Passing the Torch (Devil's Knights 2nd Generation Book 1)

by Winter Travers

  “A cup o’?” Luna asked.

  I twirled my finger around. “You know what I’m talking about.”

  Greta grabbed an empty cup and dropped a few cherries in.

  I wagged my finger at her. “Keep ‘er coming,” I slurred. “Maybe a hot dog, too.”

  Luna blinked. “Did you just ask for a hot dog?”

  I tipped my head to the side and thought back five seconds. “Yup, sure did.” I nodded. “Can I have seven?”

  “Hot dogs or cherries?” Greta scoffed.

  “Both.” I could nosh on my cherries while they boiled up some hot dogs.

  “She wants hot dogs.” Luna looked past me. “Seven of them.”

  I waved my hand in her direction. “I’m here right.” Whoa, pretty sure that was backward. Or maybe it was right. Hell if I knew.

  “What the hell did you feed her?” Hero’s voice.

  I sighed dreamily. I had missed it. I planted my feet on the rungs of my stool. “You’re back from work I see.” I tried to spin my stool around, but the heel of my boot got stuck and my feet stayed on the rung while the rest of my body twisted. “Hey der.” I lost control of the stool and boomeranged back to facing Greta and Luna. “That was a ride.”

  Greta set the cup o’ cherries in front of me. “Eat those, and I’ll see what I can wrangle up in the back.”

  She moved down the bar, and I saluted her back. “Aye, aye.” I grabbed a cherry and popped it in my mouth.

  The stool next to me moved, and then, Hero was there. He had a huge smile on his face, and he laid his hand on my arm. “You doing okay, Sunshine?”

  I gave a wonky thumbs up. “Never better. Strip club drinks are the bomb diggity.” I patted his hand on top of my arm. “And, Luna is a bitch, but not like a super duper bitch.”

  “Sunshine,” Hero laughed. He hitched his thumb toward Luna.

  “Oh pfft,” I scoffed. “She totally knows it.”

  Luna shrugged. “She’s right. Can’t be mad at her for calling it like it is.”

  We had come to an understanding even though I was still a bit intimidated by her. Plus, the drinks had helped to loosen me up. Under sober circumstances, I never would have called her a bitch to her face.

  “How was work?”

  Luna laughed and shook her head. “She talks like you’re some suit going to the office.”

  “Ohhh,” Reva gasped. “Can I see you in a suit? Then you can take the jacket off and roll up your sleeves so the tattoos peek out?” She fanned her face with her hand. “Oh yeah.”

  Greta set a bowl in front of Reva. “No hot dogs, but I found a can of soup.”

  Reva leaned over the bowl. “Bar soup?” She looked at Greta. “Who has a can of soup at a strip club?”

  Even drunk Reva spoke the truth.

  I grabbed the bowl and pushed it back toward Greta. “I’ll grab you something on the way home.”

  “Oh, my God!” Reva gasped. “I could totally eat a hot dog on the back of your bike while you drive!”

  Luna and Greta busted out laughing, and even I had to chuckle at the thought of Reva trying to eat a hot dog while I drove her home. I was happy to see that she was getting along with Greta and Luna.

  It had taken about an hour to talk to all of the girls, and we were basically at the same place as when we started.

  Except we did have a name to her ex-boyfriend now.

  Luna rested her elbows on the bar and leaned toward me. “Did you find anything out?”

  I shrugged. “We got the name of an ex, but I’m sure the cops have the same name.”

  “You gonna talk to him?” Luna asked.

  “Luna.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Hero. Can you just drop the whole club business crap with me. I’m as much of a part of the club as you are. I just can’t make it official because I wasn’t born with the right equipment.”

  “You don’t like your equipment?” Reva hiccupped.

  I didn’t think she was sober enough to actually follow along with Luna and me. She probably wasn’t since all she picked up on was Luna not having the right equipment.

  “I like my equipment, sugar.” Luna grabbed her tits. “The girls and I get the job done. It’s just that the MC lives in the stone age and thinks because I’ve got tits that I don’t know shit.”

