Chapter 16 #2
Will hooked his thumb at Dallas and winked at me, and I slapped him with the back of my hand and shook my head.
“And he’d been running his mouth all night about how much better the Demons were than the Kings, which we all fuckin’ know isn’t true.” King shot his drink, then held his glass out.
The bartender, an older man sporting an eye patch who was hooked into King’s story, diligently filled the glass with two fingers of rum. Then, tipped in more, trying to bribe King to keep talking.
“This shithead was new in town. I’d barely seen him around.
” King rolled his eyes as we took seats near him at the grungy bar, but he’d already gathered an audience, so he ignored us.
Everyone within ten feet of him was hanging on the edge of their seats.
“You know, one of these kids who think they’re tough shit because they’ve never been in a real fight. ”
That earned him a few laughs from the old-timers.
Dallas was busy scoping out the crowd, assessing body shapes, I guess, because I hadn’t seen faces.
I kicked myself mentally and started to search, too, but got discouraged pretty fast. This wasn’t going to be easy.
I had good visual abilities, but no one really stuck out.
Dallas and I locked eyes, and he shook his head with a small frown, so I didn’t think anyone jumped out at him, either.
“So, keep in mind the little bastard had sucker punched me and run off to his bike. I thought about knocking him off the damned thing while we were going down the highway, but that has no class. I like to teach lessons. Give a man an opportunity to learn from his mistakes.”
More laughter rolled around the crowd.
“I followed him onto the highway. His underpowered Triumph was no match for my Harley. I took out my knife.” King pulled out a massive pocketknife and flipped it open. The curved silver edge glinted and he cocked his hand back and forth to make it glitter.
Will grunted.
Dallas smirked, transfixed by King. It was times like this that it made sense they were together. So often I saw him irritated with King, but he really did love him. Or he was awed by him. I couldn’t tell which.
“And I got closer. Played with him. Let him dip in and out of traffic. Neither of us were wearing helmets, no time for that with me chasing him, and he had these ears sticking out under his buzz cut. Big ones. Well, I got close and sliced one off. Figured we were even and he had a lot less wind resistance to deal with.”
King flicked his wrist, demonstrating the gory story to his audience, then folded up his knife and slipped it back into his pocket.
“Bullshit,” the bartender said, leaning forward.
“Hand to God!” King bolted his drink, then slid the glass onto the bar.
The men hooted and laughed. Bikers were like toddlers, we all loved a good fucking bedtime story.
A big man—bigger than me, bigger than King—stood from a table nearby. The glare on his face could set a man on fire. Half of it was covered in healed over road rash. The scar was bumpy and had definitely never seen the inside of a plastic surgeon’s office.
“Who are you? You gonna call me a liar, too?” King grinned that friendly smile that made him new friends wherever he drank.
The man brushed back his long brown hair, and Will smacked my side with a laugh. “There’s no ear!”
“Fuck.” There really wasn’t. That hair was covering a hole.
“Oh shit,” Dallas muttered, hopping off his stool.
“Still picking fights you can’t finish?” King called.
The man threw his beer bottle, which King easily dodged despite being several shots in, then charged around a table full of women squealing with laughter.
King sat there, cool as a cucumber. I had no idea what he had in mind, but I wasn’t his boyfriend—thank God. I had a feeling I would murder him if someone else didn’t. I grabbed Will’s hand and pulled him back out of the blast radius. He wobbled as he got off the stool but slid in at my side.
King might’ve had a plan or he might not’ve, but it didn’t matter because at the very last second Dallas grabbed his stool and used it to clobber the incoming man-missile across his snarling face.
He dropped to the floor harder than a ton of bricks, but a couple of guys who must be his buddies stood up and glowered in our direction.
The bartender hauled a shotgun from under the bar and pointed it indiscriminately at his customers. I got the feeling he wouldn’t care if he lost one or two of us. “Out! I’m not replacing tables this month.”
Will cracked up laughing as I dragged him toward the door with my heart hammering, and King and Dallas sauntered out after us. It was still raining but not drenching us as we gathered near my truck.
“Well, that was a dead end,” I said.
King rolled his shoulders. “The night’s young. It isn’t even ten o’clock yet.”
Dallas kept an eye on the door of the bar, probably waiting to see if that man or any of his friends had plans to come out here and massacre us. I started to feel itchy, but I wasn’t sure if it was for a fight or to get Will away from one.
“That was great. You really got that guy.” Will slapped Dallas on the back.
Dallas shrugged but looked happy with himself.
“Next stop, I want to hit someone!” Will grinned at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back.
He was obviously having a great time being out here mixing it up.
My heart hurt, because of course I was worried about him, but there was no way I could take this away from him again.
He was getting better. Maybe was as healed as he would ever be.
Stepping forward, I didn’t hesitate to hug him. “You belong out here with me,” I murmured in his ear.
He stared into my eyes, then attacked my lips and slipped his hot tongue in my mouth.
I hadn’t meant to start anything up, but my dick got on board fast, and I parted my lips, swirling my tongue with his as sparks danced in my stomach.
He squeezed me close and ground his cock against my thigh, and I growled.
A tap, then a shake of my shoulder broke us apart, and I glanced at Dallas while my mind reeled. He had on that assessing serious expression he’d been wearing the entire time I’d told him about the heist.
