by Hope Stone
But when I turned back around, I knew that I’d never reach that point. I’d always want her.
Fuck Las Balas. Fuck her dad. Fuck this whole shitty situation.
“Get back inside,” I told her. There was really nothing else to say. I could read the indecision in her expression, but somehow I knew that Kat wasn’t going to change her mind about me. I was still the enemy in her eyes, and she was too damn stubborn to consider otherwise. Which just made me angry all over again.
“I’m on the pill,” she said.
Fuck. I’d been so caught up in my desire for her that I hadn’t even stopped to think about that.
“Good.” I started to walk down the alley so that I could go around the building to where my bike was parked. I didn’t need to go back inside. I’d gotten what I came for. Turning back to her after a couple of feet, I called out, “Kitten?”
She paused with her hand outstretched to open the metal back door. “Yeah?”
“Don’t even think of going home with anyone else tonight.”
I knew that it was an unreasonable demand, but I didn’t give a shit. To my surprise, she didn’t argue. She just flashed me a little smirk before disappearing inside.
“Okay, you hold the metal detector like this, with the round part pointed at the ground. I’ve programmed the readout to let you know if it detects steel.”
Hawk was passing out metal detectors to each of us as we stood on the edge of the property where the weapons were hidden. The thing was heavier than I expected it to be, and I wasn’t looking forward to lugging it around for the next few hours.
“We only have four of these things, so we’re going to start at the south end of the property and spread out to work our way north. If you detect something, mark it with a red X on the grass,” Ryder spoke as Pin passed out the paint cans. “We’ll come back through later and dig.”
There was a small group of us tonight, and a second group would come tomorrow, that way we didn’t push anyone too much. The days were getting longer, so the sun wouldn’t be fully set for about three hours. Plenty of time to cover a lot of ground.
My mind lingered on Kat while I walked with the metal detector. Today, work had been more of the same. She ignored me or was hostile, and I found my frustration mounting. As expected, she didn’t change her attitude just because we had sex outside the bar. In fact, she seemed even more determined to push me away, as if my presence was a bigger problem for her now. If she thought she was going to get me to quit my job just because she decided to back the wrong horse, she was dead wrong.
Most of the land was flat, any trees that had previously been here being cleared out so that houses could be built on top of it. In the distance, we could see subdivisions being built, the same few cookie-cutter designs repeated over and over in various shades of tan, yellow, or blue, all sitting way too close to each other. I’d lived in places like this growing up, with their HOAs and everybody in each other’s business. I hated it.
Looking around, it was obvious that Raymond was holding onto this land for a reason. There were houses sprouting up everywhere on the lots surrounding this one. The metal detector in my hand made a noise, and the readout indicated there was steel beneath my feet. I got excited for a second before I heard Trainer’s detector going off to my far left.
Right, there could be more than one piece of steel here. It was impossible to know what was underground. Shaking up my paint can, I marked a big red X on the grass and continued onward. I wasn’t into spending much time in nature, but I could appreciate the beauty of this place. The sky was colorful as the sun started to set, and the breeze in the air made the tall grass and trees sway.
We kept at it until it was fully dark outside, but we hadn’t even covered half of the property yet. It was that big.
“I’ll come back out tomorrow night with Chalupa, Kim, and Swole,” Ryder said as we met back up at his truck. Hawk packed away the metal detectors again while he talked.
“Then comes the fun task of digging,” Trainer said drily.
“You got it,” Ryder agreed. “Now, let’s get back to the Blue Dog. The first round’s on me.”
That sounded pretty good to me, and so we hopped on our bikes, ready to follow his truck back to the bar, but a movement from nearby caught my eye.
“Hey, wait a minute,” I said, lowering my kickstand and hopping off the bike.
“What is it?” Trainer asked.
“Someone over there,” I pointed in the direction that I’d seen what I was sure was the outline of a man. “Behind that tall shrubbery.”
“You sure?” Trainer asked, getting off his own bike.
“Yeah. Someone’s watching us.”
As soon as those words were out of my mouth, we heard the unmistakable sound of motorcycles starting. I hurried forward, coming around the bushes to see who was there, just as two motorcycles took off in the opposite direction, following an unpaved road that would lead them back to La Playa. I wasn’t able to see who the riders were, but there was no disguising the patches on the back of their jackets.
“Las Balas,” I murmured.
“God damn it,” Trainer said from beside me. “They were spying on us.”
“You think they knew what we were doing?”
“There’s no way they do, but it’s still not good news. This shitty situation just got even more complicated.”
I couldn’t help but think of Kat. She’d heard a snippet of Ryder talking about what we were doing here tonight. Did she hear enough to send her Las Balas buddies to watch us, or was it just coincidence?
I hated feeling suspicious of her, but she’d made it clear that Las Balas were her people. I would have to talk to her about it, and I hoped like hell that I was wrong.
