Page 8
Lynette
“I was driving home and I noticed this car almost right away,” Willa whispers, voice wavering. “It’s a dark car, totally nondescript, but isn’t that what they say people use, so that it doesn’t draw attention?”
It takes all my will not to drop the phone, and if it wasn’t for the beast of a man practically holding up my whole body with one hand, I might already have swayed to the side and fallen over.
“Are you sure?” I force my voice to be strong. I don’t want Willa to hear how scared I sound. I sure as hell can hear the fear on the other end of the line, as well as the watery sniffle.
“Yeah. I’ve been driving around, taking wrong turns, doing it for the past twenty minutes, and it’s still following.”
My mind goes immediately to her gas tank. “Please tell me you have fuel.”
“It was on fumes this morning, so I just filled up before work. Luckily.”
I know that’s not the slightest guarantee of safety, but at least she doesn’t have to stop or pull over. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to tell her. I’m always the one who has answers, and if I don’t have them, I find them, but right now, I’m completely at a loss.
“Hold on,” I yelp, pushing the phone against my shoulder. “Hamish?”
The tall lanky guy called Smoke pops his head around the corner of the kitchen like he’s been out there this whole time , lingering and listening. “Hamish?” he asks incredulously, a broad smile spreading over his face. “Oh my god! No wonder you didn’t want to tell me.”
Though I’ve just outed him, Hamish doesn’t even turn around. He’s fixated entirely on me, as though the rest of the world doesn’t even exist. “What’s happening?”
“Willa’s driving home. She thinks someone’s following her. I’m not sure if she was at work or at a friend’s, or where she left, but she says she’s certain. I don’t know what to do.”
“Can I talk to her?”
“What?” I want to rear away and keep the phone well out of his reach, but when he holds out his palm, his other hand still pressed tight to my back, I pass it over without further hesitation.
“Willa? It’s Bullet.”
In this place, right in this moment, the name actually doesn’t sound so absurd. With the dead calm to his tone that somehow promises both that everything will be just fine and total retribution, it suits him. He’s every inch the badass, capable biker who would tear someone apart with his bare hands if they hurt his own.
Holy fuck, do I want to belong to that category?
I can’t explain it. The only logic in it is that I know he’ll save Willa if I ask him to. He’ll protect both of us. I’ve never been more afraid than I am right now.
“I want you to keep driving. Is your phone plugged in? Good. That’s good. Keep it that way so it doesn’t die. Program Hart, Washington into your GPS and head in that direction. We’ll leave from here and meet you as soon as we can. You’ll hear us coming. A group of bikers is hard to miss.” He pauses, frowning deeply. “Even if it’s all for nothing, you know the saying about being safe rather than sorry. A what?” Even if I was across the room, his disbelief would be obvious. “A boomer saying? Are you serious right now?”
I nearly laugh despite myself. That’s so classic Willa. I admire my sister’s courage. She’s always been able to find joy in the darkest moments. When I’m afraid, I go quiet. I try to research the shit out a situation in order to quell my anxiety. Willa just squares right up to life and hits it head on.
“When we ride out, the bike will be too loud to hear you properly, so I’ll give you back over to your sister, but whatever you do, don’t hang up. Everything will be fine, I promise.” He’s so calm and assured that I want to believe it. “What if what? They start shooting at you? They won’t do that. They’ve probably just been sent to scare you. We’re moving. Now .”
He passes the phone back to me. I ram it up against my ear, following him as he races out of the kitchen. It shouldn’t be possible for a human of his size to move that fast, but he does, and it blows my mind.
“Linny?” Willa pants, falling back on the nickname I hate so much.
I don’t correct her. “Yes, sweetheart?”
“Bullet says they won’t start shooting, but what if they do? What if they try to drive me off the road?”
We’re back in the lounge and there’s a hurricane of movement. There are suddenly men everywhere, and not just Tyrant and Raiden, who I already met, or the younger man who showed me inside when I got here. I don’t know where Bullet is pulling them from. Back rooms? The compound? Guard duty in other parts of the building?
“Most of the guys are at Patterson’s. We can pick up anyone who’s safe to ride on the way out. I’ll call over,” Tyrant says, and it’s easy to see why he’s their president.
