Zack
There was something that seemed distinctly off about Justine as soon as I came back from the shower.
Yeah, I was posturing a bit, strutting around naked. With someone who hadn’t acted as into me as her, I might have taken some more precaution. I might have kept a towel on or changed in the shower.
But I didn’t think it had anything to do with that.
It didn’t quite seem like regret for having done it, but I did get the sense that Justine probably regretted the speed at which everything had happened. She’d made herself seem like the on-top-of-it doctor who had her life in order, only to sleep with me after one date. I personally didn’t see any problem with it, but I could see why she might have been upset.
As it was, I drove her back to downtown Albuquerque, and her arms wrapped around me as tight as they had the night before. She didn’t scream like she had, but I imagined that had more to do with being used to everything than anything with me. And when we got to the street where her car was, she hopped off and kissed me on the lips.
“Call me?” she said.
“Hell yeah,” I said. “I’d not only be a dick not to, I’d be really fucking stupid.”
Justine smiled lightly at that. It wasn’t as full a smile as I’d hoped, but it would work for now. She kissed me one more time before pulling away. She got in her car without turning around, and I hightailed it back to the clubhouse.
It was a night that I knew I wouldn’t forget any time soon. She wasn’t a club bunny. She was…Justine. She was a person of great interest to me.
But there were clearly more hoops of hers to jump through. She’d shown only her good side to me, while I had deliberately avoided my “bad side.” Time would tell, I suppose.
It wasn’t anything worth ruining a day over, anyway. I hurried back to the Santa Maria Auto Repair shop. Brock stood outside again.
“You got someone else to torture and get information out of?” I asked.
“Funny man. Nope. But I’ve got some more information on King. I wanted to run it by you since you’re the smart one.”
It was said with a hint of sarcasm, but also with genuine interest in hearing what I had to say. The remarks never got old; I wouldn’t have lasted a day in the Bernard Boys, let alone the Black Reapers, if I’d let comments like “Professor Smartass” get to me.
“No club meeting?”
“Eventually,” Brock said.
I got the hint.
“First, let me tell you about a problem not with King, but around King. Namely, the boys that you and Steele tried to recruit last weekend.”
“I take it it’s gotten even worse?”
“Well, the good news is, I got Lane directly on the line. The bad news is, it was more or less to say that they wouldn’t talk with us unless Cole directly requested it. And, obviously, none of us can impersonate Cole.”
“Bastard knows that Cole’s in a coma, too.”
Brock could only nod knowingly. It almost seemed like the original Black Reapers had made that announcement knowing that we couldn’t do anything about it; I had mentioned before that Cole was in a coma, so it wasn’t like they made the request by accident.
“So we’re on our own, just like we were a couple years ago,” Brock said. “Which, it is what it is. I don’t mind it. It’s not like we aren’t used to it.”
We aren’t used to the Bandits having military-grade weapons.That, however, was a thought that I did not say out loud.
“We’ll prove to them in time that we are real Black Reapers,” I said.
Brock took it as what it was meant to be—an uplifting statement, not necessarily something to aim toward. We could have killed King, and I think the Black Reapers in California would have still been somewhat dismissive.And speaking of…
“So, King, tell me more.”
“Yes, we have more information on him,” Brock said. “He’s a man of great wealth who runs multiple MC rings. He once funded the MC ring in California, the Fallen Saints. I think the goal there was to expand out into Los Angeles, but they ran into too many problems with the Black Reapers.”
“Guess they didn’t start in Los Angeles because they didn’t want to get noticed.”
