Page 11 of Frisco

“Does that matter? I mean, look what happened to Gloves.”

I should also clarify here that I interchanged calling my brother both Connor and Gloves, but Aly and Harper did not. They didn’t know the reason he had that nickname, and both had known him as Connor before he went to prison, so it was out of respect that they continued to call him Connor. I asked my brother once if that was okay with him, and he said he liked it.

“It makes me feel like a person,” he’d said. “In here, it’s not always like that. I’m still Connor to someone, you know? It’s like someone remembers me for me.” That sealed the deal. He’d always be Connor to them.

After my reminder about Gloves’ fate, they both made the same hmm sound, nodding in unison.

They got my point.

My brother had seriously bad luck. And once Connor went inside, his same luck kept striking—a fight here, a fight there. His time kept being extended, not that it mattered because he was in for life, but now he had a motorcycle club doing favors for him. I wanted to scream when I thought about what he must’ve done for that to happen.

I did know one thing.

No way was any of this going to end well.

Not going to happen.

It wasn’t in our DNA.

I had a feeling we were well and truly fucked, and no matter how I tried to shrug it off, I couldn’t.

What did I do instead?

I finished my drink, and Aly made me another.

Then another and another until I stopped counting.

And then I was doing a dance routine with them. It was going to go on one of Aly’s lives.

I hit call on my phone.

“Daughter!”

It was late, super late, but he still answered and he made me smile. “Hi, Dad. I’m drunk.”

“Oh, no.”

“And we did dance routines tonight.”

“Ooh. Tell me more. With Harper and Aly?”

“Yep. It was fun.”

“You know,” his voice dropped, getting serious. “I could do dance routines with you, too. Might not be moving as fast as those two, but your pops has some skill.”

4

SHANE

My phone started buzzing and I headed out to Ruby’s parking lot.

Since we’d come to town, the bar’s regular crowd had thinned. Gloves’ mom had expressed concern about that a few times, but I told her the word would spread, and we’d be taking off. The regulars would return, but she also needed to remember we were sharing about her place to the other charters, other bikers we knew. They’d produce a decent amount of revenue for her bar, so this would be something she’d need to get used to.

Stepping out to the back, I could see only a few people at the tables. I answered the phone, stepping down and starting through the bikes. “Yeah.”

Maxwell Raith, the Red Demons’ national president, was on the other end. “How’s it going out there?”

“Good. We’re squared with Gloves’ family, except for the older sister.”

---