Rubi groaned and his arm fell away. He blinked awake and frowned when he registered it was me. “Fuck.” He scrambled upright, ignoring my outstretched arm. “You’re back.”
“I was never gone.”
“Yeah, yeah. I was starting to think Saint had offed you and buried the body in the woods.”
“Nice. So you’d have left me for the worms if he had?”
“Of course. You don’t wanna be cremated. I remember that shit from when we were kids.”
Nostalgia flooded my heart. Me and Rubes had grown up in the club. In many ways, we were as close as blood brothers. But then, in others, we weren’t. Rubi knew my history better than anyone because it was his history too, but he didn’t know the things that kept me up at night and made my heart beat too fast. I’d never told him and he’d never asked.
I watched him rub his temples. “Are they getting better?”
“What?”
“The headaches.” I handed him the tea. “I need you, brother, but nothing that can’t wait if you need more time. You just gotta tell me.”
“I’m fine.”
“Fuck off.”
Rubi sipped scalding tea and gave me his middle finger.
I rolled my eyes and dropped a Vicodin from the stash Alexei had given me into his free palm. “Take this and sleep it off in my bed. Then find me tonight. I got a job for you. Or at least some trouble that’ll keep you out of trouble.”
Faint humour flared in Rubi’s gaze, but he kept it to himself, giving me a sour look instead. “If it ain’t riding my bike some place to get laid, I’m not interested.”
“How about if you take the van and stop by my brother’s place on the way? That sway you?”
“Your brother isn’t trouble.”
“Not for you.”
Rubi snorted. “He doesn’t give you shit either. If you left him alone, he’d be sweet as a nut.”
That Rubi was so certain of that added weight to the suspicion I’d carried for a couple of years now—that it wasn’t familial emotions that kept Riv from walking out of my life completely. But whatever. I wasn’t going to leave my brother alone. He could fight me as much as he liked. I’d still love him forever. “I need you to go to Porth Luck and take a ride out on a boat to where the Sambini shipment is coming in. See if there’s anything waiting to hitch a lift for the return journey.”
“You want me to go fishing?” Rubi sighed. “Isn’t that a job for a prospect?”
“It’s a job for someone I trust and Saint gets seasick.”
“Does he balls. I’ve seen him move a cadaver that’s been there—”
“Shut the fuck up.” I held my hand up, not in the mood to contemplate all the horrible shit Saint had done for the club. “Just take the van, okay? Talk to Sol Bosanko. He’ll give you grief about it, but he’d rather we brought weed through Porth Luck than anything and anyone else.”
Rubi grunted and I took it as acquiescence. I left him to take his medicine and another nap and retreated to the chapel, grateful to find it empty. The slow cooker had been cleaned in my absence. I filled it up, then took up my favourite brooding spot at the table.
I set my phone in front of me, craving a hit of Alexei’s sardonic voice in my ear, but I had shit to do before I could give into the reality that I missed that motherfucker already. Mateo. Embry. Saint. Even Cracker required my attention.
My stomach churned as I contemplated encountering Cracker for the first time since I’d choked him out, a putrid swirl of the worst emotions: malice, anger.
Hate.
That was the worst one. I’d been born with my hands curled into fists, boxing for fun long before I realised I was destined to fight my whole damn life. But hating a man—even one as toxic and irritating as old man Cracker—fucked with my conscience.“Is that what you’d like to do, Cam? Build houses with your bare hands?”
Yeah. Maybe it was.
Fuck it.I gave in and dialled Alexei, but my call went unanswered and I forced myself not to send a follow up text. Alexei had already seen right through me, but I was in the business of kidding myself that I hadn’t come to need his unpredictable presence in my life as much as I needed fucking air.
