Page 9 of Serpentine

I know they’ll be excited, and I know it’ll be a shit show, but I need to get fucking laid.

Zeke’s Roadhouse is on the other side of town, tucked away in the deep pines of the forest. It’s a place that’s always packed, but the same faces line the booths and tables. Few tourists turn up inside it, nor do the nicer townsfolk of Twin Pines. It’s just the place we can get into a bit of trouble and not get arrested.

“You boys aren’t going to break anything tonight, right?” Zeke asks, sliding beers across the wooden counter towards us.

He’s in his mid-fifties and bald as the day is long. Somehow, he still has a massive beard that you can catch him stroking in deep thought when he’s doing the liquor order or trying to figure out the answer to a problem.

“It was the one time,” Blaze says, scoffing as he grabs his beer and scopes the place out, no doubt looking for Shaley, the groupie he’s been fucking up against the wall of the bathroom for weeks.

She’ll move on soon, and then we’ll have to deal with his constant whining about the lack of strange in town until another blows through.

Women flock to the clubhouse like flies on shit, and then they realize this life is a little more dangerous than they’d bargained for and move on.

When the rest of the men who’d come with me move through the roadhouse, settling into the corner in the booth we always occupy, I sit in front of Zeke and nurse my beer.

“Something’s wrong. What is it?” he asks, lifting a glass and pretending to shine it.

Zeke, while not a Cobra, is like a father to me. I grew up in this bar, watching my father broker deals and beat the shit out of men for disrespecting him. I also watched him kill for Zeke’s protection when a Jackal piece of shit rode in from Portland and thought he could stake his claim in our territory.

I left that night on the back of Dad’s bike with blood sprayed across my face with a new understanding of the dark side of this world.

Zeke is privy to Cobra business, and he’d never tell a fucking soul. But this?

I sigh, closing my eyes. Lifting the beer to my forehead, I let the icy chill seep through my skin to tickle my brain, which is currently on fire. I don’t know what to do.

“That bad?” Zeke chuckles.

“Braxton stole Carter Williams’s fiancé from her home earlier tonight.”

The glass Zeke had been holding thuds down onto the bar top. “Excuse me? Were you... Are you ready to make that kind of move?”

“Fuck no! He said there’d been something about her. When I entered the clubhouse, where he was holding her, Zeke... Fuck, there is something about her. That’s fucked. But she’s a chip that’s landed in my lap. I can’t just let her go.”

Zeke shakes his head. “You can’t let her go for so many reasons, kid. But it would be best if you were careful. You know how Brax is. Him taking an interest in something isn’t a small thing...”

I nod, waving my hand with my beer before setting it down. “He’s going to fixate.”

Zeke nods. “He is, indeed.”

“Fuck, I love him to death, but sometimes...”

Zeke puts the glass back on the shelf, turning back toward me with a smirk. “Ehh, he keeps you on your toes, is all.”

An absurd laugh leaves me. “Yeah, if that’s what you want to call it.”

Zeke’s face gets serious, and I steel myself for whatever he says next. “Make sure you monitor her at all times. Don’t let her escape. This town would turn upside down, kid.”

Don’t I fucking know it?

But when I look over to the table to where Sully and Blaze are giving Billy shit about something, I realize we’d left her in the clubhouse alone. Sure, I told Lutz to keep an eye out. But by now, he’s dick-deep in Call of Duty online with his shithead friends on the clubhouse couch and likely has his headset on.

I chug my beer down, sliding enough money for all our drinks over to Zeke before lifting my hand toward the boys and signaling them to wrap it up.

We have a princess to watch and a plan to plot.

Playtime is over.

FOUR

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