Rebel Souls MC Book 5: Brick by Brick
Auteur
Violet Bloom
Lezers
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Hoofdstukken
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Chapter 1
Book 5: Brick by Brick
Introduction
Brick had been out of the closet since he was a teen. Yet, for some reason, he only ever seemed to attract closeted men.
When he joined the Rebel Souls Motorcycle Club, coming out was the first thing he did. He would never stay somewhere he wasn’t accepted; he’d never hide himself.
What he didn’t expect was to find the love of his life hidden within the club.
Bubbles was one of the club’s biggest players, hopping from soul sucker to soul sucker. His sexuality had always been straight… or so he thought. That all changed when he met Brick.
Bubbles spent the year that Brick was a prospect for the club secretly pining after him. He tried drowning himself in the club girls to forget the feelings he was having, but it didn’t work.
Even after finally admitting his feelings to himself, and then to Brick, Bubbles still wasn’t ready to come out. Against his better judgment, Brick began a relationship with him, hiding it from everyone in the club.
Months later, Bubbles was finally ready to come out, but Brick was at his breaking point.
A stray bullet had Bubbles kissing Brick in front of the entire club. He didn’t care anymore. He almost lost the love of his life, and he was tired of hiding.
Until he ran scared.
Just days after their heated kiss in front of the entire club, Bubbles requested nomad status from their club president. Once it was granted, he disappeared for months.
The only thing Brick knew was that he was alive, and he only knew because Bubbles had to check in regularly with Prez.
When Bubbles finally returned three months later, everything had changed.
Is it too late for Brick and Bubbles? Did Bubbles screw up so badly that Brick will never forgive him?
BRICK
The spring wind in my face felt cool even though it was the warmest day that it had been all year.
I revved the engine of my Harley Low Rider. I’d just had Greaser put ape handlebars on her and I was taking her for a spin.
It felt like all I’d been doing the last two months was riding. It didn’t help keep him off my mind, though. Of course it didn’t. The memory of him was everywhere.
He was in my room at the clubhouse; he was in every damn part of the clubhouse. I couldn’t walk into any room without seeing him, like he was a fucking ghost haunting me. Except he wasn’t dead.
If he was, maybe I could move on, but that would mean I could never have him again.
And as pissed off as I was at him, as much as I hated him for finally fucking coming out after we’d been together for a whole goddamn year, I still hoped we’d get our second chance.
I was pining after him like some fucking lovesick kid. Even as I was riding, it was like I could feel him next to me, all the secret rides we’d taken together.
I could see his lopsided grin while he looked at me, his bright blue eyes that always sparkled with mischief.
Even as the sun went down, I swear I could see the way it would bounce off the hoop nose ring he always wore. And the earrings in both of his ears.
I’d never dated a guy with any type of piercings before. I could still feel the metal in my mouth when I sucked on his pierced nipples. But even remembering all the piercings wasn’t the worst part.
The worst part was the memory I could see of his hands on the handlebars of his bike, the way the silver rings on his fingers looked.
The way the fingers that had fingered and stroked me to orgasm so many times looked as they flexed when he squeezed the handlebars or the throttle.
I could see his helmet low on his head, but that image quickly rolled into the one of him in a snapback. He always had a damn snapback on, obviously backward, keeping his long hair in a low bun at the base of his head.
I could finally ride again, which had been helpful.
The first four weeks after he’d left, I couldn’t ride because of the healing bullet wound in my leg. The scar it left behind was nasty, on two sides, since it had torn right through me.
I’d been stuck in the clubhouse, hiding in my room and avoiding the damn pride and their endless questions. I loved the old ladies, but I preferred talking about their men, not my man.
Which was why I’d also been avoiding them.
Satisfied with the way my bike handled with the new handlebars, I pulled off at the exit, turning around and heading back toward the clubhouse.
I needed a drink. The booze and the weed didn’t keep Alec off my mind, but they didn’t make things any worse, either.
The further I rode home, the more unsure I became if riding was actually an escape or not.
It always had been before, but even the wind in my face and the vibrating of the bike beneath me couldn’t keep thoughts of him from creeping into my mind.
The one I’d been replaying the most in the last weeks was the one where he’d kissed me the first time.
It had been the night of my patch party. The club had always known I was gay; I had no reason to hide it.
I’d suffered the worst of the worst because of my sexuality, thanks to my parents sending me to conversion camp twice between the ages of thirteen and eighteen.
