“Cuz!” a tall man yells as he approaches us.
He’s wearing a biker vest over his bare chest. Sewn on to the vest are two patches. The first one saysVikingand the other oneSGT at Arms. His hair is divided in locks that are yellow like the sun, brown like the earth and orange like the wheat, almost all is tied up high in a man bun, except for two locks falling down his face. Inked skin and muscles, lots of muscles, are apparent under his vest.
Jonathan greets him with a big, manly hug.
“Long time no see Vik,” Jonathan says, with his hand on Viking’s shoulder.
“No shit man, it’s been a while. To be honest, your message totally surprised me,” Viking says, now realizing I’m standing right next to Jonathan with my arms crossed. Viking scans me, up and down. I know that behavior, so I stare back at him.
“And who is this beauty? She your girl?”
Jonathan hesitates but I answer.
“I’m Sarah,” and offer a hand for him to shake it. “And I’m his.”
Viking smiles, looking at Jonathan. He knows I’m into something here. He finally shakes my hand, using a lot of strength, but not enough to scare me.
“Are you his or are youwithhim?” he asks, “because you know, those mean totally different things in here.”
“She’s mine,” Jonathan declares, but that doesn’t fool Viking. He is clearly convinced that something fishy is in the works.
That comment of his was just to test us.
“Okay then, nice to meet you… Sarah.” His tone lets me know he is uninterested. “I guess those tats are courtesy of my cuz.”
“You can bet your ass they are.” My reply prompts Jonathan to look at me with a surprised expression.
Viking and I still lock gazes. I’m not going to lose this battle of wills.
A few seconds pass, and we’re still shaking hands until Viking lowers his eyes and lets go.
I won.
Jonathan and Viking start to chat about friends, family and some other random shit, so I take this opportunity to scan my surroundings. I’m lookin for the president, though there’re so many people here that it feels like I’m trying to find that proverbial needle in a haystack.
“You should bring your gear to these parties bro,” Viking says. “You’d make bank for sure.”
“Not a bad idea, I’ll think about it,” he replies. “I’d need a sterilized room, though. Do you think that’s doable here?”
“The people coming here don’t necessarily care about that. But sure, why not?” Viking laughs.
“So, Vik, Sarah here is trying to dig some info about someone and thinks your president might be able to help. Can you hook her up?”
I can’t believe he just said that.
This is not how you handle something like this! I can’t come up with a good-enough excuse in my head to salvage this situation.
Damn it!
Viking scoffs and looks at me, waiting for a comment that would give any kind of sense to what Jonathan just said. He approaches me with his shoulders back and chin up. His chest thrust out, he takes two heavy steps trying to intimidate me, but I don’t so much as flinch.
“You want to talk to my president?” he starts, clearly outraged.
“I just want to ask him a few questions,” I reply.
“Oh, so, not only you do wanna talk to him, but interrogate him as well. Are you out of your fucking mind, princess?” He raises an eyebrow, waiting for my reply.
“We have a friend in common, and I want to know if he can help me to find him. I swear, that’s all.” I put up my hands up to excuse myself.
