The coke fairy.
He’d taken off the leather jacket he’d arrived in and his long sleeves were pushed up, showing off his ink. He was standing by the kitchen counter with three other guys. One of them was Justice.
They were talking animatedly about something, laughing. And when Justice caught my eye, I tipped my beer bottle at him. He waved me over.
The dude with the tattoos looked at me. He was a few inches shorter than me and had a wiry build, and dark, almost dirty-looking tanned skin. He wore a holey sweater and jeans, the telltale biker boots, and among the tattoos on his arms, there was a distinctive tattoo of big, bold letters up his right forearm that said: BASTARDS.
The black ink made splatter patterns around the letters, like blood, with bullet holes in it.
It was the insignia of the Bloody Bastards MC.
“Ronan,” Justice said. “Meet my boys.” Then he introduced the guys to me. I paid closest attention to the name of the guy with the Bastards tattoo on his arm.
Boasty.
Not a real name. Maybe a nickname, maybe a road name.
I hung out for a few minutes, pretended to be into their conversation. Some party story about a dude they knew having his balls glitter-glued to his thigh at a party. I didn’t even know what the fuck “glitter-glued” as a verb entailed, but I wasn’t interested in that.
Justice’s eyes were black as eight balls. His buddies were all high or drunk. And his biker friend—while friendly enough, given Justice’s endorsement of me as “my sister’s man”—smiled less than the others.
I wasn’t sure if I should correct Justice on his facts.
High as he was, it probably wouldn’t matter tomorrow anyway. And pointing out I wasn’t Summer’s boyfriend might just raise eyebrows about who the fuck I was, then.
After a few minutes, I slipped away.
Andre was still watching Summer from the back deck.
“Get a look?” he asked me.
“That’s quite some art.” I took a small sip of my beer in my continued efforts to “blend in.” “Seems like a real nice guy.”
“You know, it’s nice to see you making friends, Ronan.”
“Seems like Justice Sorensen has some interesting ones.”
“I’ve been looking,” he said. “Don’t see anyone else with ink like that. But it’s October. People are pretty covered.”
“Yeah.” I’d been scoping out the crowd all night myself, and while I didn’t see any evidence that any of the other guests were hardcore bikers, including a distinct lack of motorcycles in the driveway, the vibe of the party was definitely… shifting… as the night wore on. Many of Justice’s friends weren’t exactly the type of dudes I’d invite for Sunday dinner.
“What’re you thinking?” Andre asked me.
“I’m thinking we get Summer out of here as soon as we can.” I nodded over at the treehouse. She was talking to the other DJ now, but standing back from the deck. “Looks like she’s maybe finished up there. I’ll go talk to her.”
I was just about to wander over there, beer in hand, when a bunch of guys emerged from the house, talking. They walked past me, heading down the steps to the yard. Among them was Justice. And Boasty.
“I’m thinking your new friend might be carrying,” Andre said, leaning into me a bit. “Left ankle.”
I looked the biker over, and his jeans definitely weren’t baggy enough to fully conceal it. Something was there, on his left ankle, under his jeans and above his boot. I could see it when he walked.
I hadn’t noticed it when I scoped him out in the house.
Could’ve been a knife.
Could’ve been a loaded gun, too.
“I see that,” I said, setting my beer down on the deck railing. “All the more reason to get the fuck out of here.”
Chapter Eighteen
Ronan
Andre, Summer and I left the party at her brother’s house without incident. I was surprised, actually, that she didn’t give me any static about leaving.
When I went to ask her how long she wanted to stay, she claimed she was tired, something I’d never heard her admit before.
We headed out to the car and this time I drove, mainly so I wouldn’t have to sit in the backseat with her. I was feeling a little tired myself, and I was worried my ability to keep my cool might get low. She still seemed annoyed with me, she was still being way nicer to Andre than she was to me… and I was pretty pissed off about the guests her “baby brother” invited to his house when his wife and sister were there.
Especially the coke-dealing biker guest with the weapon strapped to his leg.
Since I didn’t let her drive, Summer road shotgun and navigated. Which meant she occasionally made judgmental noises about me driving too slow on the dark, winding road, muttered, “Watch out for deer,” a couple times, and generally ignored me while talking to Andre about music again.
He was asking her all kinds of questions about the music she’d played at the party, and I was so clueless about what she did in general, I couldn’t even understand the questions much less the answers.
After they’d gone on for way too long about someone named “Deadmouse” (guesstimated spelling), who I managed to discern was a famous DJ—which meant it was probably spelled with two silent X’s and some binary code in it or something—Summer shouted, “What are you doing?”
I shifted my foot to the brake automatically, slowing down. “Do you really need to shout at me while I’m driving?”
“You missed the turn.” She looked out into the dark of the trees. “Where the hell are we?”
“What do you mean where are we? You’re navigating.”
“This doesn’t look right. You missed the junction.”
“How do you know?” I slowed down a little more, looking into the dark of the trees along the road. There were no signs, no landmarks. “It all looks the same.”
“No. I can feel it. You’ve gone way too far.”
