I’d been working a concert as the first point security guard of a country music star—Bayne Green. He’d had issues that he hadn’t shared with us, and they’d targeted him for an assassination attempt—something that it came out years later came from his jilted ex-wife.
She’d succeeded in killing Bayne, and had almost killed me. Though, in the beginning, they’d thought they’d killed me, and had only maimed Bayne.
It took me nearly half a year to finally tell them that I wasn’t Bayne, but that I was Jasper Madden.
My level of care had gone downhill after that—turns out no one cares about a police officer/security guard as much as they do a country music super star.
It’d taken me another three months to finally get to the point where I could move and function without constant help and supervision.
That’d been when I’d walked into my sister’s wedding the day that she was getting married to my father’s best friend.
“If you change your mind, you know where to find us.” Sophia sighed. “I hate that you hate crowds.”
I grinned. “Next time that you have a Christmas with just you, Haggard and the kids, I’ll be there.”
“You know that’ll never happen. Too many bikers have nowhere to go. Haggard literally runs a halfway house during the holidays,” she grumbled, but I knew that she loved it. “Shit. I gotta go. The shits are back.”
When she hung up, I shoved my phone back into my pocket just in time to see the neighbor’s truck pull into the parking spot next to her house.
I smirked—because that was all I could do with half my face being so fucked up—and headed outside.
Kent, my neighbor’s brother, had been bringing his bike over here periodically to work on it since he’d gotten the machine.
It wasn’t the greatest in the world, and broke down more than it worked, but I enjoyed tinkering on the motorcycle with him.
Kent was a smart cookie, and I got along with him much easier than I did with his sister.
I got to the truck just as she went to pull the second ramp out of the back.
“He only needs one, Callie. Bikes technically only have one wheel since they are in alignment.” I teased.
I could hear her grinding her teeth. “I know that.”
She did.
She was just as smart as the rest of the Hodges family. Way smarter than me.
“Sure,” I drawled. “Move. I’ll help.”
She moved, backing so far up that there’d be no way that I could accidentally touch her.
She acted like I had the plague, but I knew it wasn’t because she couldn’t stand the sight of me.
She truly didn’t like anyone.
Her sister had the same mentality, to be honest, but she’d slowly gotten better over time.
Calliope? Not so much.
Kent and I got his bike out of the back of the truck just as a UPS driver pulled up to the outside of Calliope’s house.
She breathed a sigh of relief and rushed over to the driver, just for the driver to nearly punt a box out of the side of the truck and start to take off.
I stepped out in front of the driver just as she was about to make a U-turn on our street.
“Um, no,” I said, pointing at her. “What the fuck was that?”
The young woman with a chip on her shoulder glared at me. “Move or I’ll hit you!”
