by A. J. Downey
“Glad you noticed that,” I said. “Something is off in that camp, but I couldn’t tell you what and while I’ll ask her, I don’t really expect an answer. For now, until we get back and settled, it’s tabled, but you know I’m going to bring it up.”
“If anything, I hope she can cook or you’re in for a rough month if that’s what you’re counting on her to do.” Cipher broke into silent laughter and the guys all couldn’t help but join in. Doing their best not to get too loud, lest she hear and think we were making fun of her.
“Right, anything else then?” I asked and they all shook their heads.
“We knew you were up to something,” Deacon declared. “You never do anything for no reason.”
I nodded carefully. “No. No, I do not,” I agreed.
Chapter Four
Marisol…
I held nothing but disdain for the three men around the table, left out here with me – and so I ignored them.
How they weren’t in jail with the rest of the men from this group of the club was beyond me. Perhaps the police didn’t have enough evidence against them. Just the other four.
I knew them. They used to bring the medicine, but they also had started to charge more and more each time. Sometimes, we had to go without. Sometimes, that made my people sick. It was frustrating, and I understood why Miguel had thought to go to the police, but he was Abuela’s man to deal with. Instead, the four men who were in jail now had killed Miguel and his whole family – his wife, Anita, and their two little ones.
It was why they were in jail now, and if they talked, it could put a stop to the medicine. I worried for my brother; was afraid he would die. We couldn’t afford the medicine at the pharmacy. It was far too expensive.
I walked around the barroom, my eyes skimming the photographs of the gringos on the wall, their hair wild and unkempt, greasy in some photos, and their eyes bleary from too much drink. Some of the photos were Yakima County Sheriff, some were Tribal Police, and I had to think that more than a few were for riding their motorcycles while drunk.
My mind wandered to Maverick, and the men who had replaced these ones last year… He was different. They all were. Hard, yes, with their air of don’t fuck with me the same as the men from this region – yet something was different. Their male gazes… appreciative more than lascivious.
I didn’t feel dirty when Maverick looked at me. Unlike the fools behind me now, cracking semi-crude jokes like I didn’t know that they were talking about me.
Then again, I knew when to keep my mouth shut. It was a very real possibility they didn’t think I spoke English. Joke was on them. My father may have been an illegal immigrant, but both I and my brother were born here.
My mother was also Hispanic, but American like me. Her parents had immigrated like my father had.
She was a teenager when she met my father, who was in his early twenties. She got pregnant with me, and they’d married and had been happy. They were overjoyed when they got pregnant with my brother, even though they had intended to stop with me.
My brother was born, and we were happy… but then my father had his fall. He hit his head and had died before help could arrive. My mother was devastated and turned to drugs to numb the pain. She overdosed and the rest, as they say, was history. Both my brother and I were given to our Abuela to raise.
The door opened and the men came out of the room Maverick had called the chapel, though there wasn’t any sort of religious iconography that I could see.
“Marisol,” he said. “Come in here a minute, would you? I want to talk to you.”
I let my gaze sweep the faces of the men who had come out, but their expressions were carefully neutral and gave me nothing.
I hitched my backpack higher on my back and gripping the straps so my hands wouldn’t shake, I went forward – past the table where the three men sat and past Maverick and into the room.
He shut the door behind us, and my spine tingled, a bead of sweat sliding down my spine as I tried to turn calmly.
“You don’t think much of them, do you?” he asked.
“I liked Miguel, Anita, and their two boys,” I said simply.
Maverick’s jaw knotted with something like regret and I frowned slightly.
“Nothing like that is ever going to happen again. We have rules, it’s in our bylaws, no women, no children. Rebel and the rest of them fucked that up, but as far as I know, Goner and the two other guys out there? They didn’t know anything about it. You know something that I should about that?” He looked at me steadily, his eyebrows going up as he pressed the pad of one thumb to his sexy bottom lip.
I swallowed and shook my head.
“Right,” he said and pulled out a chair. “Have a seat. We need to discuss terms.”
“Terms?” I echoed.
“Yeah, terms. What you are and what you aren’t willing to do to work off this debt.”
I slid the straps of my pack off my shoulders and set it on the table as he held out a chair for me. I sat down and he pushed me in. He took a seat at the end of the table at a ninety-degree angle from me and leaned way back in his seat, elbows on the arms, hands steepled in front of him, fingertips pressed together.
“I thought it was whatever you wanted,” I said, caught off guard. “Isn’t that how these kinds of things usually work?” I kept my voice measured; my tone cool.
“Surprise,” he said, arching an eyebrow.
“What do you expect of me?” I asked. “I mean, what would you want me to do?”
“You cook?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Clean?”
“Also, yes… you want me to be your housemaid?”
He nodded. “It’s a start.”
“Sex?” I asked and he smiled.
“With your consent, if you’re down for it.”
I eyed him carefully and nodded slowly. “I thought that was what I was signing up for.”
He gave a little blasé shrug and said, “Just wanted to be clear.”
“We’re clear,” I said.
“There’s something I’m not clear on,” he said. “Why’d you volunteer as tribute like that?”
