by Zoey Parker
“That's cool,” I said. “They don't need to charge the card, they just need it on file.” I pulled a wad of cash from my pocket. Most of it had come from the guy in the outlet parking lot. “You can use this to pay for it. You should definitely tell them you're here alone, though. Just to be on the safe side, in case anyone comes in asking about us. They probably won't, but still.”
Jewel paused. “But if I tell them I'm alone, I can't ask for a room with two beds, can I? That would be kind of weird.”
I hadn't thought of it. “No biggie,” I said. “I'll take the floor.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
I wasn't sure whether she was asking if I was sure about her asking for a room with one bed, or if I was sure about sleeping on the floor. Either way...“Yeah, I'm sure,” I said.
Jewel nodded and got out of the car. I spotted a liquor store across the street from the motel and got an idea. “Hey, do you drink?” I called after her.
She stopped, and it looked like she was thinking it over. After a moment, she said, “Well, not usually. But then, I'm not usually shot at much, either. So I can probably make an exception, right?”
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” I agreed. “What's your poison?”
“I like white wine,” Jewel said.
I tried not to roll my eyes, wondering why I'd even bothered to ask. But hey, if that's what it took to help her relax...
“You got it,” I said. Jewel smiled and continued toward the front office to check in.
I thought about how funny it was that just yesterday, I would have worried that as soon as she was out of my sight, she would bolt on me and run to the nearest person in uniform. Now I was certain she wouldn't.
Was that because she was convinced I could protect her? Had she believed my half-truths about the cops being in on this?
I knew I didn't have time to think about stuff like this. Just like I knew I couldn't seem to think of anything else but her.
I got out of the car and strolled across the street. As I walked into the shop, I was hit by the strangely universal liquor store smell of dusty glass and alcohol. The clerk was a morbidly obese man in his sixties with a long white beard with dirty gray streaks and a t-shirt that said “Madder Than a Bobcat in a Piss Fire.” I didn't know what that meant, but I sure wasn't in a hurry to ask.
I browsed the wine section, but I had never been partial to the stuff and I had no idea what I was looking for. I saw that there was a big box of white wine that appeared to be the least expensive option, so I grabbed that and a bottle of cheap whiskey and walked up to the counter.
“Oh, and a pack of cigarettes,” I said, pointing to the brand I wanted.
The clerk grabbed the cigarettes and rang up my purchase, looking at me dolefully. “Circus in town?” he drawled.
I looked down and realized I'd already forgotten what I was wearing. Jesus, if the other Reapers saw me right now they'd never let me live it down, I thought. Especially Sperm.
“Laundry day,” I answered, shooting a glance at the clerk's t-shirt. “You can probably relate, huh?”
The clerk raised his bushy white eyebrows for a second, then rasped with laughter, slapping his knee. “Laundry day! That's a good'n!” he wheezed, nodding.
I smirked, handing over the money for the wine, booze, and smokes. As I did, my eye fell on a small handgun behind the counter. “Nice .22,” I commented. “Most liquor store clerks I've known were more of the shotgun-toting type.”
“Ahh, yeah, this fuckin' faggy-lookin' thing,” the clerk sneered, waving a hand at the pistol. “Looks like it oughtta be in a goddamn purse, right? 'Cept my shoulders an' knees are all fucked up from when I worked construction, so I'm stuck with this pea-shooter if I wanna actually hit anythin' when I shoot.”
I got an idea. It was a little risky, but if it worked, it could do a lot to save us some travel time the next day.
“You wouldn't happen to have any extra ammo for that sucker, would you?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
I expected the clerk to react with surprise or suspicion, but he just shrugged. “Sure I do,” he said, reaching under the counter and producing a dusty box of .22 bullets. “May as well sell the fuckin' things. Been sittin' on the shelf down here for goin' on three years.”
“Thanks, man,” I said. “How much?”
The clerk sized me up shrewdly. “Well, son, these normally sell for about twenty-five a box. But seein' as how you're askin' me to sell 'em to you instead of goin' to a store, I'm gonna go ahead an' assume you've got a black mark or two on your record.” He held up a hand to stop me before I could say anything. “Now, that ain't nothin' to be embarrassed over. There's plenty of harmless folks who could say the same. Still, given your situation, I reckon I'd be a damn fool to charge less than forty bucks for 'em.”
“Fair enough,” I agreed, forking over the money. “Much appreciated.” I was tempted to tell him to lie if anyone asked whether I'd been in there, but I was pretty sure he would anyway. He didn't want word getting around that he was willing to sell ammo illegally, and besides, he looked like an old-school redneck who wasn't big on people coming in and asking questions. If any Mancusos came in here demanding answers, it wasn't hard to imagine the clerk making them chew on a few rounds from his pistol.
I shoved the box of ammo in my pocket, hefted the weight of the bag with the beverages in it, and walked back to the car in time to see Jewel emerge from the office with the room key.
We drove around to the back of the motel and went up to the room.
