Chapter Thirteen
Sadie
“Thank you for coming. Have a wonderful day!” I say with a cheery wave, seeing the pair of young, giggling women out the door. They roamed for an hour before buying three hundred dollars’ worth of plants. Now that they’re gone, I pull out my phone to re-read the two texts I’ve yet to reply to.
BOWIE
How’s mi princesa doing? Been thinking about you all day. When can I see you again? Let me make up for leaving early.
HARTLEY. JAMES HARTLEY.
I apologize if I overstepped last night. I just hate that you’re putting yourself in danger because I asked you to help me. That wasn’t my place to begin with. Your determination to help is admirable, but please consider stepping back from this plan. We’ll figure something else out.
Bowie’s text is easier to respond to. It’s exactly what I wanted, after all.
James’s feels out of left field. It’s not the apology or even the request to stop trying to date Bowie that threw me off.
Neither one of those things is new. It’s the fact that he texted me at all.
I’m always the first and last one to text.
I start the conversations and he ends them by not replying.
So, this unprompted message full of sincerity is a rock thrown in a previously still pond, setting off ripples in my chest I’d rather not study too closely.
I still haven’t responded by the time I’m pulling into June’s driveway several hours later.
There’s a giant man standing in front of the house and a bike parked at an angle near my car.
I frown, sure I recognize him but I’m unable to put a name to the face.
Before I can call June, the guy turns, showing me the words on his cut. Saints of Purgatory.
Feeling better, I climb out of my car and click my tongue for Soot to follow. He freezes upon seeing the stranger, and his short hair stands on end, a growl rumbling in his throat. He’s usually a baby, but he must sense the danger this man poses, because he makes no move to leave my side.
“Come on, buddy,” I say, taking what I hope are confident steps to the front door.
“Evening,” the man says with a soft, southern accent.
“Hi.” Soot gives the biker a wide berth and sprints into the house as soon as I open the front door. He follows his nose to the kitchen, where June is chopping vegetables for salad and a frozen pizza is doubtless cooking in the oven.
“Hey, buddy!” she greets, voice full of cheer.
I catch up with my doofus of a dog in time to see him shove his nose in her crotch. June gently pushes his snout away and rubs his ears to placate him.
“Ease up, Soot,” I say before hugging June. The muscles on her shoulders and arms feel harder. She’s always been in shape—you have to be if you want to take down and murder men twice your size—but since starting at James’s gym, she’s becoming even more of a badass.
“How was your day?” she asks.
“Fine. What’s up with the Terminator outside?”
She rolls her eyes, but there’s fondness in the motion. “Theo refuses to leave me alone these days.”
“The South Five?”
“Yeah. Now that I’m officially with Theo, it won’t be difficult to figure out who I am, if they haven’t already. Enough of them were there that day to recognize me. They won’t make a move against me outright, not knowing that I’m the president’s ol' lady, but Theo doesn’t want to take any chances.”
“I don’t blame him. So, you’re constantly shadowed by bikers now?”
“Yeah. If not Theo, then one of the others. Daryus has been following me all day. Benny should be here soon to relieve him.”
“Ooh, yay!” I clap. Benny is one of my favorite Saints. “Does he have to stand guard outside like a dog or can he come inside?”
“He’ll come in,” June says.
“Good. So…you really are in witness protection now.”
“Ha,” she fake laughs. “More like gang protection. If Theo had his way, I’d be locked in the clubhouse with constant guards from the entire club.”
“Are you scared?”
“Bowie is just another abusive guy. A different kind than I normally hunt but a monster all the same. I’m more scared for Theo.” She frowns, and I know what’s coming next before she says it. “And for you. Are you still committed to dating Bowie?”
“Yes.”
Her jaw tenses, but she doesn’t argue, which I appreciate. “How did it go last night?”
I realize I don’t want to talk about it, and it doesn’t take long to figure out why.
I haven’t talked to James yet. June is my best friend in the entire world, and yet it feels oddly like a betrayal to tell her about my fake date with Bowie before I’ve told James.
The reason why feels too big to consider, so I shove it in a box in my mind between the ripples from his text and the fact that I fantasized about him while kissing Bowie.
“It was better than I thought it’d be. He took me to the arcade.”
Her lips part in shock.
“Weird, right? We had fun, I guess.” I recount the evening with broad strokes without mentioning James ambushing me in the bathroom. At the end of the story, I falter, which is enough for June to pick up on the unsaid.
“Did he kiss you?”
I nod. “But we only kissed. He had to leave. Something about work.”
“Theo thinks they got a shipment of drugs last night.” I feel a glow of pride under my skin that she’s sharing these things with me.
She’s finally starting to trust me with the dark parts of her life.
“I haven’t heard details yet, but one of their decoy trucks was pulled over and searched by the DEA. ”
“Decoy trucks?”