I raised an eyebrow of my own. “Do I have to talk about it?”
“Not if you don’t want to,” he said.
“I don’t want to,” I said a little too sharply and he smiled. “Just to be clear,” I added quickly, a little embarrassed.
“I take it you and your grandmother haven’t gotten along for a while.” His dark blue eyes raked over me and I chewed my bottom lip.
“No. It’s been five years.”
“What started that?” he asked.
“I became a teenager?” I asked and he chuckled.
“Don’t want to talk about that either, huh?”
“Not really, no.”
“What do you want to talk about then?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “A month is plenty of time to figure it out.”
“That’s true,” he said, nodding slowly.
“So, will I be living with you?” I asked after the silence drew out for a time, though the silence wasn’t uncomfortable, surprisingly enough.
“Yes,” he said. “You’ll be sleeping with me, too. I’ve only got the one bed.”
“That’s alright,” I said with a crooked smile. His smile was slow, an echo of mine and I said sarcastically, “I mean, oh no, the hardship!” I even put the back of my hand to my forehead and he laughed outright.
“Point taken. Fucking you is going to be fun; I can already tell.”
“We’ll see if you…” I cleared my throat, “measure up.”
He leaned forward and put his booted feet to the floor, saying “Once I rail that sweet ass, you’ll never look at another dick the same way again.”
His confidence made me smile and made my pussy clench.
“We’ll see,” I murmured.
“Just wait until we get home.”
Home. Now that was something I didn’t
have anymore. Something must have made it to the surface, flitted across my face, because he lost the easy smile and searched my eyes with grave concentration, nodding slowly at whatever he found there.
“You hungry?” he asked, and it wasn’t quite what I expected but I’d take it.
“More thirsty.”
“Well, you need to eat. Come on. Let’s get us all fixed up.”
He got up and I rose with him, taking up my pack again.
“Where are we staying tonight?” I asked.
“The pool table,” he answered, and I laughed. I thought he was kidding.
What was for dinner was decided, food was ordered, and the men raided the bar for beer, whiskey, or whatever their poison was. It looked like we were in for the night, and I was alright with that. Although, I was beginning to come to grips with the notion that Maverick hadn’t been joking about sleeping on the pool table.
“What are you drinking?” Maverick asked me from behind the bar, and I thought it was nice of him to serve his men. I didn’t know many leaders that did that… although, for as many faults as my abuela had, I suppose her cooking all day on Sundays after church to feed the village was something like the same thing.
It was the one place she and I managed to find some harmony – the kitchen. She was a patient teacher in the kitchen, almost kind to me. I think that was going to be the only thing I would miss, if I were being truthful with myself.
“Um, you have a Coke back there?” Mav smiled and opened a cooler or something hidden by the bar and lifted out a Coke in the glass bottle, the kind from Mexico made with real cane sugar. I smiled as he pried the lid off with a bottle opener.
“Thanks,” I murmured, sliding up onto one of the bar stools.
“Sure, you don’t want something harder?” Derringer, one of the men from the Eastern Washington group, asked. I looked his way. He was a big redneck. The kind that if he drove a pickup, you would expect it to be painted in hunter’s camo with a variety of rifles in the back window. He was a fat guy. The kind of guy who had always been heavy from the time he was a kid, but also the kind of fat that was deceptive. He was a good ol’ country boy and there was muscle under that fat. The kind of muscle that would make cracking an opponent’s head like an egg child’s play for a man like him.
He smiled at me, his teeth a little too perfect – probably dentures despite the fact that he was still relatively young. He didn’t seem the type to have grown up with a family who could afford braces.
His blue eyes sparkled under the brim of his John Deere trucker hat, and I knew he was prematurely balding underneath. He kept his hair shorn short, but when the stubble was long enough, it was enough to know he was a brassy kind of dishwater blond.
“No, thank you,” I murmured. “I’m not twenty-one.”
He cracked a wide grin and chuckles swept through all the men. Even Maverick smiled from behind the bar where he tossed back something amber in a short glass.
“Contributing to the delinquency of a minor is the least of our worries out here, darlin’,” the one called Deacon said.
I liked him. He was the epitome of a silver fox – well-kept and easy on the eyes. His beard was carefully groomed and edged; his hair gelled into place. He smelled nice, too – his cologne subtle and woodsy, slightly spicy. It reminded me of cedar and church incense and there was something comforting about the smell, even though I wasn’t, by any means, a devout Catholic girl.
“I’m good,” I said, and held still, despite my wish to shift uncomfortably on my seat.
“You’re all good, sladkiye glaza.”
I frowned and demanded, “What did you just call me?” The men all chuckled and smiled at me like I was adorable, which just pissed me off more.
Maverick took another drink from his refreshed glass and with a wry smile said, “Too familiar, I get you. Wasn’t anything bad, I promise.”
“Do they know what it was?” I asked, looking at each of them in turn.
“None of us speak Russian,” Fenris said, knocking back some of his beer.
“Eh, Slavic is useful for some ciphers and codes,” Cipher declared and Squatch groaned.
