Page 16 of Ride or Die

“You were just joking, weren’t ya, son?” Cooper’s voice landed heavy in the silence of the clubhouse. “Everyone here plays pretty damn well.”

“Uh, of course, I was just saying—joking. I was joking.” Blaze ducked his head and glanced towards the pool table for help. His sponsors did nothing.

The table relaxed when Cooper cracked a smile, and the crunching in Saint’s ear started up again. The Eighty-Sixers’ club president was in his sixties, his grey hair clipped close to his scalp, which was peppered with scars. He looked like a dog about to start a fight as he swung a chair around to straddle it.

Cooper surveyed each biker at the table and stalled when he got to Ryan and Saint. A flame sparked, silver flashing between yellow-stained fingers. He took a long drag of his cigarette and blew the smoke directly towards them.

Saint kept his reaction off his face and didn’t move out of the way.

“Pres.” Ryan dipped his chin. Cooper barely nodded back, his eyes flicking between a few of the older bikers around the table. Everyone tracked the exchange, and wariness crawled up Saint’s spine. Was Ryan finally making a play for his birthright?

“You want a beer?” Ryan stood, eyes downcast, but tension rode his shoulders. Cooper looked Ryan up and down before he nodded. Ryan’s gaze flicked to Saint’s empty beer bottle.

Saint shook his head. “I’m good.”

Ryan jerked a nod and disappeared behind the bar.

Saint ignored the prickling along the back of his neck. He forced himself to stay seated and keep his hands loose on his lap.

Cooper’s icy eyes landed on him, and the older man bared his teeth in a wolf’s smile. “Saint. Welcome.”

“Scott, good to see you.” The bikers shuffled as Saint answered, and Bruno, Cooper’s right-hand man, glared at him. First-name basis was an earned thing, apparently.

Cooper ran his eyes over Saint in a blatant attempt to goad him, and Saint waited him out. He didn’t get into power struggles with men who ran the city he lived in. On principle.

“You single?” Cooper asked, taking a drag and blowing smoke out of the side of his mouth.

Saint blinked. What?

The older guys muffled their snickers around the table, and the younger ones didn’t laugh at all.

“Pretty sure Saint swings the other way, Uncle Scott, but you never know.” Ryan stretched a grin across his face as he took his seat. “Shoot your shot.”

Crumbs spewed across the table, and someone started choking as the muffled snickers turned into full laughter.

Cooper looked at Ryan. “Watch it, kid. Your daddy ain’t around to save your ass from a hiding.”

Smiles slid off half the faces, and the other half laughed as required. Ryan smirked at his uncle and raised his beer in salute, knuckles white.

Cooper might be on thinner ice than Saint had thought and he wasn’t sure Ryan had the votes to make a play just yet.

The place was a fucking powder keg.

Saint relaxed each set of muscles, starting at his shoulders and working down. This wasn’t his business.

Cooper broke the staredown with his nephew and shifted to Saint. “Got a daughter—bit younger than you—in need of direction and protection. You interested? You look like someone who knows their way around keeping a woman safe.”

Saint considered if daughters and sons were some slang for club members he didn’t know. No one would meet Saint’s eye, except Bruno. The man jerked his chin up in a challenge.

“Uh, no,” Saint said. “Not single.” His grip tightened on his phone under the table. He’d like for that to not be a lie, but here they were. He didn’t play games with bikers. Also a principle he held close.

This could be another way that Cooper was trying to get him close, or lure him into joining up. This is getting old.

Saint didn’t know what was going on behind the man’s light eyes, but whatever plan Cooper was cooking up to maintain leadership had nothing to do with him.

“Could’ve sworn you were. Ral’s in her rebellious phase and sworn off club members, but keeps getting into trouble, so you’d be a good alternative. One of those stoic types.”

Bruno’s face darkened with rage, and the bikers shuffled like worried hens while the rest of the room remained unaware of the tension. Cooper ignored it, and Bruno’s hand balled into a fist on the table. Cooper didn’t want Bruno as a son-in-law, despite him being the club’s VP? Very interesting. Club leadership used to be like family. Half the time it was family.