Page 51 of Tank

He pulls back then repeats Rhodie’s question. “How the fuck did you get here?”

“In Chewy’s new ride,” Blanche replies, rolling her eyes.

“What!?” Rhodie, Gus and Jules all yell.

“Yeah! Come see it. I also have a little surprise in there for you all,” She waves us all to follow her and we trickle out.

Mira’s hand bumps against mine and I take it in my larger, rougher one. Real smooth like. She beams up at me and I hold her gaze, drowning in her emerald depths, until we’re interrupted by a mechanical whirring sound.

“Is that a lift?” Mira’s confused face watches as Chewy slowly descends to the ground on what looks to be a wheelchair hoist.

“Behold! My new ride. Isn’t she magnificent? And look! We can move bikes, pianos,” She gives the crowd a wink, “bodies,”

As soon as the words leave her mouth we all see the man slumped to the ground behind her on an awkward angle.

“Chewy, who the fuck is that?” Gus asks, a pained look on his face.

“This is Morc. Or the Maui Orc guy that had that stuff sent to Mira.” She gives him a swift kick when he starts to whine.

I flick my gaze to Mira, trying to do a check in to make sure she’s OK with what’s going on. I mean, most normal people wouldn’t be. They’d get one whiff of this and bail out. I’m half expecting that to be the case but when I glance at her I see…excitement. Her eyes are wide and there’s a smile playing on her lips.

“You kidnapped the kidnapper!” She claps a little.

“Uno reverse motherfucker!” Pops crows, high fiving the girl gang.

Marx holds his hand out to Gus who hands him an antacid. He throws it back and takes a deep breath. “Men, you know what to do. Chewy and Blanche, debrief stat.”

They nod, snuggle into their men and wander into the clubhouse, Takoda and Rider escorting Morc.

“This is so cool. Like can you believe those little ladies uno reversed their kidnapper? Like how the heck is that even possible? One of them is pregnant! That’s total girl power right there, pow, pow!” Mira starts punching the air and giggling and I can’t take my eyes off her.

How in the fuck my stoic ass has gotten this far with her is beyond me. I’m boring. Too quiet, too focussed, too inflexible, too messed up for someone this vibrant. I mean, if my parents couldn’t even be bothered with me, why would this colorful creature?

“You’re thinking,” she glides her pointer finger over the pinched skin between my brows.

“I’m always thinking.”

“Maybe just feel.” She smiles softly then presses a feather light kiss to my lips, pulling back too soon. “Come on, I wanna hear the girl power story. Then I’m gonna emulate it and hopefully not get arrested. That’s always a possibility you know.” She tugs on my hand and I follow her into the common room.

It’s silent. Gus is pinching the bridge of his nose and Marx has his head down, no doubt psyching himself up for some fucked up story. “What happened?”

Blanche and Chewy look at each other, from their positions on their Ol Men’s laps.

“We wanted to have a word with Whitney,” Blanche hedges.

“And then?” Marx presses.

Blanche tries to share a look with Chewy, but Chewy is looking elsewhere, tapping her fingers. This usually means she’s put together something in her mind, or she’s coming up with a not so honest story.

“And then we saw the guy she was with. The one that’s now in the Rev Room,” Chewy casually throws a thumb over her shoulder, accidentally jabbing Rhodie with it.

“And how did you go from having a word with Whitney and then being kidnapped? Hmm?”

“Oh for shit’s sake,” Blanche throws her hands up, “Whitney was there with Morc and some other gross, damp looking guy. We got ourselves kidnapped, Whitney went off with the grossy and then we got unkidnapped. We-” Blanche points between her and Chewy, “are badass bitches who can handle ourselves. We caught a bad guy and we found out some stuff.” Blanche crosses her arms over her chest and harrumphs, Tav burying his nose in her hair, his shoulders vibrating until Blanche spins in his arms and gives him a look that could shrivel a man’s balls.

Marx lets out a long sigh, “I’m not saying you two can’t look after yourselves. But you need to remember that you both are family, and when shit like this goes down it worries us all. Same as if one of the brothers was out there somewhere without us knowing. Just, try not to do it again, OK?”

Blanche’s face softens and she nods at the same time Chewy mumbles, “I can’t promise anything.”

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