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“I lost the exhaust pipe once. That’s hardly disintegrating. I still strongly suspect it had something to do with your dirty mitts.”

Hot Shot clucked his tongue with a condescending pout that would earn him a black eye if he didn’t get out of arm’s reach fast enough.

“Guess we’ll never know since you can’t prove it.”

“Would you two quit your foreplay before I lose my lunch?” I cut in. “Hot Shot, Morgan, go grab a cold beer. You deserveit after the incredible work you’ve done. Bill me for the repairs later.”

“It’s on the house, Prez,” Hot Shot said. “Just glad to see you’re still alive and kicking.”

Morgan hung back though, adjusting her glasses on the bridge of her nose.

“Is that dipshit Spike inside?”

Her tone suggested she wasn’t thrilled at the idea of running into him.

“Last I checked, he was…entertaining some ladies,” I hedged, to put it politely.

It was one thing to act like heathen rabble in the club. But Morgan wasn’t a bunny, wasn’t family, and she wasn’t an Old Lady to any of my brothers. She was a civilian, plain and simple, working as a mechanic at Hot Shot’s garage. And civilians bristled at club life sometimes.

“Morgan stopped by the clubhouse a few months ago for a bite to eat,” Hot Shot put in with a hint of mirth in his voice. “Spike extended an invitation that she felt was…less than savory.”

“My grandmother is still rolling in her grave at the things he said,” Morgan muttered. “I’ll take a rain check on that beer, if you don’t mind, Mr. Gibson. I’d rather head back to the garage and finish up my work for the day.”

I waved her off to indicate no hard feelings. After Morgan returned to the tow truck, and Hot Shot disappeared into the clubhouse, Blackbeard and I were left alone in the parking lot. I climbed onto my bike, testing my grip on the handlebars. Now that a few days had passed since my stay in the hospital, I was less stiff and sore, but my range of motion wasn’t back to full capacity yet.

“Thought you should know that Baby Doll assigned Crash to clean the kitchen,” Blackbeard said. “Seems like she’s having fun ordering him around.”

I released a long, heavy breath. Why couldn’t this business with Crash and the Blackjacks wait until after Hattie’s trial?

“She has fun ordering all of us around,” I pointed out.

Blackbeard shrugged, tilting his head in agreement as if to say,can’t argue with that.

“We’re not taking him,” I added, knowing where this conversation was headed already.

I kept my gaze focused on my bike, testing to ensure that everything worked. Hot Shot and his mechanics would have already looked it over, probably more than once. But I needed the familiarity of my bike to ground me. I needed to feel the tight squeeze of the clutch, the rumbling purr of the engine as it kicked over and growled to life.

Blackbeard might be a sarcastic shit, but he could spot a sensitive subject from a mile away. He locked in like a homing missile.

“Well, it seems like he’s willing to learn. We could use a youngster to scrub the toilets and fetch beer. Since Hot Shot isn’t a Prospect anymore, I can’t bully him as much as I used to and I’m getting bored.”

“Sounds to me like you were bullying him just fine a minute ago.”

“That’s different,” he protested. “It gets tricky when Hot Shot fights back. I liked it better when all he could do was grind his teeth, and mumbleyes, sir. If you ask me, he learned how to mouth off too quickly when he got his big boy patch and officially became a brother.”

“You could try not baiting him,” I countered.

“Don’t spoil my fun, boss.”

I said nothing, examining the stitching on my seat.

“Why don’t we give Crash a trial run?” Blackbeard offered, never losing sight of the reason he brought up this subject in the first place. “If he wipes out, no harm, no foul.”

“I said no,” I repeated.

A beat of silence hung in the air.

“Is it because he looks like you?” Blackbeard said.