Ifound a job.It was shit, but it paid enough to keep the wolf from my door, and I let that money of Henley’s sit there in my account as a safety net. Hopefully I wouldn’t have to use it, but knowing it was there really helped.
I’d spoken to him a couple of times now, still not giving him my number, but keeping in touch. It’d been nearly two weeks away from them at this point, and the lack of V beside me, the lack of my cut on my back, they still felt like holes in my soul that I couldn’t refill. They felt like pits of blackness, always there, always reminding me that I was missing so much of myself. Would it always feel like this?
I was stacking shelves at a fucking hardware store, for fuck’s sake. It was shit. It was boring, it was minimum wage, but it was a job.
The reason I picked it was that they were allowing Nixie to stay in the locker room during the day, as long as she didn’t make a mess. I’d cordoned off an area for her, and made sure everyoneknew they were all responsible for her safety. If she got out, or got hurt, someone would pay in pain.
It didn’t make me all that popular, and neither did the amount of times I ducked in there to check on her, but a few of the younger female employees adored her, so I’d often find them spending their breaks and spare minutes playing with her.
It was selfish to have brought her with me. I knew it. We all knew it. I had to make the best of it now though, and keep doing my best for her.
“Watch it, bruv. Nearly stepped on me,” someone said from behind me, and I moved out of the way of two bastards who looked eerily similar. Both tall, broad and bearded, and watching me with a hint of possible recognition. I definitely didn’t know them, but they had the hairs on the back of my neck sticking up within two seconds of being in their presence.
“Looking for something in particular?” I tried, knowing my ‘customer service voice’ was severely lacking, probably because I didn’t like the look of these fuckers.
“Nah, bruv. This doesn’t look like where you belong though, does it?”
I cast my eyes around me, and then looked at the smirking fucker again.
“You what?”
“You’re a long way from home, bruv. Don’t you think you’d be better off there?”
They weren’t wearing cuts, so I had a feeling they weren’t from a rival club, and I hadn’t even tried joining one around here. I wasn’t ready to wear another club’s colours. I didn’t deserve to.
“Not sure what you mean, mate, but feel free to browse for whatever hardware shit you’re looking for.”
“Sammy, I found the…oh!Is that him?”
A beautiful dark-haired woman scooted over to their side, a coil of dark twine in her hand. What the fuck? Things just goteven more sinister, since one of them held a hammer, and the other held what looked like duct tape. A lot of it.
“Do I know you?” I addressed her, but that was stupid, because it immediately pissed the two blokes off. There was something about them that warned me they were dangerous.
“You should do, bruv. We know you. Here we are, up here on a little business trip, and who do we bump into, right?”
The other one picked up instantly, as if they were using the same brain.
“Poor little missing Phoenix boy, looking like he needs to go home, bruv.”
I slammed down the last tin of fence paint, and straightened up again, feeling like if they wanted a beef, I could do with a good fight. They clearly knew who I was, and that was really fucked up, because I had no idea who they were. All fuckers stop smirking eventually, right? Like when they’re unconscious.
“You’re starting to piss me off. You wanna fuck off, before I show you the door? It opens really fucking well when you slam a smug, fucking-”
“We’re not looking for trouble!” The women interrupted, waving her hands at me, but the men nudged her behind them.
“Aren’t we, baby? You normally like trouble.” The one guy dragged her up against him and started kissing her loudly and obnoxiously, and the other rolled his eyes.
“EXCUSE ME, we asked for HELP!” He practically yelled at me, and I sighed heavily.
“No, you just pissed around, and called each other ‘bruv’ a lot.”
“I SAID THE CUSTOMER SERVICE IN HERE IS APPALLING. I want to make a complaint!”
“Yeah, you’re not servicing us, bruv. I’m really offended.”
I knew they’d be trouble. Two hours later, I was jobless, and carrying Nixie home on my ride. Home to another shitty hotel. Why the fuck did those two assholes just get into my shitand fuck it up? Who the hell were they? They’d made formal complaints, making up all kinds of shit. I was rude. I was abusive. I was sexually suggestive to their woman. What the hell was their problem? Why pick a fight with me when I had no idea who they even were?
Back at the hotel, I tucked into yet another shit burger, and lay back on another shit bed. This wasn’t working. I needed something more permanent. Time to move to the next town along? Or maybe a small village, where I could try a change of pace.
