Page 21 of Dodge

Chase blinked. “Excuse me?”

Stud spoke. “The correct tense for that sentence is ‘Iwasthe head chef.’ If you got fired, that’s on you.”

“How ’bout you step back a bit? Give Fauna a little breathing room, yeah?” Dodge’s question was more like an order.

Bruiser, Rafter, and Mute stepped around me like bodyguards and forced Chase to move away. Their triple movements enfolded me like a warm security blanket. I blinked at them in sudden emotion. I couldn’t remember the last time someone threw down for me like this. For years, any battles I fought, I did it alone. The idea of someone else, let alone several someone elses, standing beside me was so foreign, I didn’t know quite how to process it. I had to admit though, I liked it.

Chase straightened himself up to face his new opponents. I’d give him credit for trying to save face, but when that much pure alpha male testosterone kicked in, escalation was inevitable. “She was the one who complained about shit all the damn time. Nonstop. Condition of the walk-ins never right, wiping down stations every fucking second, bitching about food dates and logs, bitching about communication between the kitchen and the floor. Nothing was ever good enough for her.”

Dodge shrugged. “So?”

Chase exploded. “What do you mean, ‘so’? Who the fuck are you, anyway?” He finally took in the scavenged parking lot. “What’s going on here?”

“Nunya,” Dodge replied. “As in nunya business. I think it’s time for you to leave.”

Chase burred up. “I came here to get some stuff for my new restaurant.”

A sinking sensation hit my stomach next to that anchor. “Did you buy the lot?”

His hesitation told me all I needed to know. “Well, no. I just heard about the abandonment and—”

“Too late. We already got it. That is, my new friends and I did.” I gestured to the bank of pure male hotness behind me. Was it wrong that I enjoyed saying that sooooo much?

“You can’t just take everything! That’s stealing!”

“Why not? Like you pointed out, it was abandoned and headed for the landfill. Besides, you planned on taking it too. Why is it stealing for me and not for you?”

He sputtered. “It’s… I’m—”

Dodge interrupted. “Babe, we need to roll. I have to get back to Bryson City as soon as possible.”

“We” need to roll, not “I.”I nodded in his direction and wondered if the train of texts was the reason. Not my problem nor my business, but still thatwestuck in my head. If I was being honest, thebabedid too. “I wish we could continue this fascinating conversation, Chase, butwehave places to be. Ciao!”

I turned, intending to make a dramatic exit. A flash of movement and a gasp of pain had me spinning back.

Dodge had Chase’s arm in a twist, forcing my ex to bend over lest his shoulder be wrenched from the socket. Dodge had gone from being antsy for the road to enraged in a heartbeat. “I don’t know what you city boys learned in kindergarten, but we country folk were taught to keep our hands to ourselves. You remember that next time you wanna touch somebody, yeah?”

I had nothing to say. My heart was pounding hard. I guessed that Chase had reached out to grab me to make me listen to his angry diatribe, and Dodge had stopped him. Another throwdown for me.

Not gonna lie, this turned me on. Big-time.

Fuck me, I’m in trouble!

Dodge let go of Chase’s arm, and my ex stood up and moved awkwardly away. He acted like he wanted to say something but was afraid of riling the biker again. Instead, he glared at me as if everything bad in the world was my fault.

I was so over it.

“He’s all finished here, aren’t you, Chase?” Macie finally came over to rejoin the group. I could tell he was loving every minute of being there. “These gentlemen need to get back to Bryson City as soon as possible.”

The way he breathedgentlemenmade me want to roll my eyes. I loved Macie with all my heart, but sometimes his constant flirting got him into trouble. I didn’t know how these bikers would react to having a gay Black man talk to them like that.

None of them seemed to care, though. Stud laughed out loud. “That’s for sure. We should have just enough time to get to the restaurant and unload. I have a lot of paperwork to catch up on. Fauna, have you thought about a POS system?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“I have a couple of suggestions. Come by the bar later if you can and I’ll show them to you. We’ll see you there, yeah?”

“Sure.”

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