Page 50 of Bull's Boy

He just hated the idea of anyone making Malcolm feel like shit about himself.

“I know you’re right,” Malcolm said softly.

“But you’re not ready for that yet,” Bull finished for him, nodding to himself. He needed to be supportive, not pushy. “That’s okay. Text me the date so I can be sure to put it in my calendar.”

“Bull, you don’t have?—”

“I know I don’t have to,” he interrupted, voice firm. “But I am going to. No way I’m letting you walk into the lion’s den without me.”

“Okay,” Malcolm said without any more argument. There was a pause, like he was thinking about saying something else, but he just cleared his throat and said, “Thank you. I’ll talk to you later?”

“You can count on it.”

“Bye, Bull.”

“Bye, baby boy.”

After they hung up, Bull sat in his truck for a few more minutes, thinking about that day at the department store when he’d found the asshole grabbing Malcolm to stop him from leaving and accusing him of only thinking of himself. Just the memory lit a fire in Bull’s belly, a remembered surge of violent rage,one he didn’t think would get extinguished until he put his fist through Evan Kerr’s face.

“So I walk into my house, just covered in filth from this jobsite. Everything from drywall dust to insulation to probably actual shit from whatever animals had been living in this house.”

Bull wrinkled his nose, grateful he didn’t have Tank’s job. The big biker worked on the demolition crew for a large renovation and development company and had shared a few entertaining stories about things he and his crew had found in abandoned houses now that they were finished working for the day on Marv’s place. Just the idea of being covered in all that stuff made Bull’s skin itch. He wasn’t sure how Tank handled it, but he claimed he loved it. That getting to take a sledgehammer to counters and cabinets and walls had become one of his favorite things.

“I’m about to make a beeline for the bathroom so I can shower and then decide if I want to just burn these clothes or try and salvage them. And there, laid across my new kitchen table…” He paused for dramatic effect, his lightly tanned skin flushed from the hard work and the four beers he’d consumed. It was the most animated Bull had ever seen him, and with each bottle of beer he drank, his Southern accent thickened. “…is Ollie’s naked body, red ass fully on display, as he scrolled on his phone.”

He and the guys around him all laughed; even Ollie’s stone-faced fiancé, Six, chuckled where he sat next to Tank. They’d finished working on laying the flooring an hour ago and hadmigrated outside to relax in the mild late-afternoon sun, a little impressed Marv had enough lawn chairs for them to sit on.

Tank and Six were opposite Bull in their makeshift circle, and his brother was on his left. Houston, who’d arrived not long after Bull had that morning, was on the other side of Marv, his wide chest on full display after stripping off his shirt hours ago. On Bull’s right was the MC’s secretary, Rooster, his long brown hair pulled up in a messy bun. He and Tank had both ridden with Six and so had taken advantage of the beer Marv had brought out a couple of hours ago when work was starting to slow down as they got tired.

Bull slowly nursed his second bottle, knowing it would be his last one. The last thing he wanted was to get shitfaced and end up sleeping on the newly installed floor in his brother’s empty living room instead of in his comfortable bed with his boy’s naked body sprawled on top of him.

“I stand there for a second,” Tank continues, shaking his head, “just staring at this boy’s ass, wondering what in the fuck is going on and why are his cheeks candy-apple red.”

Six cleared his throat, drawing Bull’s and Tank’s attention to him.

Tank just rolled his eyes and finished off the bottle in his hand, setting it in the grass next to him before clapping Six on the shoulder. “Bull’s cool. He gets it.”

When everyone in the circle turned to look at him, Bull raised his eyebrows, not sure exactly what he was supposed to begetting. He rewound what Tank had said in his head, and then it hit him.

He shifted in his seat, face warming, but that was probably from sitting in the sun for so long. “Um, yeah, I get it.”

Marv snorted into his bottle of water, so Bull swung a leg at him. He could have at least vouched for him in front of his club friends.

Six continued to study him for a second, like he was deciding if Bull had passed some test or not, then nodded at Tank. “Go ahead.”

Tank smiled at Bull, then picked up where he’d left off, like there hadn’t been an interruption. “And then in walks my husband, also naked and with a bottle of aloe. He barely even glances at me as he says hello before squirting some on Ollie’s ass and starts rubbing it in, right there on the kitchen table.”

“The new kitchen table,” Houston clarified, head tipped back and eyes shut but a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Yes! Barely had it a week, and Ollie’s dick print was on it.” Tank shook his head, chuckling. “I thought I’d walked into a fucking porno or something. I swear, those two… absolutely no boundaries with each other.”

Six smiled at his bottle of water, like he was remembering something good. The only time he saw that look on his face, it had to do with Ollie, so Bull had to wonder what all was being edited out of the story.

“One time, Ollie kidnapped Emmett,” Rooster started to say, grinning widely.

“Wait.” All eyes turned to him again, and Bull almost didn’t continue, but his curiosity got the better of him. “Why was Ollieat your house getting aloe’d by your husband? And, um, why was CJ also naked?”

“Better question, whenisn’tCJ naked,” Rooster said under his breath as he leaned forward to snag another beer from the dwindling supply in the center.

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