He’s young to be running a place like this, but he’s got the authority of a natural born leader. He’s a huge man, muscular and tall, as all the men in here seem to be. Is it a requirement to be a biker that you be above six feet and weigh at least two hundred pounds?
“Linny?”
“Sorry, Willa, we’re just getting organized here. We’re leaving right away. I don’t know how many bikers are coming, but I think more than a few. We’ll be okay.”
She blows out a breath into the phone, but it sounds more shaky than sassy. “You know we’ll owe them now, don’t you?”
Bullet turns to me and gives a quick nod from across the room. There’s something reassuring in his manner, in the way he and his club brothers spur into action. He then turns and heads to the door I follow, trailing the herd of fearsome leather-clad men outside into the dark night. I’m unsure why I’m even calling him Bullet now—if only in my head—but somehow, it feels right.
I was so sure I could keep myself separated from this, keep this professional from start to finish, but now that’s become impossible. Maybe it’s seeing all the men rush to their bikes lined up in neat rows in their paved compound with the chain-link fencing and barbed wire surrounding it, looking hell-bent on perpetrating some very real violence that solidifies in my brain that Bullet is Bullet.
As someone who deals with the law day in and day out, with a very real passion for it, seeing Bullet look like he’s joining a pack of wolves on a hunt shouldn’t excite me the way it does, but my heart isn’t just racing because of the danger.
I slip behind the wheel of my car, and my phone instantly connects to the speakers after I start it.
“Lynette? Are you there?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.” Bikes roar to life all around me, the rumble so thunderous that the windows on the car rattle. “Do you hear that?”
“I hear it.”
“Where are you?”
“Still trying to get out of the city. You know what it’s like, even at this hour.”
“Is the car still behind you?”
“Yes.”
I drive through the compound since I was parked closest to the exit, then pull over and wait for the line of bikes to pass through. Tyrant, Raiden, Bullet, and three other men follow, Smoke at the rear. They all have their leather jackets on with their club logo, a granite angel with wings spread and head bowed, on the back. Some have closed helmets, while others wear ones without face shields. It’s nearly September and the nights have cooled. I don’t know how they stand the rushing wind and the chill.
Bullet stops and motions for me to roll down my window.
“Where are you going?” he says.
I give him a puzzled look, “With you.”
“The hell you are! You don’t know what you could be getting into, you need to stay at the clubhouse,” he growls back.
“The hell I am!” I retort. “That’s my sister in danger, I have to be there.”
For a moment it looks like he’s about to start arguing, but then he shrugs. “Okay, but keep back, let us take the lead.”
I guess that’s sensible. I nod and roll up my window, then once they’ve all pulled out of the compound I follow at what I hope is a safe distance.
I say to Willa, “There’s a biker bar on the outskirts of town. I guess we’re going to drive past it, and some other men will join the ride, but there are six already.”
“With guns?”
“Christ. I don’t know. I hope not.”
“We’ll just get to see some good old-fashioned beatings, then. Good. I hope whoever is back there in that car catches one. Maybe that would send a message to that judge.”
“That judge?”
“He’s the one who sent them, isn’t he?”
That thought never crossed my mind. “I-I don’t think so. He doesn’t have to. I’ve already been fired and probably blacklisted from ever getting another job. He doesn’t have to risk himself by doing something like this. It’s the club’s lawyer. Bullet thinks he’s responsible for burning down his gun range here in Hart.”
“What?” Willa screeches. “What the fuck?”
“I didn’t know about it until right before you called me. I had no idea how deep into this I was going to get us.”
“I’m sorry. I never would have asked you to take that job if I knew it was going to lead to this.”
It scares me, hearing the tears in Willa’s voice. She’s sensitive, but she hides it well behind layers of confidence and bravado. She’s outgoing, but some of her tough cheerfulness is a shield against getting hurt again. She was so young when our mom died. No matter how safe I kept her or how well I looked after her, having your parent murdered does something to your brain.
“You’re all fight when it comes down to it. You’re never flight.”
“You’ve told me a million times that’s a bad thing.” At least she laughs.
“I know I have, but not this time.”