  Reva leaned back and looked down at her chest. “I got small boobies, and I know shit.”

  “They aren’t small, Sunshine,” I growled. I had my hands on them. They filled my hand perfectly.

  Reva grabbed her boobs like Luna did. “Are you sure?” She weighed them in her hands and frowned.

  “Stop grabbing yourself, Sunshine.”

  She turned her frown on me. “Why?”

  “Because it makes me want to touch more than I already do.” I leaned close and brushed my lips against her ear. “Unless you want me to lay you out on this bar right now. Your choice.”

  She dropped her hands from her tits and gasped.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  She turned her head, and her eyes connected with mine. “Can I get a checkrain on that without the audience?”

  I chuckled and pressed my lips to hers. “You mean raincheck, Sunshine?”

  “Uh, yeah. My brain kind of disconnects from my mouth.” She pressed her finger into my chest. “Plus, I think I’d fall off the bar right now. Bit tit tipsy.”

  “Every time you open your mouth, Sunshine, I like you even more.” Bit tit tipsy. That was a new one to me.

  “And every time I see your butt, I want to bite it.” She blinked rapidly. “Oh, Lord.” She slapped her hand over her mouth.

  “Did she just say she wants to bite your butt?” Luna pushed off the bar and threw her hands up in the air. “Here I thought you found a cute little virgin. Now she’s talking about butt biting.”

  Greta put her arm around Luna’s shoulder. “Maybe we should let these two be and see if anyone needs a refill.”

  They headed off down the bar, and I turned my attention back to Reva.

  “You were saying?” I chuckled.

  She shook her head. “No,” she muffled. “I need to keep my mouth shut until I sober up. I’m already an idiot when you’re around. The booze intensifies it by one hundred.”

  “Or maybe it helps you tell the truth?”

  Her face planted in my chest, and she moaned. “Oh, my God, Hero. I’m drunk in a strip club on a Thursday night, and I just told you I want to bite your butt.”

  “Welcome to the life of the Devil’s Knights?” I had told her my life was anything but normal. I looped my arm around her waist and maneuvered her onto my lap. We were sitting in the middle of a strip club, but I wanted her closer. She willingly moved onto my lap and sighed.

  “It never seems to be a dull moment when you’re around.”

  I brushed her hair from her face. “And I think the same thing about you, Sunshine.”

  She groaned and patted her hand to my cheek. “Such a pretty face.”

  “I think it might be time to get you home.” If she got any tipsier, she wasn’t going to be able to ride home. She would slide right off the bike into the ditch.

  “Mmkay,” she mumbled.

  I dropped a couple of twenties on the bar and gathered Reva under my arm. The Knights drank for free around here, but we still tipped well.

  Reva waved at Snapper as we walked out the door. “Bye, bye, Snappy.”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “Have fun,” he called.

  I helped strap the helmet on her head when we got to the bike, and she held onto my shoulders when she threw her leg over the bike. She landed with a thud and giggled. “I bet you thought I was going ass over tea.”

  Yeah, she was getting drunker by the minute. “I knew you had it, Sunshine.”

  She wrapped her arms around me and laid her head on my shoulder. “Take me, Hero.”

  I was pretty sure she missed a word in there. “Hold on, Sunshine.”

  We roared out of
the parking lot, and I headed back to her house. I had been hoping to take the long way home to just enjoy having her on my bike, but four amaretto sours had different plans.

  We parked in front of her condo, and she sighed heavily. “I think I almost fell asleep.”

  I slipped off the bike, and before she could throw her leg over, I gathered her in my arms and carried her up the walk to her door.

  “Such a good Hero,” she sighed. She dug in her purse and handed me her keys. “Wanna sleep with me?”

  I shook my head and managed to open the door. Reva had no idea what she was saying. I could be a dick and take her words for what they were and have sex with her tonight. Except I wanted her to actually remember it. I headed to her bedroom and set her on the bed. She laid back and threw her arms over her head. “My bed is so comfy.”

  “I’m sure it is.” I tugged off her boots and dropped them at the foot of the bed. “You wanna change?”

