Page 2 of Blue

Stormy stood on her tiptoes, balanced on top of Bullet’s boots as he danced with her. I was glad he was able to save his girl, glad he married her, and had his happily ever after. Good for him.

My life was still fucked.

“I need a drink.” I pushed away from the table and crossed the room to the Altar, the club’s bar.

Cruz stepped up next to me. “There’s a party tonight.”

My pulse spiked. Just what I needed, something to get me out of the MC for the rest of the night. Another opportunity to find Kiss.

In the last six weeks, Cruz and I had become friends while I’d been laid up in Blade’s room. Cruz rented the next room over. Our president hadn’t said anything yet, but my time squatting was about up.

I needed fast cash and a new place to live. Before I’d been clocked by the mafia hitman, I’d been renting a room above a hair salon downtown. By now, those locks would have been changed. Thankfully, Jazzy had grabbed a lot of my things while I’d been in bed. Who knew where the rest of my stuff was now, not that I had much to lose.

Since Bullet had closed down Indulgence, I’d become an entrepreneur. Romeo had hooked me up with his source. Parting out eighths was giving me a bit of scratch, and an in to find Kiss.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Cruz followed me to Blade’s room. I grabbed a half dozen baggies of weed and stuffed them into the inside pocket of my cut. Because we were dealing, I carried a pocket pistol.

“How long did it take for you to get your patch?”

Still prospecting for the MC, Cruz wore a cut but without the colors. I’d earned my patch the hard way, not through time, but through service. Hellers and Crawlers had gone to war. I’d proven my loyalty.

“Don’t worry,” I said to Cruz as we stopped in his room. “Nothing changes until your mom puts you up for a vote.” I didn’t know how long it would take for Dozer, Cruz’s sponsor, or mom as we called him, to patch him in. “Dozer is going to make you work for it. Know your club history. Fuck, dude, hang out at the oil drum, get the stories from the old timers.” I slapped his back. “When it happens, you know I’m a yes.”

“You fucking owe me for tonight,” he said with a laugh. “The party is at a trailer on the west side. Bruh, a lot of traffic runs through my friend Kane’s place. He’s chill, but lately I’ve had to ditch his scene.”

“What’s the issue?”

“His sister, Hayley. We hook up occasionally, but it’s nothing serious. We partied a couple weeks ago. She passed out, and I ended up having a threesome with one of her friends and her boyfriend.” He checked his weapon and slid it into his pocket along with his cigarettes. “Hayley’s pissed.” He chuckled. “I never pretended we were anything but friends, and we were barely that, but I guess I was a bit more serious for her.”

I stalled, but not on the threesome, and not that Cruz would split a chick with another guy. If I’d learned anything about Cruz, it was that he didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought. Apparently, even his fucking girlfriend.

“Fuck, dude, you’re with McKelle. Does she know?” The walls in the MC weren’t soundproof. For Cruz and McKelle, a good fucking either followed a good fight between them or caused one.

I knew because most nights I stayed up with a hard dick and listened to them fuck.

“Yeah, we fought about it. McKelle is fucking psycho, but she’s mine.”

We slipped out the side door, climbed onto our bikes, and rode out of the MC. Should I feel like shit leaving Bullet’s wedding reception? Maybe, probably, but fuck it.

With the wind in my face, and the roar of the pipes of my bike, I should’ve been flying high. But I couldn’t shake the mental playout of what I would do when Ifinally found Kiss. I was pissed at her for running from me.

I understood she had a volatile history with the MC, and a lot of it was shit. She’d overdosed on heroin in the bathroom. And she had a fucked up relationship with Levi and Romeo. I got it. She hated seeing her ex best friend with her ex bad habit boyfriend, but Levi and Romeo were solid. Levi had a bean in her belly due to pop any day. Romeo was all in with her. From what Jazzy had told me, he always had been.

Another reason it had to hurt Kiss to see them together.

She still owed me more than a fuck off because she was uncomfortable with her former friends. Six weeks of being left on read. I’d broken the dating rule of repeat texting, and I’d tried calling a couple times.

Nothing. If she wasn’t coming to me, she was depending on someone else. Sobriety was a fragile thing. Kiss had been in bed with black for a long time. Black, as in black tar heroin. Before the situation with Bullet and Stormy, she’d been hitting the methadone clinic and trying to find ways of staying clean. Three trips to rehab hadn’t helped, and I wasn’t much of a sober sponsor.

Maybe because I had fucked up issues of my own.

Cruz and I rode to a shit part of town. The roads were rough, and the neighborhood was rougher. Some of the homes had boarded-up windows. Graffiti tagged street signs. Following Cruz, we turned into the Shady Valley mobile home park. Dogs barked as we rode through the old trailer court. The stench of rottenness saturated the air.

Residents loitered on their porches. This used to be Crawler territory. The club was dismantled, but therewere still patches lying low. My Heller cut was going to be noticed.

Cars lined the narrow street. Cruz stopped and parked in a gap between two trailers. He nodded toward the older trailer with faded paint on the right. A couple of guys leaned against the rail of a weathered, wooden porch. A blond flipped his hair from his eyes, waved to Cruz, and separated from the group.

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