Hart is what anyone would probably call a sleepy little city. It’s one of those storybook places where everyone has a nicely manicured yard, and every house, from large to small, is well kept.
We pass street after street, roll through an industrial area—and even that is fairly pretty at night, all lit up—and finally make our way to the edge of town. I do recognize the sprawling diner from when I drove in. It’s fairly non-descript, a family looking place from the outside, with huge red letters, all of them lit up except for the R, mounted to the roof that give it an old-fashioned feel. We don’t stop, but several minutes after we pass by, the road fairly shakes beneath me, the low roar pulsing through the car, from the tires up into the metal like an earthquake happening deep underground, sending up shockwaves.
I drop back, allowing them to pass me on the dark stretch of road to join up with the other men.
“I don’t know how many more just joined,” I tell Willa. “I think I see eight, but there might be more coming.”
“Oh my god! Are they going to grab these guys and torture them for information?”
“We both know that would be inadmissible in court.”
“Not in the court of life,” she snorts.
It makes my hands a little less white knuckle on the wheel to hear the snark come back into her tone.
“Oh my god! They’re dropping off!” Willa’s scream rattles through the speakers, distorting both because I have the volume cranked and because she’s just that loud.
“What do you mean?”
“They just turned off.”
“Just like that? They aren’t circling around to get in front of you?”
“Jesus god,” she yelps. “I hope not.”
“Don’t hang up. Keep heading where Bullet told you to head.”
“I’m not going to stop, Linny, believe me. I want to live to see tomorrow.”
My heart goes berserk at that, and my whole body breaks into a clammy sweat that causes my silk blouse to stick to my chest. “We’ll be okay. I’ve got this.”
“You mean, they do.”
“The club. Yes. That’s what I mean.” It should kill me to admit it, but maybe I’m too far gone to care. Maybe I truly did give up all my morals a few years ago, when I thought I’d just checked them or put them on reserve, in order to take the cases I did.
Even guilty people need lawyers. If I lost every case or refused to take any, I wouldn’t have been working as a criminal lawyer anywhere. The odds of getting an innocent client were slim to none in criminal law. I knew that before I started, and I still picked it. If I was worried about being a good girl and my principles, I should have gone into a different area of law. Honestly, though, I can’t think of a single area where I wouldn’t have had to mute out what I believed was right in order to do my job.
“Because you’re going to work for them?”
“I think they would have helped regardless. This is an issue with Harold and his son and they’re trying to scare us.” I don’t want to use any word worse than scare. I might stroke out and crash this car if I allow myself to go there. “I’ll fix this. I don’t have to take the club job if you don’t want me to. We can sell the house and move somewhere else. I’ll pass the bar there and get a job. You can go to college in a different state. We’ll make it work, and we’ll be safe.”
The line is quiet for an unnaturally long amount of time. Willa usually just blurts out whatever she’s thinking, even if it’s nonsensical. Because she does that and it’s her first instinct, she often changes her mind later. That silence says she’s thinking about how to respond.
“I don’t want to leave,” Willa finally whispers. “This is our home. Are we going to allow some thugs to determine where and how we live?”
“It could be dangerous. Someone following you and burning down a building is no joke.”
“Maybe this asshat has used up all his scare tactics.”
“Are you sure they’re not following you anymore?”
There’s a moment of silence. “I’m sure,” she breathes, relief crackling in her wavering sigh. “They probably got notice that a whole armada of pissed off, scary bikers were coming for them.”
I suddenly get a really bad feeling about this. “How would they know? They’d have to have someone watching either the clubhouse or the road.”
“You said that jerk lived in Hart. If he can pay someone to freaking stalk me and burn things, then he’d probably have spies everywhere.”
I’m starting to feel like I’m in an action movie, and I do not like it. I’m not saying my life was perfect before. I don’t really even have any notion of what true happiness feels like. I probably worked too much and stressed too much, but at least there was some sort of safety to be found in routine.
“You should just date Bullet and work for the club. You’ll have their protection, and then you can get them to burn Harold’s house down as payback.”
Date Bullet? Where the hell did that come from? Ignoring what my sister just said, I say, “You have to beat these people at their own game. There is no getting even with thugs. There’s always going to be more, uh, more…”
“Thuggery?”
