Page 53 of Grumpy Sunshine

Everyone who was anyone knew not to touch a Truth Teller’s bike.

The reaction of the men was swift and offensive.

I’d heard of one man that’d thought it would be funny to push one over while he was out drinking at a bar, and when the Truth Teller had found out, he’d ruined the man’s life.

Not that the man hadn’t deserved it.

From what I’d heard, the drunk had been beating his wife up and treating his kids like crap.

But still…

Testing the saddlebags, I found that one hadn’t been clasped all the way.

Thankful that I wouldn’t have to pick the lock—something that I’d learned to do at a young age when my mother had found it easier to lock us in our rooms than provide babysitters—I shoved the money into the saddlebag and locked it into place.

I eyed the Truth Tellers emblem on the side of the bike, running my fingers along the hooded figure with the X for the eyes and a finger held up in front of a smiling mouth.

I loved that emblem.

Every time I saw it on a cut or a bike, or even an event thing, I loved it.

I wanted to tattoo it on my skin, it was so freakin’ pretty.

The one on the side of Chevy’s bike was mostly dark black and gray with neon pink highlights along the eyes, mouth, and nose.

A squeak had me glancing up to see a homeless man coming my way.

He eyed me as he got closer and said, “Better not touch that bike, missy.You know what they’ll do if they find out.”

Even the homeless people knew not to touch it.

“I know,” I admitted.“Have a good one.”

He jerked his head at me and kept walking.

I waited until he wasn’t in sight any longer to head into work.

And I had to admit, my day fucking sucked because I didn’t see Chevy but twice, and both of those times he was pretty far away as he went from one surgery to another.

Heading home that night, I fully expected it to be like any other night.

Silver was still in Broken Bow and I had no plans but eating some pizza and having another piece of cake.

When I got inside my apartment, I didn’t at first find anything wrong.

But when I opened my fridge, I was shocked by the amount of food in my fridge.

Honestly, I’d never expected that my fridge could hold that amount of food, but there I was staring at it all.

Orange juice—which I definitely could never afford to buy because it was so expensive.

Bottled water—that was a delicacy that I didn’t waste my money on.Tap water worked just fine.

Cheese—my god, there was so much cheese.Tillamook!I fuckin’ loved Tillamook!I’d had it once at a party, and it was much better than any cheese I’d ever tasted in my life.Much better than the cheese that you had to unwrap from the plastic package to put on your sandwiches.

I gasped when I saw the industrial sized bottle of ranch.

That’s when I started to tear up.

---