Chapter 3
CORBAN
Igot back to the club, headed straight for the bar, and asked the prospect for a bourbon on the rocks.
It was barely eleven in the morning.
The prospect… a kid named Twig, all elbows and nervous energy, slid the glass across without a word. Smart. He was learning when not to ask questions.
I drained half of it in one go and let the heat settle behind my ribs. I tried to use it like a reset button and burn out whatever had crawled inside me back at that café and made itself at home.
It didn't work.
Her face was still there when I closed my eyes. Those pink cheeks. The way she raised one finger like she was apologizing for existing. The softness of her hand against mine for half a second that somehow lasted a lifetime.
Tilly.
I set the glass down too hard, and bourbon sloshed over the rim.
"You good, brother?"
I looked up, and Brick was at the end of the bar, arms folded across his chest, watching me with the kind of casual attention that meant he'd already decided something was off.
"Fine," I said.
"You don't look fine. You look like someone told you your bike's been totaled."
"I said I'm fine."
He held up both hands. "Alright. Fine. You're fine."
I wiped my hand across my mouth and pushed away from the bar. "Where's Dax?"
“Office. Waiting on you."
“Shit.”
I nodded and headed down the hall.
I needed grounding right now, not a grilling from the boss for being late.
My head was still in that café, stuck on a woman whose name I only learned because Pearl said it out loud.
I didn't even know why she was in town.
She had California plates and a packed trunk. Maybe she was driving cross-country and stopped for coffee.
She could be gone by tomorrow.
Fuck.
I stopped outside Dax’s door and dragged both hands down my face.
What the hell was wrong with me?
"The fuck is wrong with you?"
That was my greeting. No hello, no sit down. Just Dax behind his desk, leaning back in his chair with his fingers laced behind his head, looking at me like I'd tracked mud across his mother's carpet.
"Yeah, sorry, Dax. I know I'm a little late."
"Not a little." He tilted his head. "But that's not what I'm asking."
"Huh?"
"You look like your mind is somewhere else." He dropped his hands and leaned forward, elbows on the desk. "And why the fuck were you drinking at this time of day?"
I opened my mouth to ask how he knew, then remembered the cameras. Dozens of them. Every angle of the bar, the lot, the hallway. Dax saw everything that happened in this clubhouse. He always had.
"Thirsty?" I said, cracking a grin.
He didn't laugh. Didn't even blink.
The grin died on my face.
"You got something to say.” Not a question. A door he was holding open, giving me one chance to walk through it.
"No. Not really."
"But you're going to. Right?"
I dropped into the chair across from him and rubbed the back of my neck as the leather creaked under my weight.
Shit. Here goes.
Tilly
The lunch rush, if you could call four tables and a couple of takeout orders a rush, had come and gone. Pearl flipped the sign on the door to closed and turned to me with a grin that took up half her face.
"Ready to see your new home?"
My new home. The words still felt foreign. Like I was trying on a coat that didn't quite fit yet.
"Ready," I said, even though my stomach was doing something complicated.
Pearl led the way through the kitchen and out a back door I hadn't noticed before. A narrow staircase hugged the side of the building, painted white but peeling in places, leading up to a door on the second floor.
"It's not much," said Darlene, the other waitress, coming up behind us. She was in her fifties, built like she could bench press the espresso machine, and had already told me three times that I looked pretty. "But it's cozy. And the rent's already covered in your arrangement here, so…”
Pearl unlocked the door and pushed it open.
It was small. A studio, really. But sunlight poured through two big windows that overlooked the street below, and someone had left fresh flowers on the tiny kitchen table.
There was a bed tucked against the far wall with a quilt that looked handmade, a kitchenette with a vintage stove, and a bathroom through a door that was slightly ajar, revealing black and white tile.
"Oh," I breathed. "It's perfect."
“I know,” Pearl said, bumping my shoulder with hers. "The Wi-Fi password is on the fridge. Water takes a minute to get hot. And if you hear something in the walls at night, it's just Harold."
"Harold?"
"The raccoon.”
"You named the raccoon?”
"He was here first."
Darlene patted my arm. "You settle in, sweetheart. We'll be downstairs if you need anything."
They left me standing in the middle of my new apartment, my new life, turning in a slow circle and trying to make it feel real.
It didn't. Not yet.