My lips twitch. “I guess so.” I have to tell Willa about Bullet’s offer. Now that this is our reality, I don’t know what else I can do. “Bullet offered protection. Even as his personal lawyer, I think the club would still offer their resources. I don’t have to work for them, and I certainly don’t have to date him.”
“Why don’t you, though? He’s hot.”
I have a list of reasons prepared, but in light of this past week, my reasons don’t feel so legit anymore. The fact that if I was dating a known criminal, I could get fired. That’s already been covered. The whole morals thing. I’d bend my principles pretty damn far if I had to in order to protect my sister. The fact that Bullet and his friends are criminal thugs, and nothing good could ever come from that association. As Bullet planned, after meeting them, I had to admit that the ones I met seemed nice, but seeing them mobilize like this, in a matter of minutes, to protect Willa like she’s one of their own? To call them bad men and at the same time have begged for their help is the worst kind of hypocrisy. It would make me a total asshole.
“I like being single,” I protest, but the words sound lame, even to me.
“Well… okay, but I think we might need to consider their offer.”
“It would mean moving to Hart. Bullet said they have a house we could stay in.” I don’t want to add that he said we could rent our house in Seattle out. I’m not planning on being gone that long. “It would mean switching colleges and you haven’t even started yet.”
“That’s the good part, then, isn’t it?”
“I’d still like you to go,” I press, but less firmly than before. There’s a question there, but Willa doesn’t jump all over it.
“I’ll go. It doesn’t matter where. I was only going to go into arts, and I’m sure no one goes into that because you can’t use it for anything, so anyone will have spots open.”
“You can use those classes as electives for almost anything later,” I huff. “You could even go to law school after. You just have to have a degree before you go.”
“And be a lawyer, like you?”
The cutting edge in her tone bites deep into my usually thick skin. “Would that be so bad?”
There’s a short pause, then a soft laugh. “Yes. But only because I couldn’t imagine myself having the discipline or the mind for it. You’re a whole different kind of smart. It’s freaking fascinating to me how your mind works. I can’t keep a single thing in my brain. I’d be the worst last line of defense ever.”
Despite the tension that hasn’t dissipated from my body yet, I find myself laughing too. I don’t know that those creeps aren’t still watching my sister, or lying in wait. I’ll feel better the second we reach her.
“I’m super sad they’re gone,” she says, pretty much reading my mind, but taking it to a darker place. “Now the club can’t catch them and torture the hell out of them until they talk.”
“I think we all know who sent them, and we already established that’s not an acceptable way to go about getting information, legally or morally.”
“I thought we established it would be fun.”
“They’re human beings. They might have made wrong choices, but they don’t deserve to be physically harmed.”
“What if they’d physically harmed me?”
I pretty much straight up lose my mind at the thought. “I would kill them.”
“Whoa. That’s dark.”
I mean it on the basest, most brutal, darkest level. “Nothing is too dark for you. I’d do anything to keep you safe.”
“Okay… well… Bullet’s place it is, then? At least until the evil ex-lawyer creepy dude with a penchant for arson is sorted out?”
“I-I don’t know.” That’s the honest truth. Me, who usually has it all together, I’m at a loss.
“Why don’t you hook up with him? He’s a hottie and he’s a baddie. That’s a great combo. Even if it’s just some casual sex, you could use getting laid.”
“Oh my god! Haven’t you ever heard that you shouldn’t shit where you eat?”
“That’s so unsanitary!” Her laughter pours over the speakers. It’s a throaty, almost masculine sound. When my sister laughs, she laughs hard , and usually to the point of tears. There’s no better sound in the world. It makes me feel like a billion fucking dollars that I brought it out of her. I haven’t succeeded in a while.
“Seriously, though, why not? He’s age appropriate, he has a job, I guess, or at least he did. He owned the range. That’s something. He’s mature, and we know he’s enough of a gentleman to fight for a lady’s honor at a nightclub, even though it’s led to all this trouble, and to offer to do what he could to get us out of it. That proves he can take responsibility. He’s hot too. That doesn’t hurt.”
