Page 67 of Heartless
Jandro walked up next to us at that point, hands behind his back and his face apologetic. “It’s time, man.”
Shadow nodded and slowly unwound from me, our fingertips the last to break away from each other. He pulled his gloves back on, then he and Grudge followed Andrea and Big G out the door.
A crowd of no less than thirty people watched their motorcycles take off just as dusk gave way to night. Shadow kept his headlight off, perfectly capable of seeing in the dark, with Grudge keeping his light dim as he followed Shadow’s red brake light.
Jandro hugged me from behind as their lights and rumbling engines faded away into darkness.
“Did you tell him?” he asked with a warm kiss on my cheek.
“No,” I sighed. “Maybe I should have, but I didn’t want it to seem so…final.”
“It won’t be,” he assured me. “You will when he comes back.”
Nineteen
SHADOW
We rode exclusively at night, with Grudge and I avoiding the main roads. Andrea and Big G took the highways like normal, with us keeping watch from a distance. We even camped separately to not appear as though we were traveling together, which was fine with me. I didn’t know Andrea well and didn’t care for Big G’s company. I appreciated Grudge’s silence, although he was a chatty fucker with a pen and paper. And apparently, he loved terrible jokes.
What’s orange and sounds like a parrot?He shoved his notepad at me, snickering.
“I dunno, Grudge. What?”
A carrot!
I choked on my drink, going into a coughing fit while he fell over with that silent laughter of his.
“Why haven’t you picked up sign language?” I asked him one night. “Might be easier than writing all the time, right?”
I knew from our mission in Blakeworth, he and the Sons used hand signals to communicate quickly between each other. Beyond that, he made gestures for simple things and wrote down any thoughts that were more complex.
“Hmm.” He shook his head and scribbled out a reply.Nah. T & D would have to learn it too. Then translate 4 me. This is easier 4 everyone.
“Still might not hurt to learn,” I said. “I had a book on ASL back in Sheol. Taught myself the alphabet and a few phrases. Didn’t really go deeper than that, though.”
Grudge’s mouth tightened and he shook his head. He clearly didn’t want to be pressed on the subject, so I dropped it, sipping whiskey next to our campfire as he turned to a fresh page.
Miss her?
I swallowed, wondering if there was another word for the uncomfortable pangs in my chest from not having Mariposa around. I missed her while she worked at the hospital for an entire day. I missed her when I was alone at night in the B&B, knowing I wouldn’t see her until morning while she was in the next room with her men.
But this feeling, like a tether stretching to its breaking point across the distance between me and her, felt different. It was deeper, sharper. A physical ache in my body that would only be soothed by having her near me again.
“Yes.” I opted to give Grudge the simple answer. “A whole fucking lot.”
Me too.
I looked at him across the campfire. Grudge often wrote his messages to be brief and to the point, which didn’t always make his thoughts clear.
“You miss Mariposa, or someone else?”
He waved two fingers, indicating it was the second thing I said.
“T-Bone and Dyno?”
He shook his head, then waved his hands in a way that seemed to illustrate feminine curves.
“A woman?” I lifted my head from the saddlebag I was using as a pillow. “I didn’t know you had one.”
