Page 15 of Bear

CHAPTER SIX

Bear

The faded planet staresback at me in the moonlight. I couldn’t sleep, the cabin was too quiet, the night is too warm, too close around me. After the events of today, I should be exhausted—Iamexhausted—but still, sleep has never felt further away.

The main roller door is closed, but the lights are on inside. Yellow police tape flaps in the late-night breeze. I head around to the back of the shop and try the door. The handle turns and I open it. Tink sits at the workbench, an empty bottle of beer overturned on the counter. Her steely gaze bores into me, and the pistol in her hand is pointed right at my face.

“It’s just me. Don’t shoot.” I put my hands up to placate her. She lowers the gun and sets it on the workbench. “Or maybe you want to shoot because itisme.”

“I’m not in the mood, Bear.”

“I guess not if you’re calling me Bear.” I rap my knuckle on the stained wood. “You got any whiskey?”

“In my office, filed under ‘G’ for godsend.” I nod and wait for her to move. When it becomes clear she’s not going anywhere, I head in there and pull out the whiskey bottle and two shot glasses from the cabinet. I set them down in front of her and pour us both a glass.

“Your employee okay?”

She shrugs. “He made it through surgery, but he’s in an induced coma.” Tink swallows back the shot and I pour her another. “I don’t think I can fix your bike tonight.”

I nod. “I know. Plus, you’ve been drinking, so I’m not sure I trust you to put your hands on my baby right now.”

“God, how do you manage to make even that sound dirty?”

“It’s my special gift. I actually have a few of those.”

“Really? Do they include chauvinism and pissing people off?”

“Well, I was gonna go with eating pussy like a champ and fucking like the devil.”

“Touché.” She raises her glass and I fill it again for her.

I touch the plaster on her forehead where I must have nicked her when I threw myself on top of her. “You sure you should be drinking with that?”

“Yeah, it’s just a scratch.” She shoos me away, but I trail my thumb down the side of her face. “You hit like a fucking wrecking ball, by the way. I think I’m bruised from head to toe.”

I wince. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I get that you were just trying to protect me. Might have helped if you’d stayed in the room instead of being all up in your head.”

I sigh. “Certain sounds sometimes do that to me.”

“Sounds like gunfire?” She turns to face me head on. I nod. “And yet you joined a biker club.”

“Yeah, I did do that, didn’t I?”

“Did you find the shooters?”

“No, but Chaos is on it.”

“Right, so then we should expect another attack in a few days or so.”

“This is on me—not him, not the club. I’m the one who froze.”

“You wanna talk about that?”

“Nope.”

“Okay, well ... I need to get home.”

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