Usually they hired the newly patched member a stripper, not that there weren’t a dozen willing soul suckers around the club even without bringing in strippers or sex workers.
Except none of them were men, so they’d advertised a gay night at the bar and opened the doors. I’d literally had my choice of dozens of guys; women weren’t the only ones who chased the cut.
I’d found a sexy older guy—older men had always been my preference—and danced with him until I could feel his hard cock pushing against me through his dad jeans.
I’d invited him up to my room and he’d said yes without hesitation. We’d been making out, him pushing me against my bedroom door and me struggling to get it open, when he’d been pulled from my body.
“Get lost,” Alec had barked at him. My suitor, whose name I hadn’t known or cared about even then, looked terrified.
Alec was intimidating. He wasn’t the biggest guy in the club, that went solidly to Tank and Bender, but I could see why someone would find him scary looking.
Whenever it wasn’t just the two of us, he had a menacing, angry look on his face. It completely contradicted his happy-go-lucky personality.
For fuck’s sake, the man had dressed up as Bubbles from Powerpuff Girls, giving him his road name.
Before my patch party, Bubbles had been all I’d known him as. He definitely had one of those personalities where you had to get to know him before you realized he wasn’t an asshole, despite his face not getting that message.
“The fuck?” I’d barked at him, pissed off. “If you’re gonna turn into a homophobic ass—”
My words had been cut off by a deep growl and him pushing me against the door and attaching his lips to mine.
I usually considered myself to be a man with pretty decent gaydar, but I’d clearly missed the mark with Alec. I’d had no idea he was into me.
I’d known, even then, that hooking up with a brother from the club was a bad idea, but he’d kissed me like he was drowning and I was the only person with the ability to save him.
My hands had dug into the shirt he was wearing under his cut, clutching at him and pulling him closer.
He’d pushed my door open and we’d stumbled into my room, only able to keep ourselves upright because of the way we were clinging to each other.
Stumbling to my bed, we’d fallen, him landing on top of me. Alec had managed to kick the door shut, locking us in before he’d collapsed on top of me and pinned my hands above my head.
I was used to being in control of my partners, but I’d willingly given it to him. His lip ring had tickled my lip, the metal scraping against me and making my cock throb more for him.
Even now, over a year later, I wasn’t sure what had happened, what had broken the spell.
Was it the moan I’d let out? Was it how, as soon as he’d released his hold on my wrists, I’d pushed a hand between us and cupped his cock through his pants?
Or had it been the way he’d moaned at the contact that had freaked him out?
Either way, he’d bolted, standing from my bed quicker than I’d ever seen. With his heaving breath, he’d stared at me, his lips swollen from our heavy, heated kissing.
He’d looked so confused by what had just happened.
That had been the first time he’d bailed.
In the year we’d been together, he’d run more times than I could count, scared of his sexuality and what that meant, afraid of coming out.
And when I’d finally thought he’d worked through it, finally coming out to the club and kissing me, claiming me publicly, he’d fucking bailed like a bitch.
So yes, I was beyond pissed at him. But that didn’t mean I didn’t still love him, that I didn’t want him back.
Pulling into the clubhouse parking lot, I parked my bike in the line and climbed off, leaving my helmet and heading inside.
Tonight was Boomer’s patch party. Prez was going to call church in a few hours, and we’d vote him in officially.
He would be voted in unanimously. Not only had the kid killed Joe, but he’d also taken a bullet for Carrie.
When I walked in, the pride was, of course, the first to notice my presence.
“Everyone out!” Rachel yelled, standing. She was like five months pregnant now and finally starting to show a little.
Liza and she had basically the same due date, and Brenda was due three weeks before they were. Three more rugrats for the club. The guys definitely didn’t know how birth control worked.
“That means you too,” she said to Prez, who was sitting with Bender and Hawk like usual. “Everyone but Brick.”
“Baby,” Prez said. “You can’t kick me out of my own clubhouse.”
She gave him a look that clearly said, watch me. “Go shoot or something,” she said.
He sighed heavily, but he could never tell her no. “Everyone out. Except Brick.”
Fuck. He was really throwing me to the damn lions.
“Boomer!” Charlie shouted. “Bring us a bottle of whiskey before you go.”
Boomer, like the good little boy he was when it came to the pride, did as he was told.
