“You’re family. You may be out, but you’re still Coyote’s boy, and you still earned your patch and your tattoo. You got no worries, my man.”
We hung up, and I pocketed the phone, sat in silence for a moment, the bike rumbling between my thighs.
I didn’t try to look at her, couldn’t. “So.”
She had her hands on my shoulders. Wrapped them around to hold on to my chest. “How far to Denver?”
“An hour or so.”
“Just…go. I need to think.”
“Okay.” I hesitated. “Remember the second thing I told you back there, yeah?” I paused. “Don’t be scared of me, no matter what you see me do.”
She didn’t answer.
I put the bike in gear and pulled away, heart thumping.
Knew we shoulda toughed it out instead of stopping. But then, I also knew that record of mine was gonna make trouble. A sweet, soft, smart, sexy, safe woman like Charlie Goode, and a hard-ass orphan biker with manslaughter on his rap sheet, and nowhere to call home…I didn’t stand a chance.
We reached Denver late,well after sunset, found the venue, and pulled up near the tour bus. I shut the engine off, put the kickstand down, and swung off. Charlie already had her helmet off and was sliding off.
“Charlie.”
She shook her head. “I need some time, Crow. I’m sorry.”
“Knew this would fuckin’ happen.”
She stopped, spun around on a dime. “You killed a man, Crow.”
“There were fuckin’elevenof them. He had a fuckin’ knife, Charlie, and he wasn’t plannin’ on fuckin’ ticklin’ me with it.”
She gulped. “I know that, but—”
“You’d rather I let him stab me? You think you’re shaken up now? If I’d gotten stabbed in that fuckin’ rathole, and you were there on your own with a pile of fucked-up bodies and no way to get anywhere?Thatwould havereallymessed up your day, sweetheart.”
“I know, I know. I just…” A helpless shrug as she ran out of words. “I don’t know anything right now, Crow. I know you wouldn’t hurt me, it’s not that. I’m just…” She trailed off, shaking her head, swallowing hard.
I glanced to the left, where the bus was. We had an audience: Myles, Lexie, Jupiter, and a cluster of road crew—they all must have only recently gotten here, since they hadn’t scattered for free time yet; the show wasn’t till tomorrow, so everyone got tonight and part of tomorrow off, until set up and sound check.
“Ya’ll enjoying the show?” I snarled. “Fuck off.”
The crew vanished, but Myles, Lexie, and Jupiter remained.
Myles caught me in a hug. “You okay, bro? You look like you took a walloping.”
I shook my head, pushed him off me. “I’m fuckin’ fine.”
Lexie stared at me, at Charlie. “What the hell happened?”
“There was a fight.” Charlie was whispering. “It was my fault.”
“The fuck it was,” I growled. “It was that asshole, Yak.”
Lexie snorted. “Yak?”
“You’d be proud of your sister, Lexie,” I said. “The dude was shit-talking her, called her sweet tits. She slapped him so hard his mama probably felt it, and then kneed him in the balls, not once, but three times. Took down a six-foot-six dude who weighed more than both of us combined.”
“Wish I’d been there to see it.”
