“I gotta get these delivered.” He reaches for the thermal bag.
“I don’t buy it.” I knock his hands away from the bag. “‘Cause there’s no fuckin’ way my road captain of the Kings of Anarchy is the pizza delivery guy.”
He shakes me off. “There is no Kings of Anarchy anymore.” His eyes flash. “And you wanna know why?”
I lower my eyes to the weed-infested parking lot. “I know why.”
“Right.” He thumps my shoulder. “‘Cause you fucked up.”
We stare at each other for a few tense seconds, but at least now he looks like Speed and not some Stepford robot.
“I get it, you’re pissed.” I had a feeling I’d be hearing that a lot the next couple of days. “But now I wanna make things right.”
“Too fuckin’ late, man.” He turns away from me, and just as fast, I grab his shoulder and spin him around. We’re the same height, but I got at least twenty more pounds of muscle on me thanks to daily workouts in the joint.
Speed shrugs me off, steps back, and shakes out his arms. “You wanna fuckin’ do this?” He points to himself. “C’mon, throw one, I fuckin’ dare you.”
“I’m not fighting with you in the parking lot of Pizza King like we’re back in high school.”
“Afraid?” It seems like he needs this more than me.
“Yeah, right.” I jerk my hand between us. “I’m afraid of the pizza guy. Give me a fuckin’ break.”
Quick as a rattler, his fist connects with my jaw. The jolt rattles my teeth, but not enough to keep me from laughing.
“What the fuck are you laughing at?” He winds up again, and I easily push him off. “I told you I’m not doin’ this. You got your one shot in, and that’s all you’re getting.”
Speed narrows his eyes. “You think it was easy after you got sent up? The place we all called home was ripped away from us. The cops confiscated everything, and I mean everything. The furniture, the flatscreens on the wall, even our fuckin’ clothes. They ripped up the carpets looking for shit under the floorboards. By the time they were done, they were down to the rafters.”
“I know it sucks.”
“After they wrecked the place, they sold it to some realty company who sold it to a pizzeria.” Speed flicks his hand at the Pizza King building. “Our biggest competitor.”
“You’re a mad genius when it comes to bikes. Finding a job should’ve been easy.”
“Not with the cops up our asses every second. Following us around, dogging our every step. When it came out that we were infiltrated by the DEA, any non-legit business figured we were dirty too, and no legit place wanted to hire the guys who were closest to the guy sent up on federal charges. Most people take smuggling and trading of arms seriously.”
“If I could change all that shit around, I’d do it in a minute, but?—”
“You got sent up, but we were all marked as dirty. People either thought we were criminals or informants. We lost our rep, our cred. We lost it all.”
I stay silent because the defeat in Speed’s eyes rips me up.
“Being in an MC was all I knew. It was all any of us knew.” Speed throws up his hands. “Believe me, you got off easy. You got to leave A.C. We had to stay.”
“Why didn’t you move?”
“Move to where? I had no money saved. None of us did. As quick as I made it, I pissed it away, and that’s on me, so I shacked up with Janel for a while.”
“Better than nothing, I guess.” I never cared for the bitch, but at least Speed had somewhere to lay his head.
“Great, until I came home early one night and saw her ballin’ the pizza delivery guy.”
“You’re shittin’ me?” I can’t help laughing.
“Beat the living piss outta him.” Speed barks out a laugh. “Then, when he was too busted up to go back to work, I took his fuckin’ job.”
“You can’t make this shit up.” I clap Speed on the shoulder. Now we’re both doubled over laughing. “Hate to tell you, man, but Janel was a whore. Bitch had more dick in her than the men’s room.”