Chapter 22
Jewel
I had initially balked when I saw that Rafe had gotten me a big cardboard box of white wine, but when I poured some of it into one of the room's plastic cups and gave it a try, I didn't taste a noticeable difference between it and the twelve-dollar bottles I usually bought myself for special occasions.
I had originally planned to sip it slowly, but given the size of the box and the number of whiskey shots Rafe had taken in the time it took for me to finish my first cup, that plan had started to seem pretty stupid.
So by the time I started bleaching Rafe's hair, I'd had three cups of cheap wine. The low-level panic I'd felt since witnessing the murder in the alley had finally dulled to the point where I couldn't feel it at all. I was using the brush from the kit to paint the bleach over his brown locks layer by layer.
“Jesus, are you painting a portrait back there or what?” Rafe asked after a few minutes.
“I'm just being careful. Wow. It's a good thing your hair just happened to be so dirty, since that's ideal for this. I'll bet you usually keep it nice and clean, though, right?” I added with a twist of sarcasm.
He snorted. “Oh, yeah. All us bikers are known for three things—the fists we throw, the bikes we ride, and the hair products we use to maintain a healthy sheen and volume.”
“Funny,” I said, finishing the last hairs along his neckline with a flourish. “There. Now turn around and I'll do your eyebrows.”
“Nuh-uh,” Rafe said. “You're not doing my eyebrows. That's where I draw the goddamn line. Blonde eyebrows? I'll look like a moron.”
“Well, if you walk around with blonde hair and brown eyebrows, you'll look like someone who bleached his hair quickly because he doesn't want to be recognized.”
Rafe groaned, turning around. “Fair enough. I just hope this shit doesn't take too long growing back once all this is over. The other Reapers are gonna piss themselves laughing when they see me.”
I brushed his eyebrows lightly as I raised my own. “Reapers?”
“Yeah, the War Reapers,” Rafe said. “They're the club I belong to.”
“They sound rough,” I said, trying to sound casual. It had been easier to think of him as just a random biker, but the idea that he was a member of a gang with a name so lethal-sounding was tickling my anxiety again.
“They can be,” Rafe agreed, “but they're a good bunch of guys. They've always had my back.”
“So maybe they could help us,” I offered. “Could they send more bikers to protect us?”
“It's more complicated than that,” Rafe grunted. “I've got them making some moves for me on this back in the city, though. I should probably go rinse this stuff out now, huh?”
“You should wait about fifteen minutes,” I said. I could sense how much he wanted to change the subject and I wondered what he was hiding—about himself, about the Reapers, about this whole situation. We'd been on the run for two days and I still had no idea where we were going or why. “So what's our plan tomorrow?”
Rafe shrugged, pouring another shot of whiskey into his plastic cup and drinking it down. “Keep trying to stay ahead of Jester and the Mancusos.”
“That's, um, not much of a specific answer,” I pointed out.
“Well, how specific do you want me to be?” Rafe said. He sounded irritated and I wanted to drop it, but I knew I couldn't.
“I don't know, Rafe, how far do you expect me to go with you while you keep up the silent act?” I asked, raising my voice a little. “Minnesota? Canada? Alaska? I think I've been pretty patient and good about keeping my questions to myself, but if I'm going to keep trusting you enough to stay with you instead of just taking my chances with the cops, I need to know what your end game is with all this. I've got a mother and father who will probably start worrying about me soon, and a boss who's probably already looking for someone to replace me. So if you think you can just wave all that away with a charming smile and a tough quip...”
“All right, all right, all right,” Rafe said, raising a hand in surrender. “I get the point. Just keep your voice down. We're headed to Milwaukee because as you heard, there's something there that Jester and his guys want. Badly. So badly, in fact, that I'm betting if we grab it before they can, it'll give us enough leverage to make this whole fucking thing go away.”
I thought about that. “So you know what it is, then? What Angelo was asking the other man about before he shot him?”
“Not exactly,” Rafe replied. “But I know that it's stashed in a club called The Flytrap, and that whatever it is, it's important enough that Jester had Maggot clipped over it. That seems like enough to go on for now.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, “but then what? We exchange this whatever-it-is for a promise that they'll leave us alone?”
“That's the plan,” Rafe said.
“That sounds like kind of a flimsy plan,” I pointed out. “What if this Jester guy gets the thing and then has us both killed anyway?”
“First of all, I don't hear you coming up with a better plan,” Rafe said. “And second, guys like Jester can't just go around breaking their word. On the street, their word is all they've got. If he gets a rep as a bullshitter and a mad dog, no one will ever do business with him again.”
“I guess that makes sense,” I answered. “Honor among thieves, is that it?”
“We're dealing with way worse than thieves, but yeah,” Rafe said. He sounded relieved that I was going along with it. The truth was that it all still seemed like a big gamble, but as he'd said, I couldn't think of what else to do to stay safe.
