Honestly, I didn’t know him well enough to trust him. I didn’t know enough about him to form an opinion of any kind. I just knew I needed a job, and as long as this met California state laws for payment, I would be fine.
But where are you going? You know you need to go up, but you can go up into a lot of ceilings if you’re not paying attention. Where is your up?
“Well, that’s very kind of you, Miss Wright,” Isaac said. “Welcome aboard.”
He extended his hand. I took it and shook, feeling a little bit empty as I did. I was going through the motions of getting work to improve myself, though I didn’t have a target in mind. Maybe that wasn’t necessary yet. Maybe I just needed to scramble like mad to survive, and then, with the benefit of some financial cushion, I could do a little more.
But the fact that damn voice wouldn’t shut up...
“I’ll email you details later this evening.”
“Sounds good, thanks, Isaac.”
I then left and headed to the car with a second job that could ensure I could pay my bills... and yet without a smile or the feeling of confidence that I had expected would come, especially with how much good news had come today.
I didn’t know what my ideal was. Med school was, sure, and then vet school was, sure, but I hadn’t thought on a fundamental level in so long. And what was I going to do dating wise?
At the very least, it was much easier to rationalize why dating in this town wouldn’t work nearly as well as it would elsewhere. Springsville had LeCharles, and... that was about it. And given how last night had gone, I think I’d have better luck finding a future husband among the high school seniors than I did with the existing crop of bachelors.
At some point, I hoped my mind would settle down because I didn’t have any faith in me figuring out the hard questions while it was racing like this.
I managed to get through the rest of my workday without too much distraction of the mind, though much of that came in part because of some rather crazed pets making their way through. I was pretty sure at one point, a Fallen Saint came in with an asshole Border Collie, but he wasn’t one of the Saints at Brewskis, and if he recognized me, he didn’t say anything.
When seven o’clock hit, I headed straight home, walked into the door, and saw Shiloh bounding toward me, expecting me as always to complete my duty to take him on a walk.
“Buddy, you sure you want to go for a walk right now?”
Naturally, he responded with a demanding bark that made it clear that that was not something that was up for negotiation. It was walk him or have him make noise all night long.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “I have some good news, you know. I got a second job.”
Shiloh wagged his tail and dropped his jaw into a smiling pant. God, he was so cute I wanted to smother him.
“You’re such a good boy,” I said, leaning forward to kiss him. “You never argue with me... well, sometimes you do about walking. But you never call me names. You never criticize me.”
You never hold me like LeCharles. You never kiss me like he does. You never...
I leashed up Shiloh and went out the front door in record time, determined to get away from this madness before it consumed me too much. I barely got out of the apartment parking lot when I heard what sounded like an explosion a couple of miles away.
Even ignoring the fact I could not see anything yet, let alone any smoke, I knew from the distant rumble that whatever had just happened was nowhere near me. I knew that if there was an MC fight going on, the odds of me getting caught in the crossfire were slim.
But if the slim happened?
I didn’t want my good streak of today to end like that. And God forbid if anything happened to Shiloh...
Just the thought was enough to put me in an incredibly foul mood as I headed back to the apartment. Thankfully, even Shiloh knew staying here was a bad idea. I could see the concern and the increased panting in his breath to know that he wouldn’t want to stay any longer than he had to.
“Yeah, let’s get inside.”
As soon as I did, I opened my laptop to the local news and read the headline with some shock.
“Brewskis Attacked, Authorities Blame Reapers.”
The Black Reapers? Wait, that’s LeCharles’ group, right?
I clicked on the article and watched a video. It showed the local media filming Brewskis having been apparently bombed from the side, with interviews with local Fallen Saints describing the attack as bringing gang warfare to the public. The damage didn’t look severe enough to ruin the building. In fact, it didn’t even look like the blast had blown clean through. But it was obvious that if someone had been near it, they could have gotten killed.
And then, just as the minute-long clip was about to end, I heard something I could not believe.
