Page 17 of Bound By Fate
“I’ll keep the phone on me.” I picked it up and looked at the charger connector. “Do you know anyone with a flip phone charger?”
“I’ll talk to the ol’ ladies and get one. Not a problem.”
“Great. Thanks, Ens.”
“Always, Katie. Always.”
6
DRYERSON
Being backon my bike was heaven on wheels. Feeling the wind whip your face and the road beneath you, there was no other nirvana like it.
Unfortunately, a bike wasn’t in my near future. Micah and I were in Micah’s SUV with a trailer hooked up to the back for Cooper and Deke’s bikes as they road in front of us. While I knew we needed Micah’s computer on wheels and a vehicle to scope shit out that didn’t make a lot of noise, I still wanted to be on my bike.
Such was the life of a prospect. At least I wasn’t cleaning the toilets after the guys at the moment. Positives. Everyone needed to find those in life.
So here I sat bitch, almost to our destination.
“You done fuckin’ around with Katie yet?” Micah asked out of the blue. And at his words the space felt smaller, as if the walls were closing in. I didn’t like the shit with Katie, but the ball was in her court, so to speak. She wasn’t in the headspace for me to push her. Nudge her, yes. Full-out push, not quite. What I did at Remy’s party probably freaked her, but I needed her to know where I was.
“Fuckin’ around?” What the fuck?
“Playin’ this cat and mouse shit. Back and forth. Back and forth…”
I leaned back in the seat, eyes on the road and the two men in front of us. “She’s different since the crematorium.”
“No shit?” Micah asked sarcastically.
“Do you want me to answer, or are you going to keep interrupting me?” I clipped.
“Noted. Go ahead.”
“Before she gave me shit and met me at every turn. Now she’s like a shell of her former self. She’s there, but she’s really not. That time there fucked her up bad, man.” I heaved in a huge breath. “It doesn’t help those fuckers marked her as well. She has to see that shit every time she’s naked. A reminder of that time.” A fact I had to hear from the grapevine, considering she wouldn’t take my calls.
“It was bad. Ensley was the only one she’d let help with the bandages after she was released from the hospital. And I heard her crying more than once in her room while she was with us.”
“I fuckin’ hate this for her. And I don’t know how to fix it. Shit, I couldn’t figure out a woman’s brain before this. Add this shit in, and I’m fucked.”
Micah chuckled. “I don’t know what Ensley’s thinkin’ half the time. When it’s important, she tells me. Other than that, I let it go.”
“Can’t let this shit go, brother. Wish I could but can’t. I’m gonna get in there.” Come hell or high water.
Micah’s hand went to the top of the wheel. “I get you. You’re a man who can’t. Give it time. The way she was with you at the party… Man you were the only one who could calm her. Everyone fuckin’ saw that shit.”
My fingers ran through my hair. “I couldn’t give two shits what people saw. What mattered was her reaction to me. That shit told me that whatever fucked up shit is swirling around in her head wouldn’t stop me from making her happy.”
“Fuck, she’s got you all twisted up.” Micah tried poking the bear, but I wasn’t taking the bait.
“Yep. Is that it?”
The small ranch house we drove by didn’t look like a place where guns were being sold. It looked like a Cleaver house or some shit. “Good cover; man, but how they gonna be able to supply with that small of space?” I asked as we drove by. Cooper and Deke were waiting for us around the corner. We didn’t want the bike pipes to alert them to our presence.
We needed to get eyes on the place or, if it already had eyes, tap into them.
“Underground, or maybe this isn’t the place. They could have a warehouse or somethin’ we don’t know about.”
“Fuck, they’d have to in order to run what we run. How is it we don’t know shit about these fuckers?” I asked, curious.
