Page 15 of Baiting Kong
Teddy had told him what Kong was all about.
And hadn’t Scout seen for himself firsthand what happened when your biker daddy decided he didn’t want you anymore?
Mark had cut Teddy’sproperty-ofpatch off his jeans while he was wearing them, and he’d held the rest of Teddy’s clothes hostage until theproperty-oftag had been removed from everything he owned.
Never get the tattoo, Teddy had whimpered in Scout’s arms after Mark had blacked out the one on his ass.
Scout just hoped to get the man.
Kong has been playful, for fuck’s sake. Up there on the bar, they’d made a game out of body shots that went beyond just having the Kong’s tongue on him. He’d made Scout ache and need, his pleas formoreones he hadn’t needed to fake.
But today was another day, and the awkward twink doing the bad stripper routine looked to become the next notch on the big man’s belt, so it was time to cut his losses and get his shit back together, or he’d never get through tomorrow’s shoot.
His gut clenched for an entirely different reason now. Sawyer wouldn’t know there had been no cameras recording what had taken place inside the grocery store. He’d lie low and stay away from town for a while. Scout would have to go to the video shoots on his own until he could get word to his brother about what he’d learned. It wasn’t going to be easy, either. He was just glad he’d spotted his brother’s phone lying beside the ATM on his way to help the lady who’d been shot. He’d been able to shove it in his jacket pocket after he’d stripped his t-shirt off, preventing the cops from finding it and digging into the real events that had taken place.
Scout couldn’t believe they’d bought his story about the tweakers turning on one another after an argument had broken out over what chips to grab. With a still trembling hand, Scout had pointed to the overturned rack, busted bags, and chips stomped to bits, and spun the tale of a lifetime.
A story that he knew would unravel the moment Ms. Esperanza woke up and told the cops what had really happened. Which meant Sawyer could never come back.
Shit.
Oh shit, shit, shit.
And Scout had to stay or break the contract. If that happened, they were back to square one, with the scrapyard and the house at risk.
Deep breath.
Don’t get spun out.
Only he did start getting spun out the moment he realized what else the truth would bring. The cops would be looking for him to ask about that bullshit story he’d told. They’d go to the address on his license, and his pops wouldn’t know what the fuck to tell them because he didn’t know where Scout was.
Okay, wait.
That was a good thing.
What his pops didn’t know, he couldn’t tell them. For all the cops knew, Scout was just passing through. That’s what he’d told them anyway.
The only thing they had that was legitimate was his phone number, and phones were easily replaced. He’d grab a new one in the morning and send the texts he needed to send before destroying the one he had. Smash, burn, and drown—that’s what Sawyer had told him to do if he was ever worried about a phone being compromised.
But what to do if they’d taken down his plate number and the description of his bike?
Walk.
Yeah, yeah, okay, Factory Row wasn’t that far away. Two miles. He walked more than that when he was searching for parts in the scrapyard. Walking to and from shoots wouldn’t be an issue; he could handle that easily enough as long as his scene partners weren’t too rough with him. Otherwise it was gonna suck.
Which was going to make the memory of his night with Kong hurt worse if he couldn’t find a way to forget about it and the man who’d taken up root in his brain like no other ever had.
Fuuuuuccccckkkkk!
Several gulls screamed back in response, their shadows flapping across the moon, so he flipped them off and went right back to sulking over the new twist unfurling in his head. The one in which the cops pressed Axel for the truth, and he finally owned up to there being someone else in the gas station beside them and the woman who’d been hurt.
He just hoped she made it. He’d heard her begging Mrs. Martinez to let the school know she was going to the hospital so that someone would be there for her son. Bleeding and scared, her son’s name and the things she wanted Scout to tell him were all she’d been concerned about. And Scout had promised her that if she didn’t make it, he’d tell her son, so she had to make it, ‘cause he didn’t wanna have that kind of conversation with a kid.
Not when he already knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of one.
Maybe he needed to have a one-on-one conversation with Axel, just something nice and friendly, over a beer and some wings or something. Scout would pay and explain, as best he could, why Sawyer had to leave without giving a statement and why Scout hadn’t said anything about him being there. The guy looked like he’d get it, and if he didn’t, then Scout would just have to be damn certain he kept a low profile and under the cops’ radar so they couldn’t pick him up, because he wasn’t giving them shit.
He'd rather eat the obstruction charge.
