Page 23 of Roadrunner

Then

Riley’s patch-in party fell on my birthday, which felt like it should have meant something. Our plan was simple: go to the clubhouse for the ceremony, then have dinner to close out my nineteenth year. Nineteen still felt borrowed. Wearing it next to a new patch felt like two kinds of becoming in one night.

I understood, in theory, that the prospecting period itself was the initiation—that whatever happened tonight was more formality than trial. Still, some part of me wondered if they’d make him do something absurd before handing over his patches. Run down the street naked. Shave his head. Get a cartoon biker tattooed somewhere unfortunate.

We parked his motorcycle under the awning, alongside a row of bikes lined up like they’d been measured. The overhead doors were open, the men gathered in a loose crowd at the center of the shop. A few heads turned at the sound of Riley’s exhaust; most didn’t bother. I followed him in anyway, too eager for him to finally be a full member of something he was already proud of.

Price found us first. “Brother Panzer.” He pushed his hair back. “How’s things?”

“Good,” Riley said.

Price looked me over. “Squirt.”

One word was about all the greeting I was going to get out of him. I nodded back. “Evening, Price.”

“It is.” He turned toward the office. “Follow me.”

Brisco and Lackey were already waiting inside. There was no swearing-in, no reading of rules, no beatdown—just Price lifting a vest already fitted with patches and settling it over Riley’s shoulders.

“Proud to have you aboard the bus,” Price said.

Riley couldn’t stop grinning. “Honored to be a patch in this fine establishment.”

Price sat back against the edge of his desk, arms crossed, and looked me over again. “You look out of place, Squirt.”

He’d started calling me that right after Thanksgiving—Little Squirt, at first, then just Squirt every time since—and there was something about the club’s president giving me a nickname that had made me feel like I belonged somewhere. Which was exactly why the out-of-place comment landed the way it did.

I lifted my chin. “Excuse me?”

“Out of place. Like you don’t belong here.”

I didn’t have an answer ready. He had a way of looking at you that made your palms sweat.

“I don’t feel out of place,” I said. “I feel like I’m exactly where I belong.”

He pushed his hair back again, eyes narrowing. “Do you.”

I glanced at Riley, hoping for backup. He was watching this happen with something close to a smirk, offering none.

“I do,” I said.

“Panzer says you’re good people.” Price studied me. “That true?”

I didn’t much like calling myself good, standing in front of an outlaw club president. “I don’t know that I’d say good. I’m not bad, either. Somewhere in between.”

“Aren’t we all.” His eyes went to Riley for a second. “That kutte your old man’s wearing—it’s not his. It’s club property. He leaves the club, it stays here.”

I nodded, unsure what he wanted from me. “Okay.”

“Doesn’t touch the ground. Same as a flag. You treat it with respect.”

“As it should be,” I said.

Something close to a smirk crossed his face. “It’s never in anyone’s possession but the person it’s assigned to. No matter what.” He held my eyes. “Till death do us part, more or less.”

Most of what he’d just described, I’d already seen play out on Sons of Anarchy, which felt like an insane thing to think in that moment. I looked at Lackey, then Brisco, then back at Price. “Makes perfect sense.”

“You might be wondering why there’s no big production for your old man getting his patch. I’ll let you in on it—the vote already happened. There was a swearing-in. Secret handshakes, all of it.” He almost smiled, for real this time. “Things you’re not cleared to see.”