Page 62 of Dodge

It was a sad situation, made worse by all the unknowns.

Guilt ate at Dodge, and there wasn’t much I could do about it. He had no reason to feel that, but he’d been taking care of Mallory from childhood up ’til now in some form, and it got to him that she’d ended up this way. He was done with her and her shit, but he still visited the hospital since she had no one else to check on her. The other motivation was to inform her when she was on the mend and coherent enough to hear it that the divorce was real and it was time to move on.

“Lord have mercy, this is like them rubberneckers at a car accident on the highway. Everybody has to stop and look,” Betsey announced as she clacked her way into the kitchen. Three empty pitchers were in her hands. The drinks? Mojitos.

Fuck me sideways.

It was the end of service, and most people had gone home. I was glad, too, as I was exhausted. My kitchen crew were cleaning, and the servers were finishing up the dining room. I wiped down my station and stretched hard, several popping sounds coming from my back. “I can’t tell you how much your help means to me. No way could I have handled these last few nights.”

She dumped the pitchers in the soap sink where Felix was finishing up and flicked her nails—bright orange this time—at me. Her standard “Pssssht”response followed. “Runner women stick together. I might need some help myself someday, and I expect you to step up if it happens. You wanna make it up to me? Get Brick to eat more greens.”

I laughed. It felt good to hear some humor. Dodge had joked about the kale battle between the patriarch and matriarch of the club. My mother—or rather, Harriet—hadn’t contacted me, and I expected she never would. I tried texting my brother to see how the wind blew there, but I got a blocked message. So much for blood family.

“The trick for getting people to eat stuff they don’t wanna eat is to cut it up in small pieces and mix it with other foods. Dodge said he didn’t like mushrooms, but he ate them in the duxelles I made for the little stuffed appetizers. He loves them. I can make something similar like spanakopita. That’s spinach-and-feta-stuffed phyllo triangles.”

“Sounds good to me. Bring ’em to the Halloween barbecue at the end of the month.”

Betsey picked up a couple of empty prep pans and took them to the dishwashing area. “I’ve handled big crowds at the River’s Edge before, but this place? Lord have mercy. Anyway, I gotta get up to the Lair. Mute’s over at the bar with Bruiser. Kat’s not feeling real well, and I'm guessing we’re gonna have us a new baby real soon. I’m gonna put my happy ass in a bed while I can.”

She whirled a thick cape around her shoulders. She had on her Dragon Runners property cut and preferred the cape to a coat for the colder nighttime temperatures. My other kitchen help finished up the last of the dishes and got ready to leave himself.

I took a freshly washed glass and filled it with ice cubes. “Thanks, Felix. You can clock out if you’re done.”

The man nodded and left in short order.

I poured cold water from a filtered pitcher I kept in the kitchen and took a big gulp. The icy mix burned on the way down. Two of the servers came in back to log out of the timekeeper and wave goodbye. I followed them to the dining room and let them out the front door, locking up behind them.

It was down to me.

A ding on my phone indicated a text, and I swiped it open.

Dodge: They're making me leave the hospital. I’d really like to be around people tonight. Mind meeting me at the Lair?

Did I mind? Absolutely not. Part of being in a relationship was taking care of each other. I’d never had that in its true sense until Dodge came in my life. He never had that with Mallory either, but I would do that for him now. He needed to be around family, and we’d go be around family.

Me: No, baby, I don’t mind at all. I’m almost done with closing. I’ll come as soon as I can. You want me to come get you?

Dodge: I’ve got my bike. Cold ride, but I could use a windy pick-me-up. See you there. Love you, sweetness.

Me: Love you too.

I slipped the phone in my back pocket and turned off the lights. My lights. I grinned a little.

Back in the kitchen, I grabbed my water glass and downed the rest in one long cold gulp. There were a few dishes left in the drying rack, and I took a few minutes to put them away. I hung up my pots and pans, put away the rest of the utensils, and wiped up the sink. Felix had already mopped, and the floor showed a few damp spots left. I carefully stepped around them, then promptly grabbed at the counter as my feet went out from under me.

“Djammit,” I muttered. My tongue felt thick and unwieldy in my mouth. My head spun as the world shifted and flipped over.

What the fuck?

I found myself on the floor. The white fluorescent tubes above me split and came back together just to split again. I closed my eyes at the scene and had the urge to vomit. My head lolled to the side, and I got a bird’s-eye view of the underside of my prep counter. A lone papery onion skin sat a few inches from my face, and I had the absurd desire to blow it to see if it would fly.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I recognized that someone had drugged me. I’d felt like this before. On a night months and months ago when I’d quit my job and woke up to find myself in bed with a man I didn’t know.

A pair of flat, plain loafers appeared in my vision, blocking the sight of the onion skin. My numb lips formed a name, but before I said it, I was out.

CHAPTER32

Dodge rolledinto the Lair compound and parked his bike in the covered garage. Rain was in the forecast, and all the motorcycles were under cover for the night. Fauna would have to leave her car outside when she got here.

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