“I don’t have a bike, Sisk.”
She steps closer. “Make it happen, bad boy. It’s my birthday.”
Lou snorts, covering his mouth with his hand. “Oh, he’s been challenged. What are you going to do, Jax? Steal one? Right now? In front of all these people?”
I ignore him, my gaze fixed on Sisk. She’s not just daring me. She’s trusting me, asking me to be the guy who can make anything happen, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let her down.
My gaze sweeps over the line of bikes. Most are chrome-plated trash, too heavy to move, too loud to hide, but there, tucked near the back, partially hidden by a stack of old tires, it’s an old sport bike, maybe a decade old, but it’s clean. The frame is narrow, the seat low.I can probably handle that and not die. Probably.
“That one,” I say, nodding toward it.
Lou tsks. “That’s Grayson’s bike. You touch that, he’ll skin you alive.”
“We’ll see about that,” I say, already walking.
Lou yells, “Bold choice. Questionable survival instinct.”
I don’t look back.
I stop a few feet from the bike and raise my voice. “So, is this one taken, or is it up for grabs?”
The reaction is immediate. A guy straightens from where he’d been crouched near a cooler. Tall. Broad. Arms crossed over his chest like he’s just been waiting for a reason to use them.
“That’s mine,” he says. Grayson. His head is shaved clean, a small lizard inked just above his ear, tail disappearing behind it like it’s crawling into his skull.
“Didn’t see your name on it.”
A few people laugh.
Grayson steps closer. “You planning on walking away from this conversation, rich boy? Or you planning on bleeding?”
“Let him ride.”
I look back to see Whistle.
Grayson turns, pissed. “Why the hell would I?—”
“Because I want to beat him,” Whistle says. “Fair and square, where everyone can see.”
That gets the crowd’s attention. Grayson’s eyes flick back to me. Then to Whistle. Then to the bike.
“What’s the prize?” Grayson asks.
Whistle’s grin gets bigger. He looks right past me, his eyes landing on Sisk. “She rides with me next.”
“No fucking way,” I say immediately.
Sisk steps forward before I can say anything else, a drink in her hand. “I can answer for myself, Jax.”
She takes a sip.
“Sisk,” I start, but I don’t even know what I was going to say. Don’t do it? I can’t win? She’s already turned her back on me.
“You win,” she says, shrugging one shoulder, “I’ll think about it.”
Shit.
Someone whoops. Some other clown whispers, “ohhh shit.”
