Page 29 of Preacher Man

Fuck you, Dwayne.

“I’m not sending money. My offer is there. Please consider it. We can make things better, but you have to meet me halfway, please for-----”

Her sister wasn’t about waiting when she couldn’t get her own way, and she interrupted again. “I have to go. Please, we need it, Rube. You don’t want us kicked out do you?” It was as though Ruby hadn’t even spoken. She sighed hearing their call disconnect.

The call lasted less than five minutes and Ruby was sick with it and mad at the same time. When would her sister grow up? She was in permanent Peter Pan syndrome, and that just didn’t work for life.

One of the crappiest soul-destroying things had happened to Ruby last year and any normal sister would have turned their sibling for help. Ruby hadn’t confided in anyone, Rita would have just told her to get over it. Real compassionate. Instead, she’d gone home, locked herself in her apartment for three days, licked her wounds, mentally rallied herself and re-joined life because bills had needed paying and she wasn’t letting one insane psychopath ruin her existence. Evil shit happened to people who didn't deserve it.

She’d chosen to dust herself down persist rather than flounder in self-pity.

She would respect Rita a hell of a lot more if she’d only dust herself once in a while.

No-one was perfect, it was how you dealt with problems that warranted what kind of character you had. Sink or swim, Ruby had her arm bands on.

Guilt troubled her. Would Rita get kicked out for real if she didn’t have more money? She was sure it was drugs money, Rita never thought logically about the things that mattered, rather than her recreational habits became a priority.

Her life was one giant clusterfuck of crazy, she was the epicenter, and no matter what she did to outrun her own personally designed hurricane there it was sweeping her off to Oz.

It was tiring, fucking annoying.

And she didn’t know how to avoid it or the guilt factor of one in the name of Rita. She pressed Ruby’s buttons.

With no plan B, she was barely skating by on plan A and that had gone on for months now. She’d be lucky to eat this month, as it was she was sneaking food at work, and that would get her fired if Otis found out.

Love was a bitch because it shackled you as hard as steel cuffs, leaving you gasping and hollow for any connection. Caught in that family self-condemnation simply because of the blood tie The love in her family was one-way traffic, nothing came back her way, it was depressing, hurtful, just once she wanted to be someone’s priority, fucking ached for it sometimes. She wanted to not be the person who had all the answers to everything, exhausting.

She should tell Rita no and mean it.

And yet still, she agonized about it all day while she applied for jobs, smiled at prospective bosses as she handed over resumes and informed them as articulately spoken as she could just how hardworking she was and so looking forward to working for them, god in heaven, all the fake smiling for jobs she absolutely was not looking forward to having, her cheek muscles hurt, she even dropped off a resume at the gross Tiki bar across town where the waitresses wore panties, a bralette, and a bowtie.Ugh. she really hoped she didn’t get considered for it, talk about losing what little pride she had left. Shaking her ass in public for grubby pawing hands to grab, she might as well be swinging on a pole for more bucks.

By the end of the day Ruby knew several things;

She was fucking exhausted and her feet hurt.

Pole dancing was now on her job prospects list.

God still wasn’t picking up his phone.

And she was going to that Renegade Souls party.

And getting laid.

Preacher man didn’t know just what kind of frustration she was about to abuse on his massive body.

CHAPTER TEN

“I’m just saying. If Preacher eye-fucked her any harder we all would have been knocked up.” - Snake.

“Mujeresare just like motorcycles.” Announced Capone. His coarse native Puerto Rican accent only enriched to a warmer timber when he was amused, about to educate everyone on the similarities between women and machines. Guffaws followed so that even Preacher twisted his neck away from his work to eyeball his brother. “Go ahead, smartass. This I have to hear.”

It was a normal day and he was glad of that. He needed the normal and the average of his club, for months he’d had days when he couldn’t wait to get back here, away from the animosity and disruption of trying to drag another chapter out of the shitter it had gotten itself into, that had been a task in itself, but when he’d left Nebraska he felt he could deliver good news to Rider. Not that he minded pitching in, as road captain he planned the trips religiously tight when it was time to ride, usually it was not months on end like the Nebraska trip had been, add in the fucking face-to-face hate from Red Light most days, it hadn’t been a pleasant vacation at all.

Good to be back with his club.

Even if one of his buddies was talking utter crap from his Spanish speaking tongue.

“Isn’t it obvious,hermanos?” Capone strutted in that big bastard kind of way of his. “She might grumble and sputter down the road, and give youmuchotrouble and expense until you're on your knees broke, but you shift her in just the right gear at the right time and she gives you the smoothest fucking ride that will blow your brains out.”