Chapter Nine
“We have to do something about Trisha.”
Vinyl looked up from the catalog he’d been flipping through as Tanner entered the backroom in a flurry.
“Good morning to you too,” he snorted, eying his friend. “What’s got you so worked up?”
“Once I tell you what happened, you’ll be worked up too.” Tanner tossed a white bakery bag onto the nearby counter and began to pace the length of the room. “I got you a fritter.”
“Thanks.” Vinyl watched his buddy grumble and wondered what the hell was going on. Whatever it was had to be serious. Tanner wasn’t the type to overreact, he was always chill. “What happened?”
“Trisha happened,” Tanner answered with an angry growl. “She fucked shit up between me and Elena.” He held up two fingers. “Twice.”
“Hold up.” Vinyl gestured for a time out. That answer didn’t explain shit. Actually, it did the opposite and now he was even more confused. As far as he knew, Pax had been the only one of them to meet Elena so far. And how the hell did Trisha get involved? “What the fuck are you babbling about? When did you see Elena?”
“This morning,” his friend answered, turning on the heel of his beat-up work boots to stomp the other direction. “I was covering the phones this morning when she called in. Her car wouldn’t start, and she was freaking out about being late.”
“Then what happened?” So far, Vinyl couldn’t see where their stalker from Colorado came into play so maybe he’d misunderstood Tanner earlier. That’s what he was hoping for at least. Trisha was someone he’d hoped to never see again. The woman they’d rejected had been pretty on the outside but rotten to the core. None of them had responded to her attempts to latch on again. They’d learned their lesson the first time. “Tan?”
Tanner ran his hands down his face and groaned pitifully. “We’re so fucked.”
Vinyl’s eyes narrowed. “Just spit it out already.”
“We were on our way back and things were going great,” the other man started. A goofy smile took over his face. “Pax was right about her, man. She’s special.”
“We’ll see. I still haven’t met her yet,” he reminded with a roll of his eyes. He’d heard all this the first time Pax had told them about her. He’d gone on and on about Taffy’s new assistant, suggesting she could be the one they’d been looking for— which had surprised the fuck out of Vinyl. It’d been the last thing he’d expected to hear from his buddy. They’d talked about settling down, but he didn’t know Pax was already on the hunt. After all the bullshit they’d had to deal with in Colorado, Vinyl thought they were all taking a hiatus from women at least for the time being. The last pussy the trio had sampled was still causing problems that needed to be dealt with first. “Keep going.”
“We were chatting and laughing.” Tanner’s smile grew bigger. “Everything was cool.”
“So far, so good,” he said with a wave of his hand to get Tanner to hurry the hell up. “Where the fuck does Trisha come into this?”
The smile that his friend had been wearing when talking about Elena disappeared in a blink. He leaned against the back counter and crossed his arms over his chest. Tanner looked seriously pissed.
“First, she sexted me a tit pic this morning…and Elena saw it.”
Vinyl blinked, unsure if he’d heard that right. “You’re kidding me.”
“I’m not,” Tanner denied with a shake of his head.
“Let me get this straight.” He stared at the other man, trying to process what he was hearing. “The woman that Pax wants us to claim saw nudes of Trisha on your phone.”
His best friend nodded.
Vinyl closed his eyes and rubbed a hand down his face. He had so many questions he wasn’t sure where to start. “How did that even happen? Where was your phone?”
“Elena was holding it.”
“Why?” he asked, dumbfounded. That was out of the norm. His friend usually kept it safely tucked away in his pocket.
Tanner groaned again and ran his hands through his hair, making the dirty blonde strands standup every which way. “Taffy messaged me about the donuts after I was already on the road and Elena was texting her back for me. I never even considered the possibility that Trisha would text. She shouldn’t even have the new number.”
“Fuck.” Vinyl sat back in his chair. This couldn’t get any worse.
“It gets worse.”
“How could it possibly get worse?!” he groaned, dropping his head to the counter.
“What gets worse?” Pax asked, slamming through the door with a half-eaten donut is his hand. “What are we talking about?”
Vinyl looked over at Tanner since he was the one to blame for their newest fucktastrophe. “You tell him.”
“Tell me what?” Pax looked between the two of them curiously before his eyes settled on Tanner. “What happened?”
The other man held his hands out as if he were trying to keep a wild animal at bay. “First, I want you to remember that this is not my fault.”
Pax’s eyes narrowed. “What did you do?”
“I picked up Elena this morning because her car broke down, and then, on the way back, she was holding my phone to text your mom and got an eyeful of Trisha’s bare-naked titties,” Tanner said fast without taking a breath.
“Say what?” Pax asked, this time looking at Vinyl for answers.
“Elena’s car wouldn’t start, and Tanner was the lucky son of a bitch that answered when she called into the shop.” Tanner nodded in agreement as Vinyl continued to lay out what he’d been filled in on so far.
The more Vinyl explained, the angrier his expression turned.
“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” Pax growled once Vinyl had finished explaining it all. He started towards Tanner.
“You can’t kick his ass,” Vinyl interrupted, putting his hands up to stall his buddy. “There was no reason for him to think twice about letting her use his phone. Trisha isn’t supposed to have any of our new numbers, right? How did she manage to get his?”
“That’s a good question.” Pax leaned against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “How did she get it?”
Vinyl relaxed a little; his friend was taking the news better than he’d expected. Pax didn’t look happy with Tanner, but he hadn’t swung any punches yet.
“I don’t know, man.” Tanner shrugged. “I know I didn’t fucking give it to her.”
“My mom wouldn’t have either,” Pax added with a shake of his head. “Same goes for the shop.”
“Who else is left?” Vinyl asked, unable to figure it out. Everyone he could think of was just as protective of their privacy as the trio themselves were. “The guys back in Colorado know what we’re dealing with; they wouldn’t have let it slip.”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Pax looked over at Tanner. “Has Cherry said anything?”
“You’re still talking to Cherry?” Vinyl didn’t know why, but that surprised him.
Tanner nodded. “She offered to keep an eye on the storage unit and let us know if anything gets fucked with. She calls once a week to give me an update.”
“Gotcha,” he said snap of his fingers. He was glad Tanner had thought about having someone check on their stuff because he sure hadn’t remembered to do it. He should have though. They had thousands of dollars in equipment and bike parts still waiting to make its way down to Lawrence now that they’d had a chance to settle in. The last thing they needed was to have someone break in and rob them blind.
“She didn’t say anything the last time we talked but I can call and ask,” Tanner offered. “What’re we going to do in the meantime? After this morning, Elena thinks I’m worse than dog shit. How’re we going to fix that?”
“I’m sure she’ll understand once we explain things,” Pax reassured him as Vinyl nodded along in agreement. “It’s not like you asked Trisha for a tit pic, right? She sent that shit to you unsolicited. I don’t think Elena will hold that against you.”
“It’s not the tit pic I’m worried about, guys.” Tanner stopped his anxious pacing and looked back and forth between the two friends. “It’s the other one.”
“Hold the fuck up,” Pax held up his hands. “What do you mean the other one?”
“You never said anything about a second picture,” Vinyl added with a glare.
“I was getting to it,” Tanner defended. “Did you not hear the part where I said, ‘it gets worse’?”
“Just spit it out already!” Vinyl snapped before their bickering distracted them from the problem at hand. He was over the bullshit. It felt like they’d been talking for hours, and he still didn’t entirely know what was happening. “What did she see that was so fucking bad?”
Tanner let out a heavy breath.
“Trisha sent a photo of the three of us fucking her.”