Page 49 of Baiting Kong

“Oh, I know what a trial entails,” Kat declared. “And I also know that neither you nor my husband would give him the offer of one unless you truly believed that he was better than what he said he was. You’re as protective of that shop as you are of that baby you ride.”

“I won’t deny it.”

“Good,” Kat said. “So, Scout wasn’t working for you today?”

“No, ma’am.”

She inclined her head towards the bar. “Well, he ain’t here, and he’s a half hour late. Was about to have your hide for leaving him at the shop to finish up some project; now I’m gonna take a run across the lot and make sure Teddy hasn’t gotten him