He Called Me Dramatic, So I Took the Club novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Sparrow
Mallory finds her dead mother's necklace on the clubhouse bartender, hears her husband call her dramatic, takes off her ring and walks out; at the door she hears his father order the necklace taken back before Friday's vote.
The night I found my mother's necklace around another woman's neck, I was standing in the middle of my husband's motorcycle club with blood on my cheek and a helmet in my hand.
It had rained since six.
My husband had texted at eight: "Club business, running late. Don't wait up, babe. Love you."
An hour later I found his wallet on our kitchen counter, and he'd ridden off without it.
So I got on my bike and took it to him.
I came into the gravel lot too fast, and the bike slid out from under me on the wet stones.
I scraped my palm and my cheek and I got the bike upright and walked it to the door myself.
The room was full of bikers and their women, and every one of them turned and looked at me.
Nobody looked at my face for long.
They looked at the door behind me, and then at Gage.
"Mallory!" Brandi said from behind the bar. "Honey, you're bleeding. Sit down, I'll get you a towel."
Brandi had poured me a club soda with lime every Friday for a year.
She slid it across the bar now and ducked under the taps for the first aid box.
When she leaned toward me, her chain swung out of her tank top and caught the light.
It was a thin silver chain with a small sparrow on it.
One of the sparrow's wings was bent.
I had pressed that bent wing between my thumb and finger at my mother's bedside.
She had made me promise, the week before she died, never to wear it near this clubhouse.
I never asked her why.
It had lived in a tin on our closet shelf for three years, and I had never opened the tin.
My hands went cold.
"Where did you get that?" I said.
Brandi's fingers closed over the pendant. "This? It's just a necklace. It was a gift."
"From who?"
She said nothing and looked past my shoulder.
I smelled cedar and smoke, the cologne I had bought Gage for Christmas.
"Mal." Gage had come up behind me. "What are you doing here?"
He didn't look at my bleeding cheek.
He looked at Brandi's neck, and then at me.
"Why is my mother's necklace on her?" My voice shook.
"You're making a scene," he said, flat and tired. "It's a piece of jewelry."
"It's the only thing I have left of her."
"Then buy yourself another one."
I reached over the bar and pulled the chain.
The clasp held for a moment and then it snapped, and the necklace came away in my fist.
Gage's hand shot out and closed around my wrist.
His thumb pushed at my fingers, trying to pry them open.
"Give me that," he said.
That was the first thing out of him, before sorry, before Brandi's name, before anything.
"Let go of me."
"You're being dramatic, Mal."
Somewhere behind me a man laughed, then stopped.
I pulled my arm free and walked out into the rain with the sparrow in my fist.
I stopped under the red neon sign at the edge of the lot, where the light was bright enough to see by.
Brandi ran out after me, crying, in her tank top.
I thought she was coming to say sorry.
She went past me, straight to Gage in the doorway.
He put his arms around her and kissed her in front of the whole club.
He kept his eyes on me while he did it.
Four years of marriage, and he did not bother to hide his face.
The men by the bikes studied the ground, and one of the women looked away.
I stood there with rain running into the scrape on my cheek.
The ring on my left hand was a plain gold band he had bought at a pawnshop.
I worked it over my knuckle and set it on the seat of his Harley.
So I took off my ring.
I put the necklace in my jacket pocket and zipped it shut.
I walked to my bike, and my hands were shaking so hard I dropped the helmet once.
The clubhouse door was still open behind me, and I heard Ray Dunning's voice, low and sure.
Ray was Gage's father and the president of the club.
"Did she keep it?" he said.
"She's got it, Dad. She tore it right off Brandi."
"Then get that bird back from her," Ray said. "Before Friday's vote."
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