Page 11 of Minus

Cutter bellowed with laughter and smoke continued to pour from his lungs. “I forgot how funny you are when you’re not being so damned serious, Minus.” His laughter continued, and then turned to deep and violent coughing, causing him to stagger back a step. Warthog immediately sprang to his feet, taking Cutter by the elbow, helping to stabilize him.

“I’m fine, goddammit!” Cutter protested, waving Warthog off, sitting down on top of his large mahogany desk, before continuing. “I’m serious, Minus. I’m retiring and I want you to be the president of the club.”

“You want me to be…” I couldn’t form the words needed to complete the sentence. This was fucking absurd.

“And,” Cutter looked at Cricket, “I wantherto help you.”

Cricket let out a gasp as she shot me a look of pure disgust.

“Well… what do you think?” Cutter asked, his arms stretched out, ready to receive the glory for bestowing his brilliant master plan upon us.

If earlier today, you’d asked me to make a list of all the potential reasons Cutter may have asked me here tonight, him giving me his president’s patch, with Cricket by my side, would not have made the top one million possibilities. By comparison, him killing me would have made the top three. After a few stunned moments I finally managed to continue.

“What do I think? I think you’re out of your goddamned mind. I think those doctors examined the wrong fucking end. I think you must have brain cancer instead of colon cancer, and that it’s rotting away your ability to form logical, rational thoughts.”

“Minus!” Cricket chided.

“You stay the fuck out of this!” I snapped, causing Cricket to rise to her feet.

She jabbed her finger repeatedly into my chest like an angry woodpecker. “Don’t you ever presume that you can talk to me like that or tell me what to do, Jase Vincent. I may have put up with a certain amount of your shit when we were younger, but that’s not gonna happen now.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, stunned. I had no idea why she was pissed at me. She was the invader here. Plus, Cutter was the one that stirred up all this fucking nonsense.

“I’m not the same person I was when you left,Minus.That naïve girl is far behind me. She’s a distant memory, and not about to feed into your ‘big swinging dick, macho, alpha asshole’ routine.”

I grinned, crossed my arms, and casually sat on the edge of Cutter’s desk so that I was eye level with Cricket. “Thatgirl may be a distant memory, but she clearly remembers my big swingin’—”

A slap in the face I could have handled without flinching, but she hit me with a fist. A good solid fist, and she was wearing a ring. She cut me deep across the cheek, directly under my left eye. Blood poured from my face and I staggered back in surprise, throwing Cutter into a fit of laughter followed by another fit of coughing.

“He looks like something from a Monty Python sketch,” Cutter howled to Warthog between coughs.

“What the fuck, Cricket?” I applied pressure to the wound as blood ran down my forearm.

“Don’t ever talk to me like that again. In fact, don’t ever talk to me again,period.” Her eyes were burning with rage, and I’d never felt such a mixture of shame and desire before. At that moment, I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anyone or anything in my life. I also felt wholly unworthy of her and ashamed of the way I’d treated her all night. I had been thrown completely off balance since the moment I saw her. She’d always had that effect on me and her presence here tonight, of all nights, was even more disorienting.

“Cricket, I’m sorry—”

“Save it,” she snapped, before turning to Cutter. “Andyou. I don’t know what your sick game is here, or how exactly you figure I fit into all this but let me assure you that I want none of it. I have my own life and my own plans, and they most certainly do not include working for misogynistic, stoner, biker, assholes.” Her face softened for a moment. “Look, I really am sorry that you’re sick and I hope you get better. Now, please don’t ever contact me again.” With that, she walked out the door, leaving the three of us silent as I bled all over Cutter’s carpet.

* * *

Cricket

I left the Sanctuary and called a car to take me home. However, in a moment of what I was sure would end up beingidentified as “Jase Vincent-induced insanity,” once we reached the I-5 junction, I instructed my driver to head north instead.

My hand was throbbing. It didn’t feel like I’d broken anything, but it was swelling up just enough to make removing my ring an impossibility, and to remind me of what a lunatic I was. I couldn’t believe I punched Jase in his big, dumb, beautiful face.

Arriving at my brother’s home, I stood on the porch for a few seconds, debating whether I was going to offer my life to him on a silver platter. He was going to go ballistic, and I wasn’t sure I was in the mood to suffer through a lecture.

Before I could act on any possible good sense and leave, the front door opened to reveal Hatch standing in the foyer.

“Why the fuck are you standing out here all alone?” he asked with a chuckle.

I bit my lip. “Because I don’t know if I want to come in.”

He cocked his head. “Christina, get the fuck in here.”

I took a deep breath and walked inside. Hatch locked up and took my coat, and I hugged him. I think he was surprised, because it took a minute for him to hug me back. “Okay, what’s goin’ on little sister?” he asked, his arms closing around me like a vice.

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