Hammer (2 page)

Slightly panicked, I blurt out, “Is everything okay? Are we going to get my brother? Does he need to go home, too?”

They still show no emotion as the other guy answers in an almost robotic tone, “We can’t answer your questions, son. Just come along with us quickly and quietly, and we will take you to your mother.”

Holy shit, what have I done? This dude sounds serious as hell. However, as I think back over the last few months, I swear I don’t remember getting caught doing anything that would warrant this kind of trouble.

Hiking my book bag up on my shoulder before it has a chance to slip off, I give the soldiers a silent nod. My legs are shaking so badly they feel like spaghetti noodles. All I can think about is, if I get in trouble on the base, my dad is going to get in trouble, too. Then he will ground me for the rest of my life.

The next fifteen minutes—walking out of the school, getting in their car, and driving away—are a blur, my mind incapable of processing what could be happening. My thoughts race with a bunch of questions, but I fail to come up with any answers.

As we pull up to my house, I realize I need to wipe my palms off on my jeans because my hands are too sweaty to open the car door. I try to take a deep breath to calm down, but there doesn’t seem to be enough air. My chest feels like there is an elephant sitting on top of it. Why the hell can’t I breathe?

When I finally get out of the car, I still at the sound of my mother wailing from inside our home.

Uniformed Army men.

Mom crying.

Dad is away …

The revelation hits me harder than a tidal wave crashing onto a beach and eroding the shore. The world freezes around me. The sky, although blue, seemingly fades to gray.

Unable to hold my head up anymore, it drifts down until the brown grass beneath my feet comes into view. It is dead. It also is the only barrier between me and the realities I do not want to face just inside my front door.

My dad’s last command replays in my head. “
Remember, start mowing in March. I don’t want housing to leave a chit for your mom while I’m gone. I’ll be home before you walk the stage, Ethan.
” His last deployment, we received the piece of paper in reprimand, their ‘chit,’ informing us of our responsibilities of lawn care and the exact specifications required of us. Dad got one at his location, too. We do not want that to happen again.

The day after that conversation, my dad was gone before I left for school.

Training.

He is gone for a TDY—temporary duty. Not a deployment. Not a mission.

Training.

We spoke to him last night.

Now my mom is hysterical just inside our house while I stand in the yard with two soldiers. That can only mean one thing.

The brown grass isn’t the only thing that died.

Chapter

1

~Hammer~

“Show those titties!” some drunken shithead yells from the crowd.

I can’t tell who said it in the dim, crowded atmosphere. Honestly, I don’t really care to know. As long as the customers behave, there is no reason for me to get up close and personal with my fists.

Looking around After Midnight, I see the club is packed. Drinks are being served, clothes are coming off, and tips are being dropped. Business is good. When business is good, the club’s payouts are good.

Fuck the phrase “happy wife, happy life.” It is all about “wallet happy, dick happy, then Hammer’s happy.”

Taking in the girls working the floor, flirting with customers to entice them into lap dances, I notice one of the vibrant, purple neon lights over a corner table is out.

I turn at the waist, catching Big Jim’s attention from where he stands back at the bar, and point to the problem. Seeing what the issue is, he immediately heads off to get a new bulb.

The man understands the importance of fixing shit right away. We can’t have any dark corners where a customer could take advantage of one of our girls. And since the club is designed and decorated to ooze sex appeal, it means the aesthetics are not always practical for safety measures, which is okay as long as the brothers who work as security stay vigilant.

The strip club’s walls are a soft gray, the flooring a sinful black, and the only bright lighting in the whole place is on the main stage with a few smaller ones above the bar. The rest of the lighting throughout the club are blue and purple neon lights, which allows us to adequately watch for problems.

Although the Regulators MC has done a damn good job of letting everyone know we won’t put up with any bullshit from our patrons, there is always some jackass who tries to test our boundaries. It is best to nip those little problems in the bud before they become big problems.

Not to mention, replacing a neon light is a hell of a lot easier than getting rid of bloody clothes or burying a jackass who harasses one of the strippers. Make no mistake; I will end anybody who tries to hurt one of our girls.

