“You never asked,” I said with a sly smile, the kind of smile that I knew would make Tom laugh.
“Well, I sure am now! What happened?”
“You didn’t hear what happened at Brewskis? Up in Springsville?”
It took a second for that to click with Tom, but I could tell the instant he remembered it.
“Oh right!” he said. “Yeah, I saw that on your resume, but I just figured you’d left before that fire. I hope you weren’t there when it happened.”
“Yeah, well, actually, I was,” I said. “But I managed to get out.”
It wasn’t a very difficult or dramatic escape, actually. I’d been behind the bar, with no patrons inside, when someone—I presumed a member of the Fallen Saints, since they were always the more difficult group by far—threw a Molotov cocktail inside. It was easy to escape out the back, and my car wasn’t damaged. The Fallen Saints either didn’t care that I had escaped or didn’t notice, but nothing had happened to me since.
“Bunch of bikers, right?”
I nodded.
“Well, then, maybe you shouldn’t be bartending tonight.”
Don’t tell me...
“The group that’s coming is called the Gray Reapers.”
“You mean Black Reapers?” I said.
“What? No, the Gray Reapers. I know, similar colors, but I’m almost certain it’s gray. Unless I’m so old, I can’t even tell my colors apart.”
Tom sounded too sure and wasn’t that old, anyway, for me to doubt him. The Gray Reapers... was this a rival to the Black Reapers? A spin-off? A charter? Something else?
“I can handle bikers,” I said, although I really wasn’t looking forward to that being part of the job again. “It’s all I did the last few years. I’m more concerned about one specific biker group, and as long as it’s not the one I’m thinking of, then it should be fine.”
“Hmm, OK then, if you say so,” Tom said. “They’re a bunch of fine young men, anyway. I know the leader of them, uh, Carter, I think his name is.”
Like... Lane Carter?
Or is it the other one? Haven’t seen the other one in a while. Cole, maybe? Colin?
“Anyway, call me if anything comes up. Just wanted to drop by and inform you of the business that’s coming.”
“Thanks, Tom.”
Tom left without another word. I sat down on a stool, taking a second to process the news.
Maybe I hadn’t left the insane world of the MCs. Maybe it was impossible to escape.
Maybe it would be different this time.
Either way, I was curious to see what this new group looked like. To date, all of the MCs had taken the approach of maintaining a respectful distance from me—I served drinks and spoke when spoken to, but otherwise, I was more than happy to avoid the drama and chaos that usually followed.
But in a town like this, where there didn’t seem to be a rival of any sort, maybe things would be just a little bit different.
