Page 80 of Restless (Brazen Bulls Birthright 5)

But Jay didn’t want to run back like a pussy needing to hide behind somebody stronger. He was strong. He was a good fighter. And he wasn’t a goddamn fuckup.

Also, if this was trouble—and it sure as fuck looked like it was—it seemed pretty stupid to cluster all the Bulls together so two truckloads of pissed-off Shadow Bears could flank them.

He looked over to the picnic tables and saw that the others had clocked the new arrivals. “No. We should stay here. Let’s see what they do.”

The trucks had pulled up and stopped right behind the row of Bulls’ bikes and the van. Putting themselves in the way of an easy exit. Yeah, these guys weren’t looking to make friends.

The driver of the lead truck saw Jay looking. He climbed out of the cab and stalked straight at him. Everybody else who’d been waiting to order scattered out of the line.

“Fuck. They’re coming for us,” Duncan muttered. “All of ‘em.”

“That means Dex and the others can get up behind ‘em,” Jay muttered back, still locked eye to eye with the guy who’d been driving the first truck.

He wasn’t afraid, and he wasn’t angry. More than anything, he was curious. He felt strangely calm, almost like he wasn’t entirely in his body. Like he was sitting in the audience, watching the scene unfold on a stage.

The guy walked straight at him, not stopping or speaking or even changing his stoic expression. Jay stood firm and let him come, still only calmly curious, though yeah, he expected to get punched or stabbed or something. He just didn’t care about it. He was much more interested in what would happenafterthis guy did whatever he was planning to do.

The head Shadow Bear—Was he the president? Did they have that kind of structure to their crew?—walked at Jay until the very next step would put their bodies in contact. Then he stopped, still without blinking, speaking, anything.

He was shorter than Jay by maybe two inches, but a good deal broader. As broad as Duncan, who was three inches taller than Jay. This guy had a neck like a tree trunk.

Jay stood in place and stared back. His head wasn’t empty, but it was eerily quiet. Normally, in any other confrontation he could think of, a thousand different snarky quips would have been jostling for primacy, a thousand different ways to get a fight started and a hundred different ideas for how to answer whatever came at him. He didn’t throw the first punch unless he was answering an insult or a wrong done; that was a lesson from his old man. But usually he was looking for a way to get the first punch thrown. That was a lesson from Gun.

Now he was just waiting. From the corner of his eye, he saw movement off in the direction of the picnic tables and assumed it was the other Bulls forming up. They were outnumbered by more than two to one, so any violence would amp up to weaponry very fast. If a punch got thrown, the odds were high not everyone would get out of this on their feet—or alive.

They were the width of a service road from I-fucking-40 and surrounded by normies. High noon. They were sporting colors. Talk about eye witnesses. If this got violent, nobody was going home soon. Hospital bed, jail cell, or body bag.

So Jay decided to try to defuse the situation. “Hey,” he said to the guy staring up at him, so close he could smell the cigarette on his breath. “Is there a problem?”

“We know who you are. This is our home. We don’t want you here.”

Several smart-ass comments vied for attention in Jay’s head. He ignored them all. “We’re not looking for trouble. We’re just getting some fuel, then heading on out. That okay?” Again from his peripheral vision, he saw Dex had flanked the group of Shadow Bears and had his hand at his back. Ready to draw. But he wasn’t coming forward; he seemed to be waiting to see what Jay would do.

Waiting for him to fuck up, in other words.

“Jay ...” Duncan muttered. But he didn’t say anything else, and Jay had no idea if he was warning him or what, so he ignored him.

“Seriously,” he told the man standing chest-to-chest with him. “We just want a pit stop. No trouble in your home, no disrespect to you. Just some burgers and some gas. That’s it.”

“Ethan.” A man standing a few steps behind the one facing Jay said the name, and the man facing him—who was apparently Ethan—blinked for possibly the first time since he’d climbed out of his truck. Then the man behind him said something in a language Jay didn’t know. It wasn’t Spanish. Maybe Navajo?

Whatever the language, the result was Ethan’s eyes shifted to take in their surroundings. Then his head dropped for a second. When he looked up at Jay again, the stony stare was back, but he said, “Food and gas. Then hit the road. And you get our permission before you stop in our home again.”

Jay nodded. “I hear you.” As an afterthought he added, “Thank you.”

Ethan grunted and turned. He walked away, his crew falling in behind him, each taking a turn to throw a threatening scowl at Jay and Duncan, and probably the others as well.

The other Bulls stepped out of their way and let them get back to their trucks.

The Shadow Bears piled into their trucks, backed up, turned, and drove away.

“Holy shit!” Duncan marveled.

Jay had no idea if he’d done the right thing or the wrong thing, a brave thing or a cowardly thing. Still caught in that strange, disembodied calm, he couldn’t even really move.

Then Dex was there in front of him, giving him a look Jay couldn’t interpret. The other Bulls were close as well. Dex put his hand on Jay’s shoulder. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he answered, honestly surprised by the question. “Sure.”

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