Page 12 of Asking for Trouble
“Don’t you have shit to do?” she asked, still twirlin’ my hair, still holdin’ me close like she wasn’t keen to let me outta her sight.
“Yeah.”
A tiny smile. “Are you going to do it?”
“Pretty comfortable as I am,” I noted, flexin’ my hips forward, smoothin’ my palm over her lush ass.
Her eyes danced, dark like the night sky filled with stars. “The sooner you get done, the sooner we can get back to kissing.”
I stepped away abruptly and hiked the straps of the duffels back into proper place on my shoulders, already walkin’ backwards away from her.
“In that case,” I called out as I put space between us. “I better hurry the fuck up.”
Her laughter followed me outta the lot, warmin’ my back as I turned down the street toward my destination. I waited ’round the corner just outta sight for her to reach the warm glow’a Bob’s Diner ’fore I headed out to Beaker’s place.
Beaker was one’amany cogs in the wheel’a The Fallen Men MC. He wasn’t a member, but we used guys like him as dealers and informants. They always had their ear to the ground ’cause they were down there in the gutters doin’ shit none’a the brothers would ever be caught dead doin’.
Case in point, I found the bastard inside his trailer in a pair of loose, stained briefs that belonged in a toxic waste pile and a dishwater-grey wife beater that hung off his skinny frame. He was bent over the stove where an array of glassware you’d find in a high school chemistry lab was bubblin’ away. An acrid odour filled the entire trailer with fumes that had stained the walls brown over time.
Beaker was—unsurprisingly, given his name—a big-time drug user and producer.
The club didn’t use him for any’a his own product. We didn’t deal in hard-core drugs that ruined lives like meth and heroin, but a lotta other criminals sure as fuck did.
That was why I was payin’ him a visit today.
“Yo,” I called to him ’cause he still hadn’t noticed me. My knuckles rapped hard against the open door ’fore I shut it behind me and dropped the duffels filled with stolen shit to the ground by a wobbly table. “Beaker.”
He twirled so fast, he upset his balance and crashed into the laminate counter across from the stove. A howl cut through the air as he rubbed hard at the sore spot on his hip. He leveled a glare at me ’fore he discerned exactly who I was.
Then he smiled real pretty.
Or as pretty as a meth head with half his teeth rotted out could smile.
I cocked a brow at him and watched that smile slip, then fall off his face like a mis-hung paintin’.
“B-Boner, man!” he crowed, lurchin’ forward to offer me his hand. When I didn’t take it––there was mysterious brown gunk caught beneath ragged fingernails and some kind of infection on a cut across his palm––he shifted from foot to foot and tried to grin again. “What brings ya to my humble abode?”
“You know why I’m here.”
He blinked rapidly.Click, click, clickof dry lids over bloodshot eyes. “Yeah, yeah, maybe Zeus mentioned somethin’ about it. Can’t seem to remember now.”
Normally, I was a patient man, but that night I had a pretty girl waitin’ for me in a diner a few blocks down the road, and I was already tired’a Beaker’s bullshit. So I took one step forward, right hand lashin’ out to grab him by the skinny neck.
He squawked, flailin’ dramatically even though the hold was a threat instead’a an attack.
“You know why I’m here,” I reiterated. “You’ve been dealin’ weed that doesn’t come from the club. You know our agreement, don’t ya, Beak? Or do you need me to remind you that the only green product you sell is Fallen product?”
Tremblin’ like a leaf, it was no surprise he bit his tongue in his haste to answer me. When he spoke, blood was smeared across what remained of his yellowed front teeth. “You know all I got is loyalty to the club, man! But some shit came into play, and I got no choice, you see?”
“There’s always a choice,” I murmured, pulsin’ my grip on his neck a little tighter. His hands flew to my hand, scramblin’ to lessen my hold. “You made the wrong one.”
“I-I’m fuckin’ sorry, man,” he croaked weakly. “What can I say? I’ll never do it again.”
“You’re damn right. But you know how we are about loyalty. It’s our way or the highway, huh? So you want me to leave here with a smile on my fuckin’ face and not your blood all over my hands, you start talkin’. Who the fuck approached you about dealin’ weed for them?”
Beaker’s eyes rolled in his head like loose marbles as he scrambled to decide who was the worse threat: the unknown supplier or the man holdin’ his neck in a vise-like grip.
“Name’s Rooster,” he finally gasped. “President of the White Raiders MC.”