Thinking about leaving my house and my whole carefully constructed life behind sends a bolt of sheer panic straight to my already overwrought heart. My hopes of becoming a partner at a respected firm one day have been dashed, so there’s the heartbreak and disappointment from that. The worry, the guilt, the uncertainty, the usual pain that’s always hovering just in the background, the bitter tang of loneliness, it’s all there.
“You went quiet. What are you thinking?”
“That I’m a wreck.”
Willa’s sharp bark of laughter crackles this time. “I’ve rarely ever heard you say that. I know it’s got to be true, but you always get it together.” Her tone drops, getting serious. “I know you do that for me, and I can’t imagine what a burden that is. Not me, but having to keep all the bad stuff inside and having no one to rely on but yourself. I’ve always had plenty of friends. I had mom and you, and then I had you. It sucked, losing her, but you made sure I was okay. You’re the only reason I had a childhood at all. You’re the rock I’ve always clung to through all the shitty storms.”
My eyes blur and the tears dribble down my cheeks when I blink to try to focus. “I have to see the road to be able to drive, you know. Don’t kill me with kindness now.”
She ignores me. “You deserve to be happy.” I can’t remember a time I’ve ever heard her sound more serious or melancholy. “Whatever that looks like. You might surprise yourself and find that biker D is it.”
I actually fucking choke on nothing. “I hope you mean vitamin D,” I wheeze.
“Yes.” She giggles. “Vitamin dick. That’s correct. You could use a big heaping dose.”
“Willa!”
“Okay, okay. But you could use some friends. Everyone could use more, but in your case, more means some. I know you haven’t been able to have a social life because you were raising me and going to college, working your freaking ass off, and then going so hard at being the best lawyer ever, but now that all of that is on pause, maybe you can just have some fun. You deserve it.”
“I don’t think there’s anything fun about this situation. It seems like it’s already very dangerous and it might escalate.” Damn it, I told myself I wasn’t going to scare her.
She’s on a roll of ignoring all my protests, painting us this fantasy life, so she barely hears me anyway. “I bet there are tons of badass women at the club. Biker ladies.”
“I think it’s a boys’ only deal from what I understand.”
“What do they call their wives and girlfriends?”
“Wives and girlfriends.”
“No, they don’t!”
“Fine. Old ladies. That’s how I was introduced to the women tonight. I only met two of them. It’s such a horrible term. Old lady.”
“Nah. I kind of like it. The one thing a woman hates is being called old, so it’s kind of like reclaiming your power. It’s probably some biker sign of respect. But anyway. I bet they’re awesome. You could make friends with them, if big sweaty, dreamy, muscular men aren’t your style. They should be, though. They should be everyone’s style. I bet they’d do dirty things in bed.”
“Why are you using the plural term?” I try not to sound like a prim matron, and fail horribly.
She gives me an evil cackle. “I’ve been reading tons of ‘why choose’ romance, that’s why. It’s great.”
“What the hell is ‘why choose’?”
“You know. You like all these men, so why choose? Some of them are into the girl, and some of them are into the girl and each other. It’s so hot.”
People can do as they please. Truly. But the thought of taking even one man into my bed is so intimidating that I get a cold chill.
And a whole lot of hot buzzing between my legs. A face swims into my brain, okay, a big beast of a body too. I slam my thighs together as much as possible while I’m driving, and feel my panties mold to me because they’re so wet.
“You know I’m not really being serious, right? I am, but I’m not. About the friends, yes. About the bikers being hot and dangerous, yes. About you boning one, that’s totally up to you. But if you wanted to, I think that would be okay. I also think you need to have someone tell you that. It’s okay to want what you want, even though you never thought you’d want it. It’s okay to want at all. It’s okay to make some time for yourself.”
My lights land on a sign that announces a rest stop coming up in five miles. “The guys in front of me don’t know that there isn’t some madman chasing you around anymore. There’s a rest stop coming up. I’m going to flash my lights at them and pull over there. Hopefully they get the message. I think it has exits from both directions. If I describe it to you, do you think you could find it and pull over there if we waited?”
“Describe it?” she asks incredulously. “Just send me a pin!”
Right. Technology is a marvelous thing. “I will. Stay on the line though, okay?”
“Okay.”