  Reva raised a finger in the air. “I need to pee.”

  “You need help, Sunshine?”

  She popped up and smiled wide. “I think I can handle it.” She stood and rested a hand on my shoulder.

  “Maybe I’ll just help you get there.”

  She patted my shoulder. “You’ve got a good butt, and I like the way you think.”

  “You got a thing for my butt, Sunshine?”

  “It’s a good one,” she mumbled.

  I didn’t even know that she was checking me out, let alone that she was a fan of my butt. We made it to the bathroom, and she stopped in the doorway.

  “You got it from here.”

  She nodded. “I’m drunk, not dead.”

  I laughed and watched her stumble in and close the door in my face.

  Yeah, she was far from dead. “I’m gonna go lock up the house. Grab a couple of aspirin for yourself while you’re in there,” I called.

  She mumbled something I couldn’t make out.

  I walked back out to the living room, kicked off my boots, and locked the front door. I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and a bag of chips she had sitting on the counter. We didn’t have any dinner, and I was hungry.

  Reva was sprawled out on top of the bed, face down, when I walked back in.

  “Hungry?” I asked.

  She groaned and rolled over on her back. “God, yes. There’s frozen pizza in the freezer if you’re feeling frisky.”

  I tossed the chips on the bed next to her and headed back into the kitchen. She didn’t have to tell me twice.

  Half an hour later, we were camped out in her bed with a pizza between us and a movie playing.

  “I think I’m sobering up.” Reva shoved a slice of pizza in her mouth and took a huge bite. A piece of pepperoni stuck to her chin.

  I reached over and grabbed the meat off her face. “Uh, sure you are.” If you can’t feel a slab of meat on your face then it’s safe to say you’re still pretty drunk. I had learned that enough times in my life.

  She grabbed it from my hand and popped it in her mouth. “No stealing my peppa. Maybe I was saving that for later.”

  “You normally go to sleep with a pepperoni face mask so you can snack on it during the night?” I laughed.

  She shoved the rest of the pizza in her mouth and flopped back on her pillow. “Why are you Hero?”

  She was all over the place. Reva was a talker when she drank. She didn’t always make sense, but she definitely talked. “Why am I Hero?” I repeated.

  She waved her finger in my direction. “Why?”

  “You done with this?” I asked.

  “Why?” Reva called.

  I shook my head and cleaned up the pizza and chips from the middle of the bed. I set everything on the nightstand and turned off the lights. Reva was losing steam, and she was going to be passed out soon.

  “Roll.” I grabbed the comforter, pulled it back, and Reva rolled under it. I slid into bed next to her, and she cuddled into my side.

  “Why?”

  “You sound like a broken record, Sunshine.”

  She pinched my side. “Tell me why you’re Hero before I fall asleep.”

  “I’m assuming you want to know how I got my road name.”

  “Ding, ding.”

  There really wasn’t much to tell. “Just a few things that happened and then the name just stuck.”

  “Details,” Reva drawled.

  “You’re pretty demanding when you’re drunk.”

  She grabbed my nipple through my shirt and twisted.

  “God damn, woman,” I laughed. I knocked her hand away, and she smiled evilly up at me. “Keep it up and you’ll never see my butt naked.”

  “You wouldn’t,” she gasped. “You can’t take that away from me.”

  “We won’t get into you wanting to bite my ass either.”

  “It’s not really bite,” she insisted. “More like a nibble.”

  “So you want to nibble on my ass?” I couldn’t even get the words out without cracking up.

  She buried her face in her hand. “Oh, Lord. Never mind.”

  I settled back into the bed and sighed. “They call me Hero because for a while I was trying to be everyone's hero.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a bad thing.”

  I shrugged. “I wasn’t exactly doing it for the right reasons, though. I was young and thought if I helped everyone it would make me look like a hero. Though looking back on it, it doesn’t really make any sense.”

  “Who called you it first?” she asked.

  “My dad. He could see what I was doing. He called me it so I could see I wasn’t a hero.”

  “Huh?”

