“You just said Doherty deserved it.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I lit my smoke.
Locke cast it a longing stare, then sighed like his man before him. “Come on. Let’s get you sobered up and ready to fight for real.”
“I’m not drunk.”
Another truth, but Locke wasn’t listening. He led me the back way to the bunkhouse, gave me a bear hug to mark our sweet reunion, and sent me packing into the bathroom.
I stripped and turned the shower on, bracing myself for the arctic blast I’d grown used to the last time I was here.
“Fucking-A—” Volcanic spray blew me backwards, scalding my skin. “What’s with the mardy plumbing?”
Locke reappeared, giving zero fucks that I was bollock-naked. “It’s cold?”
“If Krakatoa was fucking cold.” I eased the temperature to a setting that wouldn’t singe me alive. “You been fixing the place up?”
“Not me.”
Locke spoke with a fond grin.
I rolled my eyes, not giving a shit what that was all about, and dunked my head under the water, scrubbing a hand through the shortest hair I’d had since I was sixteen. Recalling the day I’d hacked it off, then shaking the memory free, forcing myself not to drift.
Get clean.
I found some soap, but it smelt of orange blossom—ofhim—and I didn’t have the infrastructure for that right now.
Fuck it, I’d stay feral.
I tossed the soap and stepped out of the shower.
Locke handed me a towel, his gaze never leaving as I dragged my clothes back on. “You’re really not going to tell me what that was all about?”
I stole a Rebel Kings crew neck from a pile in an open locker and yanked it over my head, buying myself a moment before I met his curious concern again. Keeping shit from Locke wasn’t my favourite thing. He was my friend and I loved him. But these days, he was as emotionally invested in the Kings as Folk was. He’d die for those kids—but he didn’t have to. Cos I was here.
“Dude.” Locke got in my face. “Talk to me.”
“About what?”
“Anything. Everything. You’ve been gone a long time, and this is the first thing you do when you come home?”
“Get off my dick.” I craved Locke’s big arms around me again. His familiar embrace after being alone for so long. But I stepped out of his reach. “This isn’t my home.”
My old friend heaved a world-weary sigh. “If you believed that, your nanna wouldn’t be here.”
I cut him a sharp glare that he didn’t deserve. Remembered he’d spent more time with Jean than I had these past few monthsandthat he’d recruited his lovers to take care of her too.
Being nice didn’t come easy to me, but for Locke, I made the effort to un-arsehole myself.
I softened my features in time for Nash to limp up on us.
Locke immediately forgot about me. He steered Nash to a bunk and bullied him into taking a pew.
Nash let it happen, a grin lighting his pretty face, but his gaze hardened when it landed on me. “Doherty’s oldest boy wants you in the ring.”
I shrugged, expecting it. “Give a shit.”
“There’s a problem, though.”
