Page 1 of Infected By Virus

VIRUS

“Yo, Virus?”

“What’s up, Heidi?”

“We need some technical support. You got a sec?”

Looking up, he spotted Heidi with laptop in hand and Nova by her side. However, it was Devin trailing behind them, laughing her ass off, that gave him pause.

“Depends. Does it involve me in any capacity other than technical support?” The question was directed more toward Nova instead. She liked to needle him for the fucking sport of it.

“Nope,” she answered, but turned toward Devin with the devil in her eyes.

When Hook’s ol’ lady and Prez’s ol’ lady got together, it was trouble with a capital T. But when they teamed up with Croon’s sister, well, that spelled big fucking trouble in all caps with extraneous exclamation points.

Heidi plopped down next to him on the sofa and handed over the laptop, while Nova and Devin shared the love seat chair across from them.

“We posted a video of Croon on that one app, and it went viral.”

That explained why Devin was involved with such glee. While Nova never missed a chance to razz him, Devin never tired of ribbing her brother. Between the two of them, they’d been the victims of Devin or Nova’s extortion more times than he could count. Do this or that for us or we’ll post this.

Croon’s relationship with his sister has been rocky since she’d arrived from Nebraska under less-than-ideal circumstances. For a while, Virus was convinced Hook had a thing for her, but it turned out they were just friends. He did notice another brother who was all gooey-eyed over her for real, but not his circus, not his cryptid, or however the saying went.

He could only hope that they worked out their sibling shit before it spread out and impacted the club.

“Turns out, the ladies of the world are more pervy than men. Go figure,” Nova remarked.

“Especially in the romance book community,” Devin added. She read those things like they were going out of style. Since she arrived, Zombie had to make a new rule about her leaving her books lying around. There were shirtless men on damn near every surface of their clubhouse and attached businesses.

Virus shuddered.

“We’re a fucking MC, not a Desperate Housewives of Provo book club, damn it,” Zombie had said as he tossed a handful of the books in question across the table toward Croon during a recent come to Jesus. “Get your sister under control or I’ll bust you back to prospect and see how much shit you can take before you tuck tail and run.” It was an empty threat. Zombie wasn’t an asshole, but it worked … somewhat.

Nova’s laughter drew his attention back. “Yeah, some of the things in the comments about what they’d let Croon, and the other guys, do to them are illegal in at least eight countries.”

“Umhm,” Heidi agreed. “If I tell Zom the offers he’s gotten, he may just beg to add a third or a fourth to our relationship. If he tried that, I’d have to castrate him, and nobody wants that.”

Santa and Outlaw were shooting pool behind the ladies on the love seat, and both made different protective maneuvers as if imagining being castrated.

“Damn, woman. You got a vicious streak,” Santa said after he recovered. “I like it.” He winked.

Santa was harmless when it came to Zombie’s ol’ lady, but he was an unapologetic flirt and the ladies always ate that shit up with a spoon.

“You got game, old man, but you better watch who you’re running lines on,” Outlaw scolded with zero heat.

“Who are you calling old man, you fucking bottom-feeder? Old my ass, I’ll show you old.” He only had a decade on the youngest of the guys at most, but everyone likes to remind him of that.

“That’s VP bottom-feeder to you, old man. You’re just still salty because if it wasn’t for me, you’d be running your lines in cell block C for the biggest, ugliest motherfucker in there.”

The ladies had turned away from their problem at hand to watch the exchange happening at the pool table.

Santa stuck out his tongue like a petulant child and laid the pool cue on the felt.

“You’re just jealous because I’ve got three inches on you in the way that counts most.” Santa grabbed his crotch in case anyone watching didn’t understand his reference. “Not to mention with all the cold-ass shark blood running through your veins, you probably can’t even get it up, can you, counselor?”

“As far as inches go, you must be talking about height because you damn sure don’t have it in your pants.”

Outlaw dropped his cue next to Santa’s and reached into his wallet. He pulled out a couple of bills, then slapped them on the felt.

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