I flash my headlights and sure enough, when the exit for the rest stop comes up, the first of the bikes veer off. The rest follow. It’s like watching a great big storm cloud move together, or maybe a herd of black and chrome wild horses.
Why do bikers call their bikes hogs and not stallions?
I bite down on the inside of my cheek so I don’t laugh and also clench my thighs even harder together, because it’s not a bike that I’d like to be riding right now, but the term stallion might still apply.
What is wrong with me? It’s been way too long a day if my brain is stringing that together.
One by one, the bikers line their bikes up beside each other. Tyrant was in the lead, probably because he’s the president, though I don’t know much about how biker politics work. Maybe their leader doesn’t head the pack usually. There’s nothing usual about this, though. At least, I seriously fucking hope that people associated with the club don’t get followed, harassed, intimidated, and threatened on the daily.
I pull in last, and by the time I get there, Bullet is already walking over to my car. I roll down the window, and a chill races up my spine when he folds that great big barrel chest to bend down so he’s eye level with me. I definitely blame the goosebumps that break out all over my arms on the wind.
His eyes crash into me, focused and almost unnerving. His hair is mussed from his helmet, though he must have left it with his bike. His eyes appear far darker at night, like two glowing black coals. His hot breath nearly fans over my cheek. “Is this where you told Willa to meet us?”
I’ve been so paralyzed just sitting here staring at him like I’m the creepy stalker, but I snap out of that real fast. They don’t know that the threat has gone away.
“They stopped following her miles ago, when she was still in the city. Probably ten minutes after we passed that diner on the edge of town. I’m so sorry, I didn’t know how to tell you and there wasn’t anywhere to pull over until—”
“That’s good,” he says, his great voice booming through the night. There’s an echo, even when there shouldn’t be. “I mean, we can’t nail those guys now, but I’m glad they left her alone as soon as they found out we were on our way.”
I rake my eyes over his face even though I shouldn’t, and my thoughts tumble into nonsensical territory. Is that what happens when your sister tells you that you need to get laid and gives you the stamp of approval that you seriously did not need?
Which reminds me, Willa is still on the line.
I promised I’d drop a pin, and instead I’m sitting here like a total teenager with a crush on the first bad boy she’s ever seen. I quickly do the pin thing, even though I have to look up how to actually send it. Thank god for other people’s screenshots and the internet.
“Got the pin,” Willa says. “I’m fifteen minutes away.” She’s quiet for a little bit, but she can’t hold out forever. “Bullet? I’m sorry about the false alarm.”
“Don’t be sorry. Nothing to apologize for. We’re glad you’re okay. We’ll get this all figured out eventually. As soon as Tyrant and Raiden get back to the club, they’re calling church. It’s for officers only, and still might be early enough that half of them aren’t drunk at Patterson’s and can sit through it and actually remember what they’re hearing.”
“Are you going to that meeting?” I ask, my eyes flashing to the front of his leather jacket.
I think I read in the police file that he’s not an officer, but really, how the hell would they even know that? There are plenty of patches there, but none like the ones I noticed Tyrant and Raiden had on their jackets that denoted their rank.
“No. That makes me free to come stay the night at your house and keep watch, and to help you pack up and get to Hart tomorrow morning.”
I want to argue. I truly, truly do, but the fight has all gone out of me.
Then there’s the fact that Willa is hearing all of this. “Yes!” she yells. “Yes, please do that. Linny would love it if you did that. She likes big beefy, macho men around to keep her safe. And you know, I’d appreciate it too.”
Bullet’s lips twitch, but he has the good grace not to goad me with a full-on grin. His eyes sparkle. I’m sure it’s not the headlights.
“Is that decided, then? Are you coming to Hart? I’m not trying to pressure you. Just need to know what to tell my prez so the club can get the house arranged and ready for you.”
“Are there any hot, single bikers at the club who are closer to my age?” Willa asks. “My sister has designs on you already and she won’t let me meet any zaddies.”
I want to bare my teeth like an angry mother bear and sink down into the seat in complete mortification all at the same time.
Bullet, thankfully, takes the opportunity to shove his hands in his pockets and walk away from the car, whistling to tune anything else out.
