Page 80 of Saving Blood

When we hit the bottom of the stairs, I stop. “What if she shoots me down? What if she tells me to fuck off?”

“I wouldn’t blame her.” Smoke cocks his head. “But I don’t think it’s gonna go down that way.”

We head out to the lot behind the club, I straddle my bike, and Smoke and Diesel do the same.

“I can do this alone.”

“Ahhh, no, fucker.” Smoke shakes his head. “We’re goin’ along to make sure you don’t chicken out.”

“Yeah, ‘cause we don’t feel like listening to your whiny ass if you let her get away,” Diesel adds.

I flip them off, then we throttle our bikes and head for the border.

Fifteen minutes later, we park our bikes at the curb, and I hop off, surveying the ridiculously long line leading into the building at the border crossing.

“I got it from here.” The last thing I need is them coming with me, giving me shit along the way.

Smoke points at me. “Don’t fuck this up.”

“I got it.” We tag fists. “Thanks.”

“Go bring our girl home,” Diesel adds.

I start at the back of the line, surprised at how many people cross the border on foot. Shit, this is going to be harder than I thought. When I get closer to the front of the line, I start to worry I’m too late—until I spot her.

My heart jacks up, and I catch my reflection in the window of the building. Fuck me, Smoke was right. I look like shit. My eyes are sunken in with dark circles, my hair is all kinds of crazy from me dragging my fingers through it, and my boots along with the bottom of my jeans are crusted with mud from the cemetery. Not only do I look like shit, but the last twenty-four hours kicked my ass. I’m shit without Maxine, and I beg whatever almighty power might still listen that she doesn’t tell me to go straight to hell.

“Goin’ somewhere?” Cheesy as fuck, but it was all I had. When she doesn’t turn around I add, “‘Cause I’ve heard you’re one hell of a cage fighter. I’ve also heard woman in the cage fightbetterthan men.”

She shifts her feet and turns her head toward me. “Reallllly?” she asks, full of sass with a touch of remorse. “Who told you that?”

“Some sassy cage fighter with a huge attitude.”

“Hmmm, some badass biker told me there was no ‘us,’ and we were a mistake.”

“Did I say that?” I flash the same grin I gave her the first day we met. The day she called me out and said I was a misogy-something.

“Not going to work.” She moves forward with the line, and I move with her.

I jerk my head to the sidewalk. “Do you think we could get off this line?”

“No.”

“But I wanna talk to you.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause I was wrong to turn you away.”

“And?”

We move forward a few more feet, getting dangerously close to the entrance of the building.

“‘Cause I’m a fuckin’ asshole, and I made a huge mistake, and I want you back in my life.”

A woman behind us says something to Maxine in Spanish, to which she laughs and says something in return.

“What did she say?” I whisper.

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