  Maybe this wasn’t a story to tell when Reva might not remember it in the morning. “I was doing everything for the wrong reasons, Reva. I would help to get recognition. To get that pat on my back. I wanted to look like a hero to everyone.” I sighed and thought back to the day when I was helping Dad fix his bike and instead of actually helping, I had just fucked things up even more because I thought I knew better than he did. “He told me I wasn’t a hero. At least, not to the people around me. I needed to stop trying to save everyone to get attention. If I kept seeking out the attention, I was going to get the wrong type of attention.”

  “So your dad told you to stop helping people?” she scoffed. “That doesn’t seem right.”

  I chuckled. “No. He told me to stop helping people for the wrong reasons. Help because I wanted to help, not to get a pat on the back.”

  She moved her head side to side. “I guess that makes sense. But then why did he start calling you Hero if he didn’t want you to be a hero?”

  “Because that was my dad’s ass backward way to continue to remind me to knock it off. And,” I laughed, “it was better than what they were calling me.”

  “What were they calling you?” she asked.

  “That’s a story for another time,” I laughed.

  Reva groaned. “You can’t say that and then not tell me.”

  I ran my fingers through her hair. “If I tell you everything now, what will we have to talk about later?”

  “I’m pretty sure we have a ton to talk about.”

  “Nah, I think I’m going to keep that to myself for a while. Make sure you stick around.”

  She sighed. “Fine. Whatever. I was gonna stick around anyway.” She laid her hand on my chest. “I think I’m gonna sleep now.”

  “Sounds like a solid plan, Sunshine. You gotta work in the morning?” I asked.

  She groaned. “Yes. Grooming while hungover. I can’t wait.”

  It was only a little after eleven so she would at least be able to get enough sleep. “Sleep, Sunshine. The aspirin and water you drank will help.”

  She didn’t answer, and I looked down to see her eyes closed. Damn. She really meant it when she said she was going to sleep.

  I watched the movie ‘til it was over, and she hadn’t moved an inch. Four amaretto sours were the key to Reva sleeping like the dead. I turned off the TV
and stared up at the ceiling.

  Tomorrow, we were going to chase down Bunny’s ex and see if he knew anything about her death. Frost was the one who had talked to Indiana, and she had told him Bunny had broken up with him because he worked too much and never had time to see her. It didn’t sound like he had anything to do with her dying, but maybe he might be able to help point us in the direction of who had.

  My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I managed to grab it without waking up Reva.

  What in the fuck is going on there? Shit. It was King.

  I hadn’t checked in with him the past couple of days. He must have heard about Bunny and wanted answers. I wished I could just ignore the message until morning, but that wouldn’t have a good outcome for me. I may have been acting as the prez, but King was still ultimately in charge.

  I slipped out of bed and pressed my pillow into Reva’s arms when she squirmed. She settled onto the pillow and sighed. I hit the call button when I made it to the living room and pressed the phone to my ear.

  “Shit must not be good if you’re fucking calling me,” he grunted into the phone.

  “Lo,” Meg called in the background, “give the kid a break for a second.”

  Meg was there with him so hopefully he wouldn’t lose his cool completely on me. She seemed to be able to reign him in when others couldn’t. She was also only one of two people who could call him by his real name without getting their head ripped off.

  “You better start talking, boy, or I’m driving this fucking spaceship back to Rockton.”

  That was exactly what I didn’t want to happen. “Who have you talked to?” I asked.

  “Demon was talking to Frost, and he let it slip that one of the girls from the club wound up dead.”

  Dammit, Frost. He was my right-hand man and had ratted me out. “Yeah, that’s about it.”

  “That’s about it?” King rumbled. “You didn’t think maybe that was something you should have told me? Sultry Knights is directly connected to the club, dumbass, and someone dying is a pretty big fucking deal.”

  He was right. “I was trying to get everything sorted before I called you.” That was a lie but it at least sounded good.

  “Sorted,” King snorted. “Why don’t you start from the fucking beginning of what you know and I’ll be the one to tell you if you’ve got any of this shit sorted out.”