Women come to work here because they want the protection we provide that seedier clubs do not. They all know that one of the reasons After Midnight is considered a premiere gentleman’s club in this state—hell, even the East Coast—is due to the security. Money and manpower aside, that doesn’t mean a few angry, entitled idiots with mommy issues don’t slip in every once in a while, trying to get more from our hardworking girls. Hence, the need to burn bloody clothes once in a blue moon.

A voice rings out above the noise of the crowd, asking the woman on stage if her carpet matches her curtains. I don’t bother to stop the laugh that escapes when she yells back that it would if she didn’t have hardwood floors before giving the big spender a wink.

I shake my head as the inebriated catcalls continue.

“Hey, man, shake your head all you want. It’s better than the marriage proposals I get while doing my routine at Alibi,” my younger brother Evan says as he walks toward me.

Glancing at him out of the corner of my eye, I’m reminded that life is not exactly how I expected it to be. Then again, the dreams of adolescence rarely do turn into the realities of our future.

“You know you don’t have to strip, man.”

“You gave me a place to stay. You gave me another chance. You didn’t need me behind the bar as much as I don’t need to be back there. What you did need was another headliner, and I needed to replace one high with another,” he replies honestly.

“Evan, it’s been three years. You’re solid. You’ve got your own place, and you’re clean. Anytime you wanna quit, you can.”

My baby brother, the headlining stripper at a women’s entertainment club.
Oh, Dad would be so proud, wouldn’t he
? I think sarcastically. Then again, it’s better than being the addict he was.

The whole situation is still fucked to this day. If I hadn’t left, Evan wouldn’t have gotten into his mess in the first place. Then again, if I hadn’t joined the Army, Mom would have lost everything.

My dad died in a training accident when his parachute failed during his jump master requalification. It was supposed to be cut and dry: show up, qualify, train, jump, and go home. Only, he didn’t make it home.

College became another loss. I had a football scholarship waiting. However, after watching my mother struggle, I couldn’t follow through with it. I gave my dad my word, and my father had instilled into my brother and me that our word was our bond. People in this world did not respect you for making promises, but for keeping them. My word was solid.

At the time of Dad’s death, we lived on base. However, when you are no longer the dependents of an active duty soldier, you have to relocate. We had time, but Mom wasn’t comfortable with the everyday reminders of what we had. Her soldier was never coming home again. Sure, there was life insurance money from the government, but that only went so far after relocation and paying off old debts.

With Dad’s job, Mom easily financed two car loans, a boat payment, and furniture on credit. Then she was left with all of that, rent, and two teen boys with no family to help her and no job. Eventually, she sold some of the items we didn’t need, like the boat, but it was hard to let go. For us, she wanted to hold on to everything that was a tangible reminder of the memories made with my dad. Only, as the bills piled up and with the survivors benefits only going so far, some things had to go, and the boat and an extra car were the first of many.

My graduation day came at a new school off the military base. I walked, got my diploma, and then went home to stew in thoughts of my dad not seeing me walk across the stage and how my mom was struggling.

Our family wasn’t prepared to lose the sole provider. I thought maybe I could move out, crash on a friend’s couch, and get a job to be less of a financial burden to my mom, but that still left her with my brother. At the time, I had no idea how my mother was going to take care of Evan even if I left. I remember seeing her bank account and the bills. Fact were facts; Mom needed help.

“Just remember, son, actions speak louder than words.”
My father’s advice played over and over again that night until I knew what I had to do. I only knew of one place that could give me a guaranteed paycheck and a roof over my head. The following morning, I went to the recruiters.

I didn’t think; I reacted. The facts for me then seemed so simple. Mom needed money, and I felt a need to serve, to be close to my father in the only way I saw possible. Since my dad had supported us all by joining the Army, I would, too. Simple enough. Only, it wasn’t so simple when selection came, and the opportunity to be one of the elite presented itself.