“Bullet?” Willa asks.
“He’s gone,” I sigh. “It was the talk of zaddies that drove him off.”
“Lies. It was the foul, obscenely scary looks you no doubt gave him. When you get protective, you look like an alien is about to burst out of your chest.”
“Oh my god.” I rest my head against the seat. “I do not.”
“Five minutes.” Willa’s good at changing the subject. “You better get ready to give me the hugest hug ever. I really need that right now.”
“I’m ready. I need it too.”
Bullet rejoins the other men, talking to them in a tight huddle. I stay in my car, never feeling more like an outsider, or so curiously safe.
When the sweep of her headlights on Willa’s signature bubblegum-pink station wagon pull off the freeway and turn into the rest stop, I’ve so relieved that it takes everything I have not to break down into a sobbing mess. Her headlights bounce off the stretch of land beyond and flash off the two blue porta-potty bathrooms. The stop was made for tired people to take a break. It’s not scenic in the least.
Willa’s door whips open at the same time as mine. She runs, launching herself at me, hitting me so hard that she nearly winds me. She braces me with her arms locked around my back, her head immediately hitting my shoulder. I’m so much taller than her, and slimmer. She’s the athletic one, and her firm hold keeps me from stumbling in my heels.
“I see why you wouldn’t be a hard person to follow.” Bullet’s rumbling tone is laced with humor.
“When I saw it, I had to have it.” She pulls away, beaming.
Willa’s resilient like that. She’s always come through the worst shit, able to smile so readily after. She’s not like me. She doesn’t have the memory of an elephant and the temper of a lion.
The bright pink car seems to complement her vintage floral blouse and the wild bellbottoms she’s wearing. She loves vintage, but she goes all out for her shifts. It’s her uniform, of sorts.
“It wasn’t even for sale. We were just driving by, and I saw it. I made Lynette go knock on their door and offer to buy it. I’d just gotten my license, and we were looking. It’s not fancy and it’s not new, but it’s been well maintained.”
“At least it’s an import,” Bullet snorts.
“With a custom paint job that is no less exciting than your bikes,” Willa fires back. “To me, at any rate.”
“That’s right. To each their own,” Bullet agrees easily.
The pink car talk has bled the tension right out of me. I don’t know if that was intentional on his part or not, but I do notice the way his eyes keep flicking back to me, as if to check that I’m not going to fall over.
“Are you really going to come spend the night with us for real? We only have two bedrooms, but I’m sure Lynette would feel so much safer with you close by.”
“Willa!” I hiss in her ear, grabbing her hand and pressing my thumb into her palm, not hard, but as a warning.
“Yes, I’ll be staying. The couch will be more than fine. It’s not like I’ll be sleeping.”
“The couch sucks.” Willa tugs away and shoots me her most innocent expression. “The house is tiny. It’s an apartment-sized sectional. You probably shouldn’t sit on it. It would likely break.” She whispers under her breath, right in my ear as she passes by me, already walking back to her car, “I think you’d enjoy it if he broke other things.”
While Willa gets behind the wheel and waits, and while I climb back into my car and finally hang up my phone, the bikers start peeling off, heading in a group down the opposite side of the road, back to Hart. I watch Willa’s face as they pull out, slightly exasperated at the look of awe, wonder, and no small amount of thrill at the thunderous bikes and the leather-clad beasts who race off on them like demons driving their dark chariots into the black night.
I know my face must have looked pretty much the same when I pulled out of the compound, but unlike my sister, I’m not going to spend the next few weeks while we are basically in hiding slash captivity, flirting with outlaws. I’ll admit that they might be okay after all, but that doesn’t mean I want my sister getting attached to one.
And I certainly don’t want Bullet to break other things .
Not my will, not my mind, and certainly not my body.
I might have changed my mind about the club and the men in it based on their willingness to go to bat for us tonight without even knowing us. That’s a damn generous thing to do, and I know it was done without asking for anything in return. That doesn’t mean that I’m going to allow anything Willa said to me about having fun and getting laid to creep into my mind and take root.
This has to be a professional transaction in every way.
I turn it into a mantra that I repeat while locked firmly between Willa and Bullet, all the way back to the city.