you come in as prospects again, have you prove yourselves all over again.”
    “Fuck that.”
    “Then get your shit together. We ride for Sturgis tomorrow. We’ll wait at Carl’s shop for you to show up. Your colors will decide how we treat you. Meetin’s over.” He banged his gavel and turned to talk to Doc, ignoring me. I gave my dad a look, and he followed me outside.
    “What the fuck was that, Dad?”
    “No more than you deserved, son. Did you think you could just take up where you left off? You know it don’t work that way.”
    “I thought you’d support me.”
    “Who do you think got you this far? You betrayed a trust. If it wasn’t for me, they wouldn’t