“I know we’ve been over this, but what type of bikes did everyone ride?” He turned to glance at the motorcycles behind him. There were fewer than would probably be here on a nice night, but still a row of about ten.
“Oh, God, Dallas. I’m not sure. There was a new BMW. It all happened so fast.”
Dallas frowned at that, then glanced at his feet. “You’re certain? That’s weird.”
I covered my eyes with my hands, and Will massaged my neck. I tried to replay the scene in my head. “Yeah, I think so. The main guy was on one of those.”
“There’s a dealership on the southside. Bet it’s still open,” King said.
I dropped my hands. “You think?”
“Guess we could go there.” Dallas ran a hand over King’s wet shirt and scrunched the fabric up.
King leered at him.
After a few seconds, everyone looked at each other and shrugged, so without a better idea, we were off.
As soon as we got to the dealership, Will started chuckling, and I was so fucking happy he was in a good mood that I grinned.
King had beat us there again because the rain had stopped, though the clouds were still rolling overhead, and he was already standing in an aisle near the brand-new BMW bikes, scowling at them.
The large lights that lit the lot made the wet bikes gleam, a magical fantasy.
I whistled. “The girls sure do look good.”
Dallas was already chuckling as he got out to go cuddle up to King.
A minute later, we were all standing there staring while a nervous lot attendant seemed to be deciding whether he was brave enough or not to take his balls in hand and come over to ask if we wanted to buy a bike.
“Come here, kid!” King called.
The boy, he was too young for me to lump him in with the men, came over. He probably wasn’t eighteen yet, blond, and swimming in the polo shirt with the dealership logo emblazoned on the front. He nervously glanced between each of us.
“Are you here to look at motorcycles? I can take you inside to talk to my grandpa.” He shuffled in that direction, just dying to run away.
I snorted. “Summer job?”
He nodded quickly and stared at King in all his soaked glory like he might piss himself.
“Have you been working here all summer?” Dallas flashed him a smile and the soothing voice he used caused all of us to look at him as if he’d grown a second head.
The boy nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Do you remember a man taller than me, probably six feet, and this wide—” Dallas held out his hands. “—coming in to buy a bike?”
The boy’s forehead wrinkled. “We sell bikes every day.”
King groaned, slapping the boy on the shoulder in a friendly way. “It’s okay, kid. We don’t need any help. We’re just browsing.”
He nodded, his neck springier than a bobblehead doll, and took off for the showroom like his life depended on it.
“Well, this was dumb,” I said, rubbing the bridge of my nose while I scowled out at the sea of shiny new bikes. “Maybe we should go to another bar.”
“All right!” King grinned, and while I was sure he wanted to find the cash as much as the rest of us, maybe the idea of barhopping all night was just as appealing.
“I’ll go with you on your bike,” Dallas said.
King waved him off. “The road’s still slick.”
Dallas crossed his arms, but King was already on his bike, leaving the rest of us to scramble after him as we rushed back to the truck.
“Where the fuck is he taking us?” I turned the wheel and followed him out of the lot.
“A bar,” Will said.
I glared at him out of the corner of my eye, and he gave me a happy-go-lucky smirk.
“To hell,” Dallas said from the back seat and that got Will chuckling again.
Traffic was light, so it was easy to tail King. A cannonball couldn’t unseat him on his bike. He just melded to the machine in a way that was borderline unnatural. Some people had that in them and some didn’t. You couldn’t teach it. They were born to ride.
A bike passed me on the right, and I growled when I noticed it was a black-and-white police motorcycle with the NGPD logo on the gas tank.
“Why do motorcycle cops always look so smug?” Will mused out loud.
“Those knee-high boots.” I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. The cop was close to the truck, and I was nervous for him in a way I wished I wasn’t. I shouldn’t care if he was stupid and pancaked himself. I should hope he did.
“You can’t think that’s hot,” Dallas said. “Not after what they did to you.” He flicked my ear, the jerk. I swatted at him.
“I don’t think the cop is hot, I just happen to like those boots.” I glared at him in the rearview mirror, and he and Will snickered.
King noticed his company—did a double take—and I held my breath as I waited for him to flip the cop off.
He didn’t. Instead, he took off faster and popped a wheelie on the wet fucking road.
He shouldn’t have been able to get his heavy fucking Harley to do that so easily, but the man had come out of his mama’s twat riding motorcycles, so he pulled it off without sliding.
“Son of a bitch.” Dallas slapped the back of my seat.
Will was howling with laughter, and I joined in because the cop looked like he’d taken a bite of dog shit. He flipped King the bird—that was a first—and turned off our street at the next corner.
“Is that cop riding a BMW? Is that the K 1600 GTL?” Dallas leaned toward his window and put it down to keep staring.
“It’s a touring bike,” I said with a shrug. “Why?”
Will gasped for air, and my heart hiccupped. It took him a second to stop wheezing. “Wouldn’t it be funny—” He thumped his chest like he was trying to force it to take in more air. “—if the guys at the heist were cops?”
I slammed on the brakes and a car behind me honked its horn. “Holy fuck.”
Dallas leaned over the back of the seat so he could look at me, then Will.
“What?” Will asked. “What did I say?”