Page 42 of Bourbon & Blood

I told him,nothing yet, and I knew he was just as frustrated as me. I’d gone to the policeagainthree days ago… and nothing. I didn’t even think they were looking. It was like screaming into the void, I swear to God.

Well, I would never quit.

I swallowed hard.

“Your boyfriend?” La Croix asked, his voice careful and measured.

“What? Oh, no. I don’t have one, anymore. That was my friend Dorian. The guy that helped me move. He lives withhisboyfriend, Marcus, just down the way. He was asking about Maya.” I spoke quickly, and I didn’t know why I’d just told him all of that other than maybe fear… and I meant that as in fear for Dorian.

La Croix relaxed marginally, and I ventured with a question of my own.

“What about you?” I asked softly. “Wife or girlfriend?” His eyes locked with mine as though he was willing me to understand something and the silence stretched between us.

“Just you,” he said finally, and I believed him. But holy shit, what a way to say it.

I nodded, crossing and uncrossing my own arms, my body jangling with nerves as the coffee maker gurgled, filling the silence between us. Saint’s voice slipped between the noises the coffee maker made every once in a while. He was still talking on the phone.

“Why?” La Croix asked finally, and it took me a second to realize he was asking why I was asking if he was single. I shrugged without looking.

“Reputation, maybe? I mean, I guess…” I murmured, unwilling to look him in the eyes.

“Reputation?” he asked.

“Bikers,” I said softly.

I think he cracked his first smile at me. I mean, I heard it with the rush of air he let out that sounded like it was on the edge of being a laugh.

“Womanizers, you mean?” he asked.

I blushed, embarrassed. Good Lord, I sounded like an asshole when he put it that way.Way to stereotype, Alina… although with our arrangement, I guess it wasn’t too far off the mark.

“No,” he said to curb the uncomfortable silence. “That’s fair. Some of us, but not all of us. I guess that’s just like any other man, though,” he said. “I mean to say, I think it’s less about ‘biker’ and more about bein’ male, if you get me.”

I nodded but didn’t look at him. I couldn’t. He was being gracious which sort of made my humiliation complete.

“Does anyone want cream or sugar?” I called out, and the chair to Maya’s desk creaked as Saint looked around and out this way.

“Two of each, please?” he called.

“Just a sugar,” Cypress called. I looked to La Croix.

“Black,” he said evenly.

“Of course,” I murmured.

I fixed everyone’s coffee, took them around, and La Croix and I sat across from each other in silence in the living room, drinking ours.

My coffee finished, I asked, “Would it be impolite if I took a shower and things?”

“Impolite?” he asked, and I had to smile. Okay, maybe thatwasa little weird of me to phrase it that way, but he reassured me and said, “No.”

“Alright, thank you,” I murmured. I got up, collected everyone’s coffee cup who was through drinking, refilled whoever asked for it, and stowed the used cups in the top rack of the dishwasher.

La Croix watched me from the couch, his eyes following my every movement and though his eyes unnerved me, with the ink in the sclera like it was, I don’t know… I didn’t feel threatened or scared – at least not as much as before. I don’t know how I felt, to be honest. Just that I could eliminate those off the list.

I went into my room to gather some clothes and things to take with me to the bathroom and he appeared in my doorway. I jumped. He’d moved so quietly, I hadn’t even heard him.

He watched me as I went to my dresser to look through things and said, “Dress for the slide, not for the ride.”

---