When the clubhouse was empty, at least the bar area, everyone having retreated to their rooms or outside, I was forced to go sit with the pride. They’d been attempting to corner me like this since Alec left.
Charlie had a glass filled to the brim with whiskey waiting for me when I walked up to the table. I swallowed all of it in one go before pulling up a chair, sitting with it backward and leaning on the table.
“We need to talk about Bubbles,” Charlie said.
“I don’t want to talk about him. Let’s talk about Hawk.”
“It’ll make you feel better if you talk about it,” Carrie offered.
They meant well. I knew they did, but I didn’t want to talk about it. If I talked about it, I would have to feel, and I wasn’t ready to feel anything other than numbness.
“Why did he leave?” Rachel asked.
“No idea.”
“You didn’t have a fight or something?” Liza asked.
“You didn’t know he was planning on it?” Brenda asked.
Brenda, Liza, and Rachel all had water in front of them, leaving me to drink with Carrie and Charlie.
“No. We didn’t have a fight. We spent the fucking night together the night before he asked for nomad status.” Tears stung the corners of my eyes as I told them that.
Alec had fucking slept in my bed, clinging to me, only to wake up and rip my heart out.
“Have you heard from him?” Charlie asked.
“No.” I poured another glass of whiskey before continuing. “Prez tells us in church when he’s heard what club he’s at. Last I heard, he was in South Fork.”
“How long had you guys been together?”
“It started at my patch party.”
“Shit, that was over a year ago.”
I nodded at Rachel. “He ran from me a lot. He’d always thought he was straight. He was afraid, but when he kissed me at your house,” I nodded to Brenda, “I thought he was finally ready.”
“I think he just panicked,” Carrie said softly. “I’m sure he’ll be back.”
“I ran from Hawk,” Charlie said.
“And I ran from Nathan.”
“And I ran from Ryan.”
“Don’t tell him that,” I told Carrie. “He still says he’s the only one of them to catch his old lady without her running.”
“I mean, I didn’t run after he’d already had me like those two. But I definitely still had my ‘lose it’ moments where I wanted to bolt.”
“But that’s the difference. You didn’t. He did.”
“Do you love him?”
“Of course I fucking love him.” My words came out snippy to Megan, and I hadn’t meant for them to. She retracted into herself a little, her submissive nature making her easily frightened.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
“It’s okay,” she told me softly.
“I do love him.”
“The more important question is, does he love you?” Charlie asked.
“I think so. He says he does. Said. Said he did. But how could he run if that was true?”
“We’ve just established that we also all ran, and trust me, we love the hell out of our annoying-as-hell men.”
I chuckled as Rachel called their men annoying, and I chuckled even louder when I realized nobody contradicted her in her words.
My phone beeped, and momentarily, I thought it might be from Alec. But it wasn’t.
“Prez called church.”
They all knew that Boomer was being patched in. They’d have five minutes to turn the clubhouse into party central once we called him in to tell him. And they’d do it, just like they’d done for me.
“Did talking about it help?” Charlie asked.
“No, but the whiskey did.” I finished my second completely full glass before standing and walking into the church room. I was first to arrive and waited for the rest of the guys.
The guys all filed in, sitting in their usual spots, and quieting when Prez sat at the head of the table. “You all know the order of business we’re here to discuss. Boomer. Are we patching him in or not?”
“Yes,” Hawk said.
“Second?” Prez asked.
“Second,” Bender said.
“Vote it.”
Hawk started the voting, and the ayes went around the entire table until we got back to Prez, who said aye, making the decision unanimous.
“Go get him,” Prez said.
Bender stood from the table, sticking his head out into the bar area. “Boomer!” he shouted.
He went back to his seat, and we waited for Boomer. Poor kid was probably nervous as fuck; I know I had been.
“Close the door,” Prez said. His president’s voice was still fucking terrifying. He spoke like he was a sociopath, with no emotion.
Boomer gulped audibly, but closed the door before standing opposite Prez on the other side of the long table.
“Take off the cut.”
Boomer scrambled out of his cut, nearly getting caught in it. Tank stood, digging a knife out of his pocket and flipping it open.
Fear crossed Boomer’s face. But mixed with that fear was hope. He must believe he was getting patched in.
Tank cut the prospect patch off the cut, crumpling it in his hand before going back to his seat.