Kat
I was finished with my mother’s room. The space had a new paint job and decor. It was now a guest bedroom. I stood in the room after making the bed and felt a lightness in my heart that I hadn’t thought would come for a long time. It hurt to let her go, but I was finally ready to start moving past it.
Next, I was redecorating the living room. My mom had painted the room a salmon color when we moved in years ago, back when I was still in diapers. I’d never liked it because it was too girly for me, so now I was going to change it.
I felt like I was changing my life as I changed my house. I was in the best place emotionally that I had been since my mom died. Then, I thought about Blade and decided that might be bullshit. Why couldn’t I move on from this guy? He was trouble for me, with his Outlaw Souls patch on his back.
But I’d slept with him on Tuesday at the bar, and I couldn’t stop thinking about doing it again. I’d never had such an insatiable need for a man before. Of course, it had to happen with the wrong guy.
I could really use another cigarette. It was too bad that I threw the pack I bought away when my commitment to kick the habit returned.
Embracing the idea of a distraction, I went to the hardware store to look through paint samples, choosing to focus on something productive instead of my confusing feelings for Blade. There were so many color options that I was almost immediately overwhelmed. I knew I didn’t want the ugly pinkish color that had been on the wall, but other than that, I was lost.
Grabbing a couple of swatches of each color I might be even remotely interested in, I shoved them into my purse. When I got home, I’d tape them to the wall and see what I liked best with the living room’s lighting.
I was heading to the door when I was stopped. A man in the blue polo shirt that all the employees wore stepped into my path. His name tag listed him as a manager, but all of that was secondary as I realized that I knew the man, sort of.
“David?” I felt a twinge of guilt as I remembered leaving him on the dance floor when Blade showed up, then blowing him off when I came back inside after having sex in the alley. I knew that I didn’t owe the guy anything, but I could tell that he was disappointed. I didn’t want to be a bitch, but I wasn’t really feeling
it before Blade showed up. After he made his appearance, it was unthinkable to go home with David.
“Kat, how…interesting to see you here.” There was something in his voice that I didn’t like. He seemed cold somehow. “Do you know why I’ve stopped you from leaving?”
“No?” I was confused by the question. Hadn’t he just stopped me to say hello?
“I saw you put something inside of your purse.”
“Yeah, paint samples.”
“I’m not so sure about that. You seem like the dishonest type.”
“Excuse me?” White-hot anger flared to life inside of me.
“I’m going to need to search your bag.”
“No way. What’s your problem?”
“You know, you seem like a woman that makes bad decisions. Like leaving a perfectly nice guy on the dance floor after leading him on, only to run off with a guy that looks like he belongs behind bars.”
“You know, men that refer to themselves as nice guys rarely are,” I told him, walking over to the unmanned customer service counter nearby and unceremoniously dumping the contents of my purse all over the place just to be petulant. His insults of both Blade and me pissed me off, so I didn’t care if I seemed childish.
My wallet, gum, and birth control pills went spilling out all over the place, as well as all the color swatches I’d put in there. David pursed his lips as he saw that I hadn’t stolen anything. Then, he smiled.
“You know, I should probably search you, just in case.”
My skin crawled. What. A. Creep.
“No fucking way,” I said loudly, drawing attention from the other customers nearby.
“Then, maybe I should call the police?”
Did he really think that would scare me? Pathetic.
“Go ahead, but you’ll also have to call an ambulance if you try to lay a finger on me.”
David laughed. “I knew you’d be fiesty. It was what drew me to you in the first place.” He took a step closer to me until he was so close that he could reach out and touch me. “All I want is to touch you, Kat. Get a little payback for those drinks I bought you.”
I clenched my teeth and met his eyes. “I don’t owe you anything.”
“Is there a problem here?” a voice asked from behind David, and he turned, revealing a pissed off looking Blade.
“Not at all,” David said, his voice oily as he stepped away from me.
Blade’s hands were fisted at his side, and his breathing was heavy. I had a feeling that he was trying to decide if he should pound David into a pulp or not.
“It’s fine, Blade,” I said, scooping up the contents of my purse and shoving them back inside. “I’m done with this place, anyway.”
As I side-stepped David, I thought for a moment that he might be dumb enough to try to stop me, but he didn’t. He just glowered at me as I went by. Blade kept his eyes pinned on the skeezy asshole until I had walked past them both, heading for the door.
“You keep your hands to yourself from now on,” I heard him say to David. The threat was so clear in his voice that I felt a shiver go down my spine, even though it wasn’t directed at me.
I pushed open the door to go outside and felt his presence behind me. As I got to the parking lot, I spun around to face him.
“You didn’t have to do that, you know. What were you even doing here? Did you follow me?”
“Hell no. I’m not a stalker. I came to the closest hardware store to the Blue Dog to pick up a couple of packs of lightbulbs. The one in the men’s bathroom went out.” He looked begrudging as he answered my questions. I trailed my eyes down to his hand and saw that he was carrying a white plastic bag at his side. “And as for what happened in there, I think you meant to thank me.’”
