Page 49 of Asking for Trouble

Aaron: Don’t ignore me and leave me here with this boner! You’re responsible, you gotta give me somethin’ to tide me over.

Blue: *image*

I stareddown at the selfie Blue sent me in the mirror’a the ladies’ bathroom at Eugene’s Bar and wished like hell I was there with her and waitin’ at the side’a the highway for Pigeon to a takea leak on our way to our monthly check-in with our dealers in Vancouver.

But that was what you got when you were in charge’a the prospects.

Carson pushed outta the gas station with a bag’a Twizzlers, three’a them stuffed in his mouth.

“You get anythin’ for me?” I asked, brow raised.

He hesitated mid-step––it was always good to know I could be intimidatin’ when I set my mind to it––and then held out the bag’a red candy.

I snatched the entire thing from him and stuffed it into the back pocket’a my jeans before takin’ a rope for myself and chompin’ off the end. “Thanks, man.”

Carson scowled but didn’t refute my claim. He wasn’t exactly the most easygoin’ kid, but he went against the grain’a his nature to be cool with the brothers and his chores for the club. When he’d left football behind ’cause’a its association with his fuckwad father, he’d been set adrift, and if it wasn’t for Benny, King, and Cressida leadin’ him to the club, I wondered how dark he woulda gone down the rabbit hole’a his own mind.

It also drove him crazy that we hadn’t given him a nickname yet, even though the guys and I had all told him it had to come naturally. There was usually a story involved, some hilarious or fittin’ meanin’ that needed to spring to mind for it to stick.

It wasn’t somethin’ you wanted to rush.

Still, he was always the first prospect to volunteer for anythin’, which was why he was on this run with me. Pigeon was there ’cause it was his turn to ride out with me, and King had tagged along to keep me company lookin’ after the kids.

“You got that face on,” King noted as I chewed through the sweet rope. “You gettin’ through to Blue?”

Carson snorted. “Dude, you’re really askin’ when you can see the man’s got painted nails?”

I wiggled them at King. “She does a good fuckin’ job, thank you very much.”

King chuckled. “Yeah, ’cause you know so much about beauty.”

I ran a hand through the long top half’a my hair and batted my lashes at him. “True. Most’a my good looks are all natural, but I know more about it than you.”

“’Cause you got a crush on a beautician,” he quipped.

“Cosmetologist,” I corrected with a haughty sniff. “Don’t even know the fuckin’ lingo.”

King rolled his eyes. “Datin’ one and he thinks he knows everythin’.”

“Dude, you wrote poetry with Cressida for like…weeks. Don’t think you’re one to talk,” I argued as Pigeon finally came outta the station toward us.

“You think I still don’t write my woman poetry, you’re mad,” he countered. “You get a woman like Cress, you don’t take her for granted for a fuckin’day.”

Yeah, I thought, lookin’ back down at the selfie’a Blue, lush breasts pushed together in a white tank, full sleeve of blue inked tattoos on her left arm and the piercings in her nose and upper lip. She looked like somethin’ outta a fantasy novel or the pin-up posters I’d hoarded at foster homes as a kid.

Somethin’ way too fuckin’ good for the likes’a me, but what did I care?

I’d work to earn her and fight to keep her.

“Hey, man, you think Lion would know anythin’ about getting an uncontested divorce?” I asked as Pigeon swung a leg over his bike and settled.

“What do you know about uncontested divorce?” Pige asked on a snort.

“What Google told me, dipshit,” I shot back, shovin’ him to show I wasn’t actually angry.

“Yeah, or you could call White,” King suggested, mentioning the club’s lawyer. “He’d have a good answer for ya.”

I shot off a quick text to White and Lion askin’ them both about it, then put my phone away to ride out with the boys. It was a grey June mornin’, the type’a weather that made locals call it ‘Junuary’. The blue tinted glass’a Vancouver’s skyline came into view, spires reflectin’ the dark clouds, and it started to rain the second we swerved into the downtown Eastside and our first stop’a the day.