Free Iron Disciples MC 1 Joy Ride by Eliza Stout Page A

again.”
    “Right.”
    If I thought the music was loud from
outside, opening the front door was like being smacked in the face
with a brick wall of sound. My eyes were immediately stinging from
the thick fog of smoke in the air. There were people everywhere.
Rough, greasy looking biker guys hanging around, drinking, smoking,
laughing and joking. And the women were just as rough looking,
sporting “tramp stamp” tattoos on their lower backs – and proudly
showing them off at that - dyed haired with their roots coming
through and trashy painted on makeup jobs. A few of them gave me an
unimpressed look over when we entered.
    One of the biker guys spotted us enter
from across the room and pushed through a few people to get to us.
He put a hand on David’s shoulder and it was hard to ignore the
contrast of his large weathered hand, with the word “P A I N”
tattooed in faded black ink across his knuckles, pressing down on
David’s smallish frame.
    “The writer!” he said, giving David a
good shake before removing his hand from his shoulder. “Glad you
made it, Dave. Is this your girl?”
    “Yeah. This is her. Hannah, this is
Bug Brain.”
    “Nice to meet you… Bug
Brain.”
    He chewed on his beard and shook my
hand. “You too.”
    “Why do they call you Bug
Brain?”
    He shrugged his shoulders and grinned
a yellow smile. “I don’t even remember.”
    “That may be part of it,” David said
jokingly.
    Bug Brain jabbed him in the ribs
roughly. “The writer and his wit! Hey man, you need to get you and
your girl something to drink. The fridge is packed with
beer.”
    “Alright. Do you want one,
Hannah?”
    “Sure… I guess I’ll have a
beer.”
    “Okay, I’ll be right back. Mingle. I
promise they won’t bite.”
    He disappeared into the back of the
house and Bug Brain moved on as well, leaving me alone there to…
mingle. Right. I wandered slowly through the party, feeling like a
detached observer to the debauchery that was going on around me.
Most of the biker crowd paid me no attention, leaving me to feel
like some kind of ghost just wandering through the house. It was
kind of interesting, to be honest. I passed by a table where two of
the more brawny of the men were arm wrestling. They were wearing
their sleeveless leather biker jackets with nothing underneath,
leaving their bare muscular arms to flex as they gritted their
teeth and grunted against the strength of the other. There were
other bikers surrounding them, throwing down wads of cash as bets,
and yelling and spurring on whichever muscle bound freak they had
chosen to win. I stopped and watched them struggle against each
other for a while, neither one seeming to gain any ground. Their
arms for the most part stayed square in the middle of the table.
When things would start to lean one way or the other, the biker on
the losing side would grind his teeth and draw from some deep
reservoir of strength just enough to push things even again. This
only caused more cheers to erupt from those gathered around them,
and more cash to be thrown down onto the table.
    My uninterrupted people watching
exercise was cut short when I felt a short tap on my shoulder. I
turned to see a tall man leaning cockily against the frame of the
arch leading into the next room. He was actually pretty handsome –
I could see him on a billboard for designer underwear somewhere out
on a Los Angeles highway in another life. As it were though, his
arms were corded with muscles that were definitely not just for the
camera and the skin covering them was blotted out by tattoos. His
dark hair was tossed about carelessly and he had a goatee that
framed a strong jaw. Even with his rough appearance, though, there
was a sort of unmistakable animal attraction about him that I just
couldn’t put my finger on. He took a long draw from a cigarette and
then casually let his arm fall to his side as he nodded up with his
chin at me and smirked. “Hey, baby. You wanna see my
bike?”
    I fidgeted