“For instances just like this. The South Five are apparently great at setting false trails for the police to follow. But Bowie will still have a lot on his plate, because the cops obviously knew drugs were moving yesterday, just not specifics.”
“Did the Saints have anything to do with it?”
She shakes her head. “Doesn’t mean they won’t suspect us, though. If the Fivers have another enemy, or a mole, then that’ll either be really good for us or really bad. The Saints could be blamed for someone else’s dirty work.”
“There’s no way to prove it wasn’t the Saints?”
“I’m not sure. I think Theo and James are talking about it tonight, though. And I’m sure it’ll get brought up at church tomorrow.”
“I wish I could come to one of those,” I say, picking up the cheese grater to start adding parmesan on top of our salad.
“Shack up with one of the guys. Ol’ ladies are allowed to join.”
There’s no stopping the blush that fills my cheeks when the thought of James instantly pops into my mind. Still, I shake my head and force a chuckle. “In what world do you see that happening?”
“Fair.” She shrugs. “You could learn to ride, then join the club.”
“If only.” The idea of joining an outlaw motorcycle club is simultaneously terrifying and incredibly alluring. I don’t think I’m made for it, but I wish I was. I’d love to be a part of something like that. “Are you going to officially join?”
“I’m not sure. I need several hundred miles on my bike before I could even consider joining.”
“Being the president’s ol' lady is basically like being an official member, right?”
“Not really. I don’t have a cut or any colors. And if I’m an official member, then I’d be more on the police’s radar. Not something that I want with my… lifestyle.”
I laugh. No, her murdering habits wouldn’t make being on the cops’ radar very fun.
Fifteen minutes later, we have pizza, salad, and wine ready and the next episode of White Lotus queued up on her TV. Then there’s a knock at the door. I jump up from the couch, shoving my barking dog back. After checking the peephole, I open the door to admit Benny.
“Olive!” he shouts, using the nickname he coined when he misheard my last name.
“What a nice surprise.” He tugs me into a bear hug that I eagerly return.
Benny and I instantly hit it off when we met.
We like a lot of the same films and shows, both preferring the ones that turn us into blubbering messes, and he understands most of my references. Plus, we’re both dog parents.
“And you must be Soot!” He drops into a squat so he’s eye-level with my dog and holds out a tattoo-covered hand for Soot to sniff.
Once his tail starts wagging, Benny rubs his face and scratches his head.
Then he straightens and asks, “What are we doing?” as we head to the living room, where June hasn’t moved from her spot on the couch.
She has her feet propped on the coffee table and is picking rogue olives off my half of the pizza and dropping them on her pieces.
“White Lotus night!” she says.
“Oh, perfect. I haven’t seen the new episode.” He drops next to her on the couch, reaching out for some pizza.
I block his hand. “Woah, woah. Take from June’s side. I don’t share food.”
“Alright, Joey.”
My answering grin is wide. “I knew I liked you. For that, you can have some of my wine.”
“As grateful as I am, the boss would kill me if I drank while on duty.”
Soot shoves himself under our feet, waiting for dropped crumbs. After the episode is over, Benny does a lap around the house, inside and outside, before returning. “All clear.”
“Thanks,” June says. “So, how’s life? Still planning to trade in your Bobber?”
They launch into a discussion of bikes that I half follow thanks to my accumulated knowledge from watching Sons of Anarchy. Just as my attention starts wandering, my phone buzzes, and I pull it out to see a new message from James. I haven’t even finished reading it before he sends a second one.
HARTLEY. JAMES HARTLEY.
Any chance you have time to meet tomorrow? I can come by Seedling Sanctuary. I have something I want to run past you for Operation Clue.
I don’t know how to do the weird invisible text thing.
Did I just get not only two more messages from James before I’ve replied to the other one but also a message with a new name for our operation? This can’t be real. I’m dreaming. Or I’m drunk. Maybe James is drunk.
I must be staring at my phone, mouth open, for a noticeable amount of time, because silence fills the room and I look up to see the other two watching me. Benny looks slightly concerned, and June is smirking.
“What?”
“You look like you got bad news,” Benny says.
“You look like Lionel just asked to have a threesome with a hot Scottish man,” June says.
“That would be bad news?” Benny asks.
“No, this is her happy shocked face,” June explains. “Her bad news face is more scrunched.”
“She can hear you,” I say.
“Who’re you texting?” Benny asks.
“My succulent supplier. He has a ton of extra aloe plants available for half off.”
“Seriously?”
I nod, locking my phone before they can glimpse the screen and call me out on the obvious lie.
June’s look is full of suspicion, but she lets the subject drop.
In that moment, I’m more grateful than ever that my best friend is trained to respect secrets, because I’m not ready to face whatever I’m feeling about James, and she’d see right through me.