Well, that would explain why this road seemed rougher than it did on the way in. Narrow, and not so well graded. The potholes were everywhere, and we kept bouncing in and out of them. I could barely avoid them.
But since I didn’t trust her driving skills all that much, I was feeling a little dubious on her navigational skills.
“I turned at the junction,” I told her.
“Which junction?”
Okay. Now I was annoyed. “What do you mean, which junction? The one you told me to turn at.”
“Yeah, but then there’s the other one. The little one. You have to watch for it.”
“I definitely didn’t see that. We couldn’t have passed it.” I almost just wanted to argue with her. At least she was paying attention to me.
Yeah. Sad.
But I was getting a sinking feeling. Who the fuck knew if we were about to drive off a cliff out here. I couldn’t see much but black beyond the headlights.
“Did you seriously just get us lost?”
“You’re driving.”
“You’re supposed to be navigating.”
The road was getting worse, and we hit a pothole, bottoming out on the loosely-packed gravel and mess of tree roots that the road was gradually becoming. It made a terrible scraping sound on the bottom of the car.
Andre gave a low whistle, but said nothing.
“Jesus, slow down,” Summer said. As if she hadn’t complained about my slow driving the entire way until now. “You have to go slow.”
“I grew up on the west coast of Canada. Think I know how to drive on a logging road.” We were snaking our way slowly along as I sought out the surest path with the least pits. They were getting harder to make out in the headlights as we bounced around. I flicked the high beams on, just as we hit another one. My molars vibrated and I grit my teeth. “Shit.”
The car rental company was gonna love this.
“You’re gonna get us stuck,” Summer warned.
“The road wasn’t this rough on the way here…” And
re pointed out.
“Because we’re on the wrong road. You need to turn around,” Summer informed me.
I was afraid she was right. I didn’t like her being right about this, even if it was her fault we were lost. “Where did I miss the junction?”
“I don’t know. You’re driving.”
Worst navigator ever.
“Andre?” she said, like she was waiting for him to pipe up in her defense.
“I’m staying out of this one,” he said, for once sensing when to keep his mouth shut. He was probably too busy white-knuckling it in the backseat to argue with us.
We bottomed out on another gnarly pothole and I decided to slow down to a barely moving crawl. “I’m turning around.” I started to turn left to pull a U-turn; it would probably take a ten-point turn on the narrow road.
The left front tire loped into a nasty hole. I gave it gas and steered us out.
We’d barely got traction again on the actual road when we dropped into another one. There was a sick crunch of metal, and since we were now twisted across the road at an awkward angle, we got stuck.
“Are we stuck?” Summer said.
“We’re not stuck.” I gave it gas again, flooring it, and we rolled up out of the hole, tires spitting gravel. “See, we’re—”
My voice was drowned out by an ugly crunch, a squeal-groan of metal on metal… and a strange thunking feeling. The whole car shook with it.
We came to a dead stop.
I tapped the gas, tentatively, and nothing happened. Tires spun in gravel, the car groaned, and we went nowhere.
“Holy Jesus,” Summer said.
“Bro,” Andre said. “What happened?”
I put the car in park.
“Well, this is gonna cost me,” Summer muttered.
“I’ll pay for it,” I grit out.
Andre was already climbing out of the back. “Hang on. I’ll check it out.” He went around the front of the car. He stood in the headlight beams, leaning down to look under the front of the car, as I asked myself where my life had gone so fucking wrong.
One minute you’re retiring your services as a bodyguard and heading home to your quiet, empty apartment with your cold, dead heart neatly intact… and the next you’re trying to play hero to a woman who staunchly refuses to want to need you, and would rather get stuck on a remote road in the dark in the middle of God-knew-where than actually listen when you advise her not to come here in the first place.
Andre strolled back to my window, taking his time. That didn’t seem like a good sign.
I didn’t even want to ask. “How’s it look?”
“Well, one tire is like this.” He held his hand up, vertically. “And the other one is like this.” He held his other hand parallel to the first one—then tilted it at a forty-five degree angle. “I’m not really a car guy but I’m assuming that’s bad.”
“You’re telling me,” I growled, “we broke the fucking axle?”
Beside me, Summer sighed.
I engaged the emergency brake and got out of the car. I wasn’t really a “car guy” myself, as in I probably couldn’t fix one on the side of the road if there was anything worse than a flat tire, but that obviously wasn’t good.
“What’s this we?” Summer demanded, getting out of the car. She came over and joined us at the front, hunkering down to look under the car with us. “You broke the axle.”
“You said you know this route like the back of your hand.”
“It’s a logging road,” she said. “Did you or did you not ‘grow up on the west coast of Canada’? You have to slow down,” she enunciated, like she was speaking to a young and very unintelligent child. Then she stood up and muttered, “Advanced driving skills, my ass.”
I stood up. “I guess you don’t know the back of your hand as well as one might hope.”
She planted her hands on her hips. “Is that a masturbation reference?”
I drew back. “That is definitely not a masturbation reference.”
And now all I could picture was her hand between her legs.
