The first few streets we had to take were pretty empty. There wasn’t a lot of life on this side of town, which was one of the many reasons we were stationed where we were. It was a lot easier to keep your head down and your cuts out of sight when you weren’t positioned right next to the local police station or church. But the closer we got into Babylon, the tenser Ayda’s hold on me became. I knew that for her, being seen riding with me would be social suicide, especially given that I crashed her brother’s game on Friday night. She would be the talk of the town, the gossip, part of the whispers and, not to brag, probably the envy of a lot of the Hound Whores who sniffed around our hut waiting for me to get tanked up enough to allow any of them to suck my dick.
This wasn’t a good move for her, or me, for that matter. The last thing I needed was people thinking that Drew Tucker had gotten out of the cells and jumped straight into a life of domesticity with Little Miss Mom-Slash-Waitress.
I tried to weave the bike around the cars as quickly as I could once we hit the main streets, even though I knew that just the sound of the Harley would have everyone’s heads turning, no matter how slick I rode that thing or how fast I allowed us to go. I pretty much thought we’d made it through the main high street without attracting too much attention, when the lights turned to red just before I had time to pick up speed and fly us through.
The seconds seemed to pass by slower than ever before as we came to a stop and waited. Ayda twitched and kepther head facing down, the front of the helmet pressed almost painfully into the middle of my back as we both held our breath and tried to act like it didn't matter. I was a little bit too proud and a hell of a lot too stubborn to go down that same route though. My head turned from side to side, my eyes narrowing at every shop window that had an old man or an old woman creeping up to press their nose against it to be the first to get the new gossip. This place never changed, no matter how long you were gone. There was nothing to bring the people together quite like a biker love scandal.
My hands twisted and turned on the grips as I kept looking from left to right, almost challenging them to keep on fucking staring if they dared. Eventually the light turned to green, forcing me to finally take off.
One thing that was crystal clear was that I didn’t have long to get her back home. Now that we’d been seen, and given Jedd’s warning the other night about me staying out of the way, I had a feeling that there would be someone on my tail within a matter of minutes. My wrist snapped down to twist the throttle even harder and before I knew it, we’d taken the last turn into her street and I was finally able to pull the bike to a slow crawl.
Ayda must have sensed me glancing at all the familiar looking houses as I tried to remember which one was hers. Her muffled cry out to me indicating that I should turn right had me pulling up onto her driveway as far as I could before I finally knocked off the motor and landed my feet on the ground beneath us.
She followed my lead, removing the helmet and shaking out her hairbefore hopping off. “Thanks. I’ll get my car as soon as I can.”
Running my rough palm over my forehead and down my face, I let out a tired breath and shook my head. “Your car will be on your drive in the morning. One of the boys will bring it back around. You can work off the—”
I didn’t get time to finish before I heard the sound of a car pull up on the curb behind me. My eyes glanced up at Ayda while she turned to look at who had arrived. For reasons I couldn’t figure out, I decided that if I watched her reaction rather than look for myself, I might have at least a second to get my anger in check.
The color drained from her cheeks, and her eyes flickered from the car. “What is he doing here?”
My nostrils flared as I closed my eyes and rolled my head back over my shoulder to finally take a look. It was only when I opened them to see the chief of police, Howard Sutton himself, sauntering towards us with his hand on his belt that I allowed myself to shake my head and turn away. “I think I can take a guess,” I whispered.
She gave me a look before plastering a welcoming smile on her lips at the approaching Sutton. “Evening, Chief. If Sloane’s here I can go and get her for you if you like?”
Sloane Sutton—Tate Hanagan’s squeeze and Howard’s precious baby daughter. I knew her name. Keeping my head dropped down and the smirk plastered on my face, I avoided looking up again until it was absolutely necessary.
That didn’t mean I couldn’t feel Sutton’s eyes burning holes through my back, though. His glare was throwing knives at all my vital organs.
Ouch.
“Ayda,” he said firmly, pausing for effect as the sound of his shoes slowed against the ground. “Not here about Sloane, thank you very much. Just calling by to see if everything’s okay.”
Ayda looked between the two of us and shuffled her feet in discomfort. “Everything’s fine, Chief. I had a couple of flats and Mr. Tucker here was kind enough to give me a ride home.”
“Mr. Tucker and kind don’t usually go hand in hand, so forgive me if I sound skeptical about that,” he droned on, drawing out his words to try and make himself sound more confident and in control of the situation. I was pretty sure the idiot thought he intimidated me because I wasn’t looking him in the eye for this one. It wasn’t long before his feet shuffled forward again. For every second I stayed quiet, his balls grew two sizes bigger and his bravery tripled. “Feel good to be out,Mr.Tucker?”
My lips pressed into a flat line as I gave a small, sarcastic nod.
I saw the subtle hand gesture from Ayda. I’m not sure it was aimed at me so much as her desperate discomfort had prompted her to react, but before Sutton could start asking more questions, she jumped in, her Texan accent becoming more distinct with her manners. “Oh, I don’t know about that, Chief. He’s been very helpful this evening, and I certainly don’t want to keep him from his evening plans.”
Lifting my chin slowly, my eyes flickered up to look at her and her alone while the cop carried on beside me. If I hadn’t known any better, I would almost have believed that she was on my side.
On my team.
“Helpful or not, I’m sure Drew has zero plans for the restof the evening on account of his fresh-out-of-prison curfew.” Sutton’s voice trailed off before he waited a moment to speak up again. “Ain’t that right, Mr. Tucker.”
My smirk turned into a full on smile as I continued to just stare up at Ayda. Even sweaty and tired, she was a beautiful woman and for today, she’d suffered enough. The last thing she needed was my shit on her doorstep making her day even uglier. “Ayda, could you do me a small favor and tell Mr. Sutton that I got out of prison without the need for a curfew or a probation officer, and if he was any kind of decent cop, he would have known that before he started trying to make me bite.” I flashed her an even brighter grin, my head tilting to the side as I hooked her helmet securely behind me and started to drop mine back down on my head. “I’ll have your car back here for you tomorrow. This one’s on me.”
“I’m sure he heard you,” she said with a small smile, before her eyes widened and she swallowed, her gaze moving to Sutton and the hand he had firmly placed on his gun. “But thank you. You’ve been great. Really.”
“My pleasure.” I huffed out a laugh, backing up the bike and making out like Sutton wasn’t there at all as my head looked every which way but in his direction. The insults about his wife were sitting on the tip of my tongue, and I had to bite down harder than ever to stop myself from asking how she was. Not that I cared. I just wanted to see him squirm; only it didn’t feel right talking like that in front of Ayda. “Later…”
“Try to avoid the latter part of that statement, Mr. Tucker. You’re not welcome on this side of town, not now and not anytime in the foreseeable. Stay on your own turf, with your own men and everyone will be happy. This is a good neighborhood and nobody wants any trouble, you hear me?”Sutton yelled out as I twisted my bike back around onto the road and waited to fire up. My head dropped down once again, and this time I failed to hold onto the laughter, my arms shaking as I let it free and let my head roll back up to look at him. He hadn’t changed much in all the time I’d been away. His uniform was still too big for him, his badge hung limply off the left side of his shirt. His mustache was curled up at the ends, making him look like he’d have been better suited to circus life rather than the law. Not that there was much difference between the two around Babylon.
To sum it up, he looked as much of a dick as he acted.
I looked back at Ayda just one more time before aiming all my humor right at Mr. Howard-The-Hitman-Sutton. “You got it, Chief. Whatever you say. Tell Maisey I said hi.”
