Push grunted.“Thought you were on my side, Prez.”
“I’m on the side of accuracy.”
Pearl smiled back at me.“You’ll learn that Anchor likes to pretend he’s terrifying, but really, he’s just bossy with good cheekbones.”
Anchor stopped walking.
Pearl almost ran into his back.
I almost laughed.
Push did laugh, but it was low and short, like he tried to catch it before it escaped and failed.
Anchor looked down at Pearl.“Bossy with good cheekbones?”
She patted his chest.“Don’t worry.It works for you.”
He shook his head and started walking again.“You’re lucky I like you.”
“Like?”Pearl echoed.
Anchor didn’t look back.“Love.Worship.Whatever keeps you from giving me shit in front of people.”
“Too late,” she sang.
The banter was easy.It didn’t fit with the heavy feeling sitting in my stomach as we headed toward the elevators.
That was something I was starting to notice about this club.They joked even when things were bad.Maybe especially when things were bad.The humor wasn’t there because they didn’t care.It was there because caring too much without a release valve probably made people explode.
I understood that.
Sarcasm had been my release valve for years.
The elevator doors opened, and we stepped inside.Anchor hit the button for the fourth floor.Pearl leaned into his side, and he automatically wrapped an arm around her shoulders like it was muscle memory.Push stood beside me, close enough that his shoulder almost brushed mine, but not touching.
I decided not to call him out on it because the elevator was small, my head still hurt, and I wasn’t entirely sure I could win an argument while boxed in with two giant bikers and one woman who looked like she was already planning to adopt me into this weird little family.
The elevator chimed, and we stepped onto a quiet hospital floor.
Anchor’s entire demeanor changed.The joking dropped off him like a coat.
Pearl noticed it too because her fingers slid into his hand.
Push shifted beside me, his jaw tightening as we walked down the hall.This was family.Not blood, maybe, but something even deeper.
We stopped outside a room halfway down the hall.Anchor paused with his hand on the doorframe, inhaled once through his nose, and then stepped inside.
Pearl followed him.
Push nodded for me to go ahead, and I walked into the room.
Bob was in bed.
I knew he was Bob before anyone said it, mostly because there was something about him that screamed biker even beneath hospital blankets, bruises, tubes, and the kind of washed-out fluorescent light that made everyone look half-dead.
He had a thick beard and a big frame that the hospital bed didn’t quite know what to do with.Even lying there, even worn down and medicated, there was no mistaking that he was a large, solid man.The kind of guy who probably looked intimidating just standing in line at a grocery store buying cereal.
Right now, he looked like that same guy after life had dragged him behind a truck and then decided to reverse over him for good measure.