Prez pulled a different patch out of his pocket and threw it. It was light, so it only made it halfway down the table, but it was picked up by Ink who tossed it the rest of the way.
“Welcome to the club, kid,” Prez said. The rest of us pounded our open palms on the table, congratulating him while he slipped his cut back on.
Megan would sew the new patch on for him, making him a member and no longer a prospect.
“We got you a fuck ton of strippers, dude,” Spade said. He was going to be happy to take the leftovers. Hell, all the guys would.
Another memory of Bubbles flooded my mind. Whenever there was a party, he was always the first one out of his chair, screaming “let’s rage” or “let’s party.”
But this time it wasn’t his words that echoed that sentiment. The words came from Spade.
I was the last one to stand from my seat, not in the mood to party. But Boomer deserved to be celebrated.
The clubhouse was in full swing, the old ladies and soul suckers having completely transformed it in five minutes.
Brenda was back behind the bar, slinging drinks. Boomer couldn’t work his own party. Her sister Barbara was behind her, and her girlfriend was seated in the corner chair of the bar.
Music blared from the speakers and women were pouring into the club, all shapes, sizes, ethnicities, in various stages of dress.
“Ladies!” Spade said. “This is the man of the hour,” he announced, pushing Boomer into the center of the room. He was immediately surrounded by girls, all trying to get his attention.
I watched the fuckery already unfolding and walked to the booth I usually sat in. Doc and Seal were already there.
We would be the only members not getting any tonight, from a random who came in, a stripper, soul sucker, or an old lady.
Seal had been celibate for nearly three years. He was definitely still pining after the daughter of the Mexican president. But there was no way he’d ever be able to see her again. She’d have to remain in hiding for the rest of his life.
Truthfully, I didn’t know what Doc’s deal was. All I knew was that he had a story.
No matter where he was going or what he was doing, there was a hair tie around his wrist. And he still had a military crew cut from his years in the service. The hair tie must belong to a chick.
He never talked about it, and I didn’t ask. We didn’t really share our feelings here. At least not all of them.
Seal lifted his hand, trying to flag down Brenda. When she acknowledged she saw him, he put his hand down. My eyes were on the dance floor, watching the bodies pressed together.
When Alec had kissed me in front of the club, I’d known the patch party for Boomer was coming.
I’d briefly imagined us being among the bodies on the dance floor, grinding together, pressing our bodies together, but that fantasy had come to a grinding halt when he’d walked out of the clubhouse without giving me a second glance.
I could still hear the roaring engine of his bike as it tore out of the driveway.
Brenda walked over, her pregnant belly on display. Tank saw her immediately and came to sit with us. “Don’t work too hard, babe,” he whispered before sliding into the booth next to Seal.
“I won’t,” she promised. She set three glasses and a bottle of bourbon on the table. “I’ll go grab you a glass, babe.” She leaned down and kissed him. His hand lingered on her belly before she walked away.
Doc opened the bottle and poured us all a glass before sliding it to Tank. As soon as Brenda handed him his glass, he poured himself a glass.
“You fuckers look so sad,” he said.
Probably because we fucking were. He had his old lady, but the three of us didn’t. Old man, in my case, but still.
“If you’re going to sit here, shut the fuck up,” Seal told him. Tank made a show of zipping his lips and turning to watch the dance floor.
Boomer was surrounded by women, so much so that we could barely see him between all the bodies. He was having the time of his life. Booze was poured into his mouth, tits and asses were rubbed against him.
“Fuck, he’s right,” I said after a few minutes. “We are fucking sad.”
Seal just shrugged, and Doc looked completely uninterested. I wasn’t even sure Tank heard me with the way he was staring at Brenda, making sure she kept her promise not to work too hard.
As the night went on, the four of us killed the bottle of bourbon easily.
It was midnight when the strippers walked in, half a dozen of them. Spade pulled a chair into the middle of the dance floor, clearing it out so Boomer could sit and get surrounded by the strippers.
Brenda changed the music to something Spade had told her to. As soon as they started to take off their clothes, I realized it was time for me to go to bed.
“Later,” I said, standing from the booth.
I didn’t hear if they responded as I made my way to my room. The clubhouse smelled like weed and sex already, and it was still early.
Once in my room, I grabbed a bottle of cheap whiskey and took another long swig before closing my eyes and letting myself faceplant into my bed. It would be another night of dreaming of Alec.
How long did it take to get over the love of your life?