But it would. I'd make sure of it.
I gave myself exactly two minutes to get emotional about it, then wiped my eyes, took a breath, and headed back down to the car.
The trunk was packed the way only a woman fleeing her old life could pack a trunk. Chaotic, desperate, and with zero regard for organization. I'd shoved everything I owned into mismatched suitcases and garbage bags and one laundry basket that had cracked down the side somewhere around Nevada.
I grabbed the first bag. Fine. Second bag. Fine. The laundry basket…
The handle of the cracked side caught on the trunk latch. I yanked and the basket tilted. And the contents of my toiletries bag, which I had, for reasons I would now deeply regret, shoved on top, scattered across the pavement like a yard sale from hell.
Shampoo. Conditioner. Toothpaste. My retainer case.
And there it was.
Bright pink and unmistakable. Rolling across the asphalt in broad daylight like it had somewhere to go.
"No. No, no, no, nooooo…”
I dove for it. My knees hit the ground and I snatched it up with both hands, shoving it against my chest, then immediately realized that was worse. So much worse.
I stuffed it into the pocket of my hoodie. It was too big, and stuck out the top, so I ripped it out and shoved it down the front of my jeans, which was somehow even more horrifying.
"Oh my god," I whispered to myself. "Oh my god, oh my god."
I finally jammed it under my armpit, inside the hoodie, and straightened up, with my eyes darting in every direction.
The street was quiet. Just a couple of parked cars and a bird on the power line above me.
"Why don't you shit on my head for luck," I muttered, quiet enough so no one would hear.
But my brain, helpful as ever, decided to replay the morning, and Corban. He'd been right here. Right in the trunk.
Fuuuck!
Had the toiletries bag been on top this morning?
Oh god. Had it been open?
I tried to remember, but my brain was short-circuiting, replaced entirely by the image of him glancing into my trunk and seeing a hot pink silicone dong nestled between my shampoo bottles.
"He didn't see it," I told myself. "He didn't. There's no way."
But my face was already on fire. The kind of blush that starts at your chest and doesn't stop until it reaches your hairline.
I gathered the rest of my scattered things off the ground with shaking hands, shoved everything back into the basket, and hauled it all upstairs in one trip because there was absolutely no way I was making a second.
I kicked the apartment door shut behind me, dumped everything on the bed, and stood there, hands on my knees, breathing like I'd just run a marathon.
The pink dildo rolled out from under my arm and bounced once on the mattress.
I stared at it.
"You," I said, pointing at it, "are going in a drawer. And you are never coming out again."
Then it dawned on me.
That’s why he ran.
Corban
“So," I said. "I met this girl."
Dax's eyebrows went up. Then a slow grin spread across his face. The kind that wiped the worry of running the Skulls away and made him look ten years younger and twice as dangerous.
"It's about fucking time. We were starting to think you were gay."
"Fuck off."
He leaned back in his chair, still grinning. "Spill."
I rubbed the back of my neck and stared at the floor. At the wall. Then the framed photo of his old man's bike that had hung in this office since before I was patched in.
"She's fucking beautiful, Dax. But I think I made a fool of myself."
"How so?"
"I couldn't fucking talk. Like, words wouldn't come out. I just stood there like a fucking statue."
He waited, watching me.
"So?" he said.
"So I bailed."
The grin vanished. He sat forward, both hands flat on the desk.
"You. Bailed." He said it like I’d just told him I’d sold my bike for scrap. "You don't bail on anything. Never have I seen you bail on a single thing." He pointed at me. "You're fucked. You know that, right?"
"Fucked up, more like it."
He studied me for a long moment. Then he leaned back again and blew out a breath.
"Take tomorrow off."
I blinked. "Really?"
"Yeah. It's not like you're gonna have your head in the game the way you're acting. You're useless to me like this."
I dragged my hand down my face. "That's the thing though. I think she was only passing through. California plates. Packed trunk. She's probably moved on already."
He narrowed his eyes. "How much did you have to drink?"
"What you saw."
"Nothing before?"
"Nope."
He nodded slowly. Then slapped the desk hard enough to make the pens jump.
"Go now."
I looked at him. "You think?"
"Get the fuck out of my office before I throw you out." He stood up. "Go get… Does she have a name?"
"Tilly."
"Go back, man, before there’s nobody there to go back to."