Squatch looked exactly as his name implied – unibrow, pronounced brow ridge, but not unhandsome if he could only tame his wild growth of hair.
Cipher, by comparison, was fire to Squatch’s darkness. His copper hair and beard were kept neat, while long on top, and slicked back, his hair didn’t reach past his collar. It was shaven underneath on the sides and the back, probably to keep cool as his hair looked thick.
“Do you know what he said?” I asked.
Cipher shrugged and I tried not to go mad with worry.
“Relax,” Maverick said, which was easy for him. “Nothing bad, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
Yeah, right, I thought to myself.
“Girl, it is way too easy to wind you up and watch you go,” Derringer said, laughing to himself.
“Derry, let the woman alone. Jesus,” the third and final man from the Eastern Washington group had finally spoken. Skeeter, the vice president, had been released from jail. Word was he had been arrested on a warrant for assault, and the police had tried to leverage it against him for the other four that were still in jail. He hadn’t given the police anything but had called Maverick which was why there had been no interruption in the medicine supply. For that alone, I was grateful to Skeeter, but only because of my brother.
A knock came at the clubhouse door and Mav thrust his chin at Derringer, who heaved his big ass up out of his seat and hitching his deep tan carpenter pants up in the back, marched for the front door.
He opened it up and spoke with someone outside, taking bags from him.
“Alright, thanks now,” he said and let the door swing shut behind him.
“Food!” Fenris cried with enthusiasm.
“Alright!” Cipher echoed.
I stayed put, but I was interested in what might be in the bags. I was hungry.
“Hope you aren’t vegetarian,” Goner said to me and I frowned and shook my head. “Good, ‘cause we got burgers, burgers, and more burgers over here.” He tossed one of the foil-wrapped burgers in my direction. I caught it with both hands and turned to the bar to unwrap it. It was that weird foil that was paper on the inside, and I was pleased to see it was a good burger – like flame-grilled and double-stacked dripping with cheese and all the toppings, not some form pressed soggy piece of caca from a fast food place.
“Toss one here,” Mav said and held up his hands. A silver foil-wrapped missile arced over my left shoulder and landed square in his hands in a catch that would make my old high school team quarterback jealous.
I smiled and carefully took a bite of my double stack, over the wrapper to catch the tomato juice and watered-down mayo that dripped free.
“Napkins?” Deacon asked and I nodded and took the ones he offered.
I let myself zone out a little, while they all talked here and there over their food, but I could tell, they were all tired. They probably would have bantered much more if they weren’t.
Maverick hovered, but didn’t try to make conversation with me, for which I was grateful. I was starting to feel like the day was catching up to me, a deep exhaustion taking over my faculties – not physical, but emotional with a side of mental. I felt bone weary, if your thoughts and emotions could be such a thing seeing as they didn’t have bones.
“You get the fights on that thing?” Fenris asked, turning to the large-screen television at the back of the room and the ring of couch around it. A huge, great sectional that rung the outer edges of a big black throw rug on the concrete floor. It could easily sleep three men with room to spare, which I think was the intent.
“So, you guys coming back the other side of the mountains with us?” Cipher asked.
“We welcome?” Skeeter asked point blank and my ears perked, even as I schooled my face into careful lines of, I’m not listening.
“Until we get out to the
Eversong meet, that’s in the air but you swear on your mother’s life you ain’t have nothing to do with what went on out here, we could maybe take you so you don’t have to go nomad,” Maverick said. “It’s a discussion for another time, though, if you catch my meaning.”
I glanced at him as he tipped his head in my direction.
“Talking about the Vargas family? It’s no secret, at least not to me,” I said after washing down a bite of my burger with a swig from my Coke. Mavericks lips thinned, and a muscle ticked in his jaw.
“I understand that you knew them, but on this side of things it’s club business, which is to say, it ain’t none of yours.”
“Noted,” I said.
“Better make that note in Sharpie, little girl,” Cipher said, and I looked at him, eyes narrowed. I didn’t like his tone. “Big block letters,” he said and moved his hands, thumb, and forefingers three inches apart and sweeping out from the middle for emphasis.
I fought not to roll my eyes. I didn’t want or need to disrespect them. As far as I had been able to gather, disrespect is what got a person’s ass beat faster than anything with these men.
I didn’t say anything, just returned to polishing off the last of my meal.
The television came on and Goner scrolled through the channels, a caged fighting ring coming up on the screen with a woman bowed at the waist, trapped in a hold while the other woman threw a knee up into her middle.
It was something to distract, to concentrate on, while the men talked about other things.
Chapter Five
Maverick…
She was more tired than she let on, sitting silently, almost miserably, shoulders hunched and still wearing my jacket. I couldn’t decide if she was cold, which I couldn’t imagine. Even though the building had air conditioning and it was on, it wasn’t set to arctic chill or anything. I had to imagine it was more out of self-consciousness, though not around me but around the other guys. She finished her burger, crumpled the wrapper into a little ball, and I held out a hand for it. She handed it over and I ditched it in the trash behind the bar.