I had been forced to let go of my dreams of college and a football scholarship, so there was no way I was going to give up any new opportunities that came my way.

I made the wash. I earned my green beret. I joined my Special Forces team.

I also left my mother to deal with my brother on her own.

I hang my head in shame now, thinking of how that led to Evan’s addiction.

I forgot about Evan. He lost his dad, too, and then his brother left for the Army. In a lot of ways, his mother left, too. She went from a stay-at-home mom to a sole provider overnight. My brother was getting into trouble, yet it wasn’t anything Mom couldn’t handle. Well, that was what I told myself. As long as I kept sending the checks home, they would be okay. Right?

“Stop it, Ethan,” Evan says. “Don’t go there. You’re not responsible for my actions.”

He can say that all day and night, but I can’t help wondering how different things would be if I hadn’t left them behind. How disappointed my father would be if he knew I failed our family when they needed me the most.

~Desirae~

“Push through it,” I yell out at the badass, tattooed biker in front of me as he grunts and continues to pull himself up on the bar.

I continue my own chin-ups as the sweat rolls down his face. “Drive over it!”

His workout is almost done. Cool down is just around the corner. Three more reps and I will ease up. Until then, charge on.

“They call you Tank! Show me!”

Boom. Boom. Boom.
He pumps out his final reps then drops from the bar as he lets out a war cry of success.

“Damn, Des, I thought physical therapy was torture enough,” Frank ‘Tank’ Oleander states as he wipes his face with a hand towel.

I smile over at him as he begins his stretches for cool down. “PT was for healing. Exercise now is for well-being.”

“My being is well, babe. No need to bust my ass.”

“Nah, I don’t wanna bust your ass. I do remember you calling me Drill Sergeant Bust Your Balls, so I wanna bust your balls, buddy.”

We both laugh at the memory as his ol’ lady comes in, carrying ‘Red,’ their son.

“Don’t bust the jewels too much, Des. I might wanna play with them later, girlie.” She winks at her man, and the beast of a biker immediately smiles at her.

I met Tank when he was a patient at the rehabilitation facility I used to work at. After getting shot six times and pulling out of a coma, his road to recovery was a long process. When he was released to come home, the Hellions Motorcycle Club hired me full-time as his personal physical therapist. Now that he is back to one hundred percent, I work as a personal trainer for all the boys who want it.

Life is good for me here with the Haywood’s Landing charter of the Hellions. I never imagined becoming a personal physical therapist turned trainer for a group of broody bikers. However, life has this way of throwing curve balls at you when you least expect it. Not to mention, the perk that I was now paid more with the Hellions as my only clients than at my last few jobs. As Roundman, the Hellions’ president, bluntly informed me in a meeting, “You have to deal with a bunch of knuckleheads, and I’m afraid you’ll quit if the pay isn’t good enough.”

Snorting at the memory, I can’t help thinking that “knuckleheads” isn’t exactly how I would refer to the rowdy men who work hard and play harder.

After Tank’s session, I have a quick workout with two other club members before going home for the day. With plans to go out, I head straight to the shower to wash off the ick of gym life.

“Let’s go, hooker!” my sister Suzie calls out as soon as I shut the shower off.

“Hold your horses, woman.” Damn, impatient, little thing. Then again, she always has been.

My baby sister is visiting for a week. We don’t see each other often, so having her here means the world to me. I wish she would have told me she was coming, though. Oh, well, count my blessings and don’t question.

She showed up late last night. After sleeping in this morning while I trained with the boys, she is now rip-roaring ready to go out on the town. I, on the other hand, am more than willing to snuggle in my bed with a good book. Baby girl gets what baby girl wants, though, so we are going out.

The joke’s on her. Coastal North Carolina doesn’t have much for a night life. Definitely not what she’s used to in Chicago.

We grew up in the Sandhill region of central North Carolina. I went off to East Carolina University in Greenville where I managed to earn a degree in physical therapy. After passing my state boards and getting licensed, I locked in a job at a rehabilitation facility where I met Tank and the Hellions MC. This all worked to land me where I am today.