Page 31 of Savage Spades

“It’s a two-hour drive. Can you hold on that long?”

“We’re taking the bike for two hours?” she asked, her eyes widening.

He laughed. “I’m just kidding. I’m taking the truck.”

She slapped him on the chest, making him laugh harder.

“Are you that scared of the bike?”

“No, but I’m scared to ride on it for two hours.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

She opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but a man at the front of the room cleared his throat. Everyone quieted and turned their attention to the bald man with a gray beard at the front of the room.

“We’re leaving in the next ten minutes. If you’re riding, check-in with Jett. Otis, you have all the tents?”

“All loaded up,” a skinny man with glasses replied.

“Coolers?” the bald man asked.

“Got ‘em,” Kit said, loud enough so everyone could hear.

“Alright, I’ll see you all on the road.”

Chapter Twelve

Kit

“I’m surprised, I’d take you more for a rock ‘n roll man,” Cam said from the passenger seat. She wore a pair of dark jeans with holes in them. He had trouble keeping his eyes on the road and not on her creamy skin peeking out.

“I listen to a little bit of everything.”

She pulled down his sun visor to find a line of CDs. “And you still have CDs?”

“I never got rid of my collection. I listen to them every so often.”

She flipped through the disks, reading off titles as she went. She seemed to be in a better mood today than he’d ever seen her in. Maybe she was starting to feel comfortable around him, which was what he desperately wanted. She had a wall that was built higher than the sky, and she might finally be lowering it. His focus should be on Megan and his shop, but lately, his thoughts kept going back to Cam. She took up all the space in his brain.

He cleared his throat. “So your dad--”

“What about him?” she asked, not looking up from the CDs.

“He owned the bar before you?”

She nodded her head. “He and my mom were separated. The only time my mom would let me visit him was during the summers. My mom and I don’t have the best relationship. As soon as I turned eighteen, I moved down here with Dad. We had a good two years or so together before he got sick. I was going to school full-time and helping at the bar when I could, but after he got sick, everything changed. I took over all the major stuff for the bar…started skipping classes. It was a hard time.”

Her voice held steady as she talked to him, as if she’d rehearsed the story in her head. She put the CDs back.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Thank you. It was tough since we finally had the close relationship I wanted so bad as a kid, and as soon as we did, he died. I just wish I had the time to grieve. There was so much to do with the bar, and then I found out about Venom’s debt…”

He wasn’t sure what to say. Life was tough like that sometimes, and it was never fair.

“What about your parents?” she asked him.

“My mom died when I was little. I don’t remember her much. My dad did the best he could, but his drinking got real bad. He’s in prison for drunk driving. He killed two teenagers on one of those back roads. He was drunk out of his mind.”

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