I sighed, breaking eye contact. He was right. I was embarrassed about the whole thing, but I still owed him some gratitude.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said. Blade started walking backward toward his bike so that he could still speak to me as he walked away. “It’s okay to need help sometimes, tough girl.”
I didn’t have a response to that. He’d helped me out back there, and I didn’t want to fight with him right now. So, I turned around and walked away, deciding to buy my paint from somewhere else on another day.
Blade
“That’s one sweet-ass ride, man,” I turned toward the voice speaking and saw a group of four men standing on the edge of the Blue Dog’s parking lot. They were all smoking joints and looked like biker wannabes. They were too clean with their perfectly trimmed fingernails and leather jackets that looked like they just came off the hanger at the store.
“Thanks,” I said with a nod, but I didn’t stop to talk.
Walking into the bar, I waited for a second for my eyes to adjust before looking around. Trainer was sitting in his usual spot at the bar, while Hawk and Pin played a game of pool in the back. It looked like they both sucked, but half of their attention was on a college football game on the flat screens hanging around the bar.
The only other person in the place was Axel, who was behind the bar. I took a seat next to Trainer, and Axel handed over a beer before I even had to ask.
“What’s up?” I asked Trainer as I shrugged out of my jacket.
“Taking Eve on a date tonight,” he shrugged. “Little time out of the house without the kids.”
“Nice.”
“It would be nicer if she’d let Swole keep the kids overnight.”
I laughed. Poor guy must have been sex-deprived since the baby came along. “Why won’t she?”
“She says Ashley is too little to be away from us overnight.”
“At three months old? She must be crazy. That girl should have her own place by now.”
Trainer punched me in the arm. I thought it was meant to be playful, but the guy was so damn big that he couldn’t seem to help packing a wallop.
“You know I’m crazy about my baby girl, but I want a night with my wife.”
“That’s a bummer,” I said. I really didn’t have any pearls of wisdom for the guy. I had never spent much time around kids and had no intention of having my own.
“Gee, thanks. What about you? What are you up to tonight?”
I lifted my beer bottle and gave him a wry grin. “Just a whole lot of this.”
“Now, that’s the bummer.”
I shrugged. I was just glad that it wasn’t my turn to go walk around with a metal detector for three hours. That was probably why the bar was so empty on a Friday evening. We’d probably get some townies in later, mostly women looking for a good time. I didn’t see myself picking any of them up, though. I couldn’t get my stupid mind off Kat long enough to take anyone else to bed.
The door of the bar opened again, and I glanced over to see the four men from the parking lot enter. The smell of pot clung to them, and they were all downright giddy.
“What’s up, boys?” the same man that had addressed me asked the room at large as the four of them took a table near the jukebox.
None of us answered directly. We just watched him as he approached the bar.
“Four of your finest domestic brews for me and my buddies,” the man said, slapping a fifty-dollar bill on the bar.
Ah, that made sense. This guy was probably from Fletcher Pointe, a wealthy town just to the east of La Playa. We got people like this in here sometimes, rich guys that wanted to play like they were tough guys. They had romanticized the biker life, or maybe they thought it would get them women, and the ultimate way of showing off was to come to a real biker bar, to fraternize with the Outlaw Souls as if they belonged. People like this were generally harmless and occasionally amusing.
“Hammond Boothe,” the guy said, holding his hand out to me.
Hammond?
Even this guy’s name was showy.
“Blade,” I said, squeezing his fingers as I shook his hand.
“Blade…nice. Did you get to pick your own nickname?”
“Wha
t makes you think it’s a nickname?” I asked.
“Well…” he trailed off with nervous laughter as he looked as Axel, then back to me. “I mean… Blade isn’t a real name.”
“But Hammond is?”
Trainer barked out a loud laugh, making Hammond jump before giving us a smile of his own.
“Fair enough. You guys are Outlaw Souls, right?”
“Maybe,” I said noncommittally. “And what are you guys?”
Hammond looked back over at his friends, then at me. “Just a couple of guys that like riding. Thought you guys might be cool.”
“Oh, we’re very cool,” I said. “But if you want to hang out here, you’ll have to prove yourself.”
Axel grinned broadly as he realized what I was doing.
“How?” Hammond asked.
“Taking on a real biker in a drinking contest.”
“I can do that,” Hammond said confidently.
“We put money on the line. Five hundred.”
He didn’t even hesitate. “Done.”
“You heard the man Axel. Set us up with Jameson.”
“Whoa,” Hammond said, looking uncertain. “Whisky? That’s some hard shit.”
“You wanna back out?” I asked with a challenge in my voice. I made sure it was loud enough for his buddies to hear.
“No way,” Hammond said, literally puffing out his chest.
“Let’s do it then.”
I turned to Trainer with a grin and saw laughter in his eyes. It looked like I had found some fun for my Friday night, after all. Axel poured the drinks and carried them to the table, and Hammond’s eyes widened when he saw how much there was. This was going to be like taking candy from a baby.