“Uh, guys…” That was Andre, but neither of us were listening.
“You missed the turnoff,” Summer informed me, like I didn’t get that the first time.
“So did you.”
“You were driving!” she shot back.
“You were supposed to be navigating,” I countered.
“Is this a bad time to tell you guys that I don’t have cell service?”
We stopped bickering and turned to look at Andre, who held up his phone.
Then we looked at each other.
We both whipped out our phones like we were drawing for a shootout in the Wild West. I got mine first. “Shit.”
“Shit!” she echoed.
Andre wandered around, his phone held out in front of him, obviously trying to pick up a signal.
“Is this fucking happening?” I muttered. I went to reach in through the open window and turn off the car.
Summer was watching me, and she actually looked semi-apologetic. “There may be some dead spots out here.”
“Yeah. I got that.”
“It can’t be that far back,” Andre said, looking back along the road. “We’ve been driving for what, ten minutes?”
“Is that all?” I said sarcastically.
“I’ll walk back to the house,” he volunteered.
“I’ll go with you,” Summer said.
I stepped in front of her and she bumped right into me. “Uh, no, you won’t.”
“Andre doesn’t know the way,” she protested.
“Neither do you, apparently.”
“We just have to go back to the turnoff and take the right turn.”
“The right turn, or the correct turn?” Andre asked.
“The left turn.” She stared me down. “See? He needs me. I know the way.”
“Andre knows right from left. You’re not going back to that party.”
Now she narrowed her eyes at me. “Why not?”
Fuck. I really didn’t want to tell her there was an armed biker at her brother’s party. Something told me she’d just go blazing back in there to try to save baby Justice from his poor choice in friends.
Luckily, Andre backed me up. “It’s okay, Summer. I’ll be faster alone. You’ve got those sexy boots on.”
He was right, and she knew it. I would’ve considered all three of us going, but a) I really didn’t want her going back to that party, and b) if this road broke our car, it was definitely breaking her ankle in those boots.
“I’ll find my way back to the house and call for a tow,” Andre said. “There’s gotta be someone sober at the party who can give us a lift.”
“Ask Mia,” Summer said, giving in. “My brother’s wasted.” She met my eyes.
So… she knew he was high as hell on coke?
“Got it. What’s the best music for scaring bears away?” Andre mused, thumbing around on his phone.
“Loud music,” Summer said.
He put on a song and cranked it up, probably as loud as his phone could go. Even I recognized this one. It was “Summer of ’69,” one of the songs from their road game.
Summer applauded. “Well played, sir.”
Andre raised an arm in the air, waving as he disappeared into the dark, the flashlight app on his phone lighting his way.
When she looked at me, she stopped clapping. As the music of Bryan Adams faded into the distance, the car’s headlights went out on their timer.
“I feel painfully Canadian right now,” I said in the dark.
The sky was semi-bright, but there was no moon that I could see; I stared up at it, as if there might be a map in the stars. There was, of course, but knowing that wasn’t doing shit-all to help us out of this situation.
“Are we really stranded in the woods?” Summer said, voicing my own thoughts. She stood in front of me, hugging herself in her furry coat.
“Apparently,” I muttered, realizing how alone we really wer
e. “Let’s, uh… go keep warm.”
Said every guy stranded with a beautiful girl on a dark road since the beginning of time.
“Yeah. Let’s.”
We headed back to the car and she got in behind the wheel.
I sighed and got in the passenger seat. I put the seat back as far as it would go, trying to get comfortable.
Summer said nothing. She didn’t even attempt to put any music on, which I figured was a bad sign.
We probably had a while to kill here. So I decided to break the ice.
“Did you know your brother had a naked wedding?”
“Oh, God.” She eyed me. “How did you know that?”
“He told me.”
She groaned a little. “My brother likes to be naked more than he likes to wear clothes. So that’s a thing. He married Mia like two weeks after they met. At a music festival. In the woods. And yes, they were naked, apparently. I wasn’t there.”
“Would you do that?” I asked, stupidly curious.
“Marry someone naked?”
“Marry someone you just met.”
“Hmm.” She considered that, briefly. “How hot is he?”
“I dunno. Average hot?”
“Doubtful,” she said.
Then she looked me up and down, slowly. It was darkish in here, but whatever light there was found her eyes and the gorgeous curve of her cheek. My gaze dropped to her sexy lips as she spoke.
“Now, if he was above-average hot… I’d maybe consider it,” she said.
And the way she looked at me…
My dick twitched.
Well, that went in the wrong direction fast.
Change the subject to something unsexy.
“Do you know your brother’s friends well?”
“I know some of them. I wouldn’t say I know them well. Different circles. I don’t see Justice as much as I’d liked to.”
“Why not?”
“He doesn’t come into the city much. He travels a lot. So do I.”
“So why didn’t you want to stay at his place longer tonight?”
She shrugged. “I want to get a good sleep and get back to Vancouver tomorrow as early as possible. I wasn’t in the mood to be up all night.”
“I thought you were always in the mood to be up all night.”
Sweet Temptation: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players, Book 3) Page 27