After a few more minutes, Rafe went to the bathroom and rinsed out the bleach. When he came out again, the sight of him with blonde hair was a bit jarring, but not nearly as awkward-looking as I'd thought it would. His shirt was off and he had a towel draped over his shoulders, exposing his rock-hard pecs and gorgeous abs again. The light thatch of brown hair on his chest looked strange with his blonde head, but it wasn't as though anyone would be seeing him bare-chested.
Anyone except me.
“You're staring 'cause it looks so fucking dumb, right?” Rafe asked. “See, I knew this was a bad idea.”
“No, no, it looks fine!” I assured him. “You look...um...great.”
“Well, I'm glad you think so,” he grumbled, pulling his sweatshirt back on. “Personally, I think I look like a fuckin’ moron.”
“That's only natural,” I said. “You've had brown hair your whole life, so of course it's going to take some getting used to for you. And besides, dark hair grows fast. You'll probably have enough roots showing in a couple of months that you'll be able to chop the blonde off.”
“I fucking hope so,” Rafe said. “Are you hungry? You must be. You haven't eaten since yesterday.”
I realized that for the first time since the shoot-out at the diner that morning, I felt like I could eat. Plus, the wine had gone to my head, and I figured it would be a bad idea to keep drinking while keeping my stomach empty. “Yeah, I am a bit hungry.”
“Cool,” Rafe said. “I saw a burger joint up the street. I'll go grab us some stuff and be right back. Same as the motel last night, though, okay? Don't let anyone in, no matter what they say. Keep your gun handy in case someone tries to get in anyway, but keep your head on straight too, understand? The last thing we need is for you to panic and shoot the cleaning lady or something.”
“Don't worry,” I replied primly. “I'm not in the mood to pull the trigger and shatter my eardrums again unless I have to, thank you very much.”
Rafe smiled and stepped out, shutting the door behind him.
I pinned up my dark brown hair and opened the second bleaching kit, painting it on carefully. I thought about the things Rafe had told me, and I had a vague suspicion that he might be almost as confused and uncertain as I was. He tried to seem tough and in control, and for the most part, that's exactly what he was. But he was also a man who was clearly making up his plan as he went along.
Maybe that should have scared me or made me want to run, but strangely, it actually made me trust him even more. Knowing that he was really just a guy who was doing his best from moment to moment to keep me safe was comforting. It made him seem more human and easier for me to relate to, instead of just a scary biker dragging me from one danger to another while purposefully keeping me in the dark.
I rinsed out the bleach and mixed up the dye, shampooing my hair with it thoroughly. As I did, I kept listening for someone at the door, but I didn't hear anything until Rafe's key card slid into the lock and he opened the door. I peeked out of the bathroom to make sure it was him, and saw that he was carrying two red-and-white-striped bags from the burger place.
I wrapped the towel around myself and stepped out, revealing my new copper-colored hair. “Ta-da! What do you think?”
Rafe's eyebrows shot up. “What the...? How come you got to dye your hair an actual color, and I had to stick with bleached blonde? That's not fair!”
“Well, we couldn't both be the same shade of blonde, could we?” I asked, giggling and pouring myself more wine. “That would be kind of attention-grabbing.”
Rafe grinned in spite of himself and laid out the burgers. “Yeah, but I could've been the redhead instead. We should have drawn straws or flipped a coin or something. Anyway, here's your burger. I got both fries and onion rings, since I didn't know which one you'd want. Although now that I see the choice you denied me, well...”
“I'll take the fries, smartass,” I said, grabbing them and eating a few. The grease and salt immediately perked up my appetite and made me realize how empty my stomach had felt. I dug into the burger hungrily.
“Hey, hey, slow down!” Rafe laughed. “Remember to chew it once or twice so you don't make yourself sick.”
“Lectured on table manners by a biker,” I groaned, finishing the burger with one more big bite. “Is there no end to my shame?”
“Well, at least you look goddamn foxy as a redhead,” Rafe pointed out.
“You really think so?” I asked.
“Uh-huh,” Rafe nodded. The way he was looking at me was making my insides tingle, and I could feel myself getting wet.
I suddenly realized I was still only wearing the towel and I blushed. “Hang on, let me get some clothes on,” I murmured, turning to head back to the bathroom. But I must have been a bit drunker on wine than I realized, because I spun around too fast and got light-headed, losing my ba
lance. Before I could fall, I felt Rafe's arms around my waist, steadying me.
I felt the strength and power in his arms as they wrapped around me and before I knew what I was doing, I turned around to face him and pressed my lips against his. We stood for a long moment, our mouths parted, our tongues exploring each other's mouths. I could still smell the bleach from his hair, mingling with the manly musk of his body.
Rafe pulled away after a minute. I could tell he wanted to keep going, but something was stopping him. “You've had a lot to drink,” he said. “You should probably try to get some sleep. I'll take the floor.”
“Okay,” I said. I climbed into bed and got under the covers, then took off the towel and let it drop to the floor in a heap. Rafe switched off the light, then kicked off his boots and gathered up the heavy blanket from the bed and one of the pillows, arranging them on the floor. I watched his large silhouette sink to the floor next to me.