Except Dylan.
And through her, me.
I made good money.
I could help the girls rent a house or something while they looked for work, got an education, figured their future out.
We weren’t going to leave them on their own.
“Alright,” Saint said, walking in, waving his phone. “I got you a place to stay near L.A. Not in it. That was wishful thinking.”
I didn’t even know he was doing that.
It was on my list after I finished cleaning.
“Where?”
“Found a rental house that was fine with a service lab and two Rotties. Got a yard and everything. Asked that you clean up after the dogs, but that was the only stipulation. Also found you a vet. Got appointments for the day after tomorrow. One after another. Said you found two strays and you think one might be pregnant and you wanted to get ‘em checked out.”
For some reason, my gaze slid to Slash, finding him watching Saint with pinched brows, something intense in his eyes.
But Slash wasn’t the kind of leader to tell you what he was thinking. So I had no idea where his head was at.
“Thanks, man,” I said, nodding.
“This place is a hole, man,” Rook said, looking around as he leaned against a clean wall to take a break.
“I’ve seen worse clubhouses,” Slash said. “But it’s not some place I’d want to call home. Shocked so many women did for so long.”
“From what it sounds like, none of these women had anywhere else to go,” I explained. “It was a ragtag group of orphans and outcasts who just needed somewhere to crash. Dylan said they were making plans to revamp it before Roach took it from her. They were talking about painting it in shades of pink and purple as the ultimate fuck-you to her dead father and the sexist club he ran.”
“Shame they never got to do that,” Sway said. “And the lighter colors would have made it easier to see all this blood,” headded, plunging the mop into the bucket again. “Would it have killed you to off these guys in a cleaner way?” he grumbled.
As the day wore on, we all got more and more grumpy about the mess. Especially as it dried and got more and more difficult to remove.
But, eventually, we had most of it done.
I walked outside, trying to get some fresh air after breathing in bleach for hours. I automatically found myself reaching for my phone and calling Dylan.
“Everything okay?” she asked, voice tight.
“Yeah, just wanted to hear your voice. Been listening to a lot of bitching and moaning about the blood all day. Been doing some of it myself.”
“God, you’re still working on it?” she asked. Then, under her breath, “Men.”
“Hey, we all had to learn to clean when we prospected,” I said. “There was just significantly less blood then.”
“Fair enough. How is it going?”
“We’re mostly done. We have a lot of packing to do, but aside from that…”
“It sounds like you’re not coming back tonight.”
“It’s not seeming likely. Are you okay? The girls?”
“They’re starting to detox,” Dylan told me.
“How’s that going? Don’t know much about meth detox.”
