I found him in the kitchen, sitting at the table with a cup in one hand.
Blue tinged his lips and his eyes were hooded with pain. “I’m calling 911.”
“I’ll do it. You stay with him.” Noelle grabbed the phone from the counter and held it to her ear. “Shit. No signal.”
“That’s… why I have—” Robert broke off with a cough that sounded like he might hurl a lung across the table.
“Here.” I pulled my phone from my pocket and tossed it to Noelle.
Half an hour later, Robert was on his way to the hospital, and the four of us were back on our bikes on our way to the next location.
We stopped outside town to fill up, and Noelle leaned forward. “You’re a softie. Never would have thought it.”
“We are not.” I scoffed, trying to blow off her comment. “Robert and everyone else in that community are there because they don’t have any family. We check in on them when we can.”
“Like I said. Softie.” She squeezed my waist. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone your little secret.”
“Thought that was what reporters do?” I questioned her even as I swung us off the bike and headed into the store for a snack. “Aren’t you supposed to be clearing up our image so the local PD will get off our backs?”
“Sure. But there’s a difference in cleaning up misconceptions that cause you to have trouble with the law and telling everyone you take care of the elderly.” She set the helmet on the back of my bike and fluffed her hair.
The thick curls fell around her face and made me want to kiss her right there in the middle of the parking lot. “I think it’s noble and brave.”
I opened the door and motioned her in ahead of me.
There were a dozen things I could say.
Stories I could tell about the things we were held responsible for.
But the truth of it all was that Rafe let those rumors fill people’s ears.
They had a purpose.
Our bad boy reputation kept us safe from rival gangs.
Conflicts between gangs were common enough, but they’d all come for us without mercy if they thought we were weak.
The things we did, things like checking on the poor, the sick, and the elderly, were done with precision and outside of the limelight.
We didn’t chase fame or glory.
Noelle’s comment burrowed deep, cracking straight through to my heart and nestling in like a puppy dog in a warm blanket.
She saw us, the real us, and she didn’t poke fun of us or call us weak.
Noble and brave.
No one had ever associated those two words with me, with any of us.
What would Rafe and Bishop think if they knew what Noelle thought of us?
“How often do you check on people?” Noelle picked up a bag of sour gummy worms and walked past me to the register.
I shrugged though she had her back to me. “Whenever necessary.”
The conflict of our bad boy appearance made our efforts around town complicated.
People saw us as troublemaking trash, and Rafe wanted them to continue that monologue.
