Page 80 of A Brother At My Back

“Hair of the dog?”

“Fuck no, I really would start puking then.”

Everett laughed.

“Anything else I can do?”

“Not really. Many hands make light work,” Maren said.

“You’ve pitched in more than enough,” Everett declared.

“Okay.” I stepped back in, just inside the door to the kitchen and hung up the apron where Ashton had gotten it from. I stood around for a moment not really knowing what to do with myself, or where Nik had gotten to, though if I had to guess, he was with the rest of the guys. I drifted over and sat across from Mali. She was really the only person familiar to me here and I didn’t know what else to do with myself.

“I want to die,” she moaned, her voice muffled where it was buried in her arms on the tabletop.

“Tequila?”

“God, no, I really would be dead if it was Dragon’s tequila. This is a bourbon hangover.”

“Ew, no good.” She looked up, propping her chin on top of her folded arms.

“How you been?” she asked, “You know, other than your friend?”

“Heard about that, huh?” I asked softly and stared out the front window.

“Hard not to, Babe. Small town and an even smaller club, plus my man was the one fixing the hospital records to cover Doc’s ass.”

“Ah, thank him for me, would you? I would hate for that doctor to get in trouble. Delia didn’t really have any family worth anything. We, uh, we were sort of each other’s family.” I choked up and sniffed and Mali nodded.

“Same for me and Kyle now. Um, Data is his road name. If it weren’t for the club, we’d be the only family each of us would have.”

I nodded. It seemed like a lot of misfits and strays found their way here. Mali smiled and nodded when I said as much, though super quietly.

“We are nothing if not the outcasts of the rest of society,” she said with a gusty sigh. “Honestly, fuck them anyhow. They don’t know how to really live. These guys?”

“Totally do,” I agreed.

I’d noticed that about everyone here. They were all vibrant and full of life. That life may not be easy by most of the rest of society’s standards, but in my opinion, the rest of society didn’t necessarily know what they were missing.

“Here they come,” Mali said, staring behind me.

I turned around to a bunch of boulders in black leather piling through the archway from the back. Some of them were shivering and bouncing in their black motorcycle boots, some of them blowing into their hands.

“We need to get that chapel built,” one of them griped. “It’s too fuckin’ cold to be standing out there jawing like that in this kind of weather.” He was tall and had dark hair and I wondered fleetingly if he was Maren’s Nox.

“You could always take your happy ass back to Arizona,” one of them grated, a man with long brown hair in a loose ponytail down his back, just starting to gray at the temples.

“Shut up, big brother,” the dark-haired one muttered.

Nik came in through the back and I felt myself perk up. He didn’t see me sitting here with Mali, and instead went into the kitchen first. He scanned the room out here next when he didn’t find me in there, and spotting me, lifted his chin. I gave a nod and he headed my way.

“I didn’t even see you disappear,” I told him, smiling to try and take any perceived accusation out of my comment. I added, “I was so wrapped up in I was doing that when I looked up, I hadn’t even noticed you’d gone.”

“You know you don’t have to do that with him, right?” Mali asked.

“Do what?” I felt my smile falter.

“Stroke my ego,” he said. “Craft what you say around my feelings. Only insecure douchebags need that.” He pulled a chair from another table and dropped onto it, leaning forward against its back.

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