Page 28 of Brother In Arms

Chapter 9

Rush

She followed me, her resistance to the hold I had on her vanishing in an instant and I had to hide my smile. She liked riding, which was good, because when the world went to shit around me, I had only two options, my shop or my bike. The time I spent in my shop, I just couldn’t share with anyone. This, though? This I could, and I was surprised to find just how much I enjoyed sharing it with her.

She got on behind me wordlessly and I dug out my spare helmet, which I’d made sure to put with the bike, out of one of the hard sided saddlebags. She put it on, I put mine on buckling up the chinstrap and fired up the bike. She pulled herself snug against my back and my cock began to stir. I told it to shut it, not that it would listen to me, and pulled out onto the drive and down the long track leading to the road.

I’d shot a text to Dragon telling him what was up and he assured me he’d have some guys out to the farm to keep an eye on things. I’d told him that what was up with Boaz might not have been an oversight on Data and Zeb’s the night before, that if he were poisoned, it could have just as easily happened the day before, there just wasn’t any telling. He’d shot back a ‘roger that’ and now I was hoping both our phones could go on ignore for a while.

I took her out on the highway, out past the club and up into the hills and this park with hiking and campgrounds. There were these easy gravel hiking trails and shit and she almost yelped when I took us down one on the bike. I didn’t give a fuck. I knew what I was doing. I pulled off and into a field and through the long grass, stopping and shutting off the bike. I tapped her knee and she got off saying, “What the hell was that?” as I leaned my ride onto its kickstand.

I shrugged with a wry smile and said, “A shortcut.”

“God, you all really have no respect for people, their property or anything do you?” she demanded.

“Hard to explain, but if you want I could try.” I pulled an old knock-off Navajo blanket out of the same saddlebag her helmet had come out of and laid it out by the bike, flopping down onto it on my back.

She sat down gingerly on the edge, keeping her boots off it. I sighed, she could suit herself.

“Okay, explain; you can start with your tattoos.”

I raised an eyebrow, “My tattoos?”

“Yeah, your tattoos.”

I plucked a piece of grass and stuck the end in my mouth, chewing thoughtfully. The bright green flavor tinting my taste buds while I thought how to put it into so many words.

I finally gave a shrug and said, “To get ‘em you’re gonna have to get me.”

“Okay, whatever that means…”

I rolled my eyes and sat up, pulling her down so she lay beside me. She wiggled a bit and finally put her head on my chest to stare into the bright blue sky traced with light white clouds with me.

“Why did you join the club?” she asked finally.

“Wasn’t no other place for me,” I told her.

“How could you think that?”

“You know, not everyone’s rich, right?” I laughed when I said it to take any sting out of it.

“I know that,” she sounded affronted anyways and it was cute.

“You and me, we couldn’t be more different that way,” I said with a dying chuckle.

“So you were poor…”

“No, baby, I was dirt floor poor. I was so poor I couldn’t afford the two o’s and the r. I was just ‘p.’”

She giggled a little at that, “I never looked at myself as rich growing up, I always thought of it as my parent’s money. Not Philip, though…” she adjusted her head, more up onto my shoulder and snuggled a little closer trying to get comfortable. I gave her a light squeeze in my direction.

“Yeah, but your parents had money growing up. Hell, you had parents…”

“Oh come on, surely you had parents!” she said and I went real quiet.

“You couldn’t call ‘em that. Me and Nox were wards of the state. Same with Arch and Grind. We all came up under the same roof, but our foster parents weren’t parents. Not even close.”

“What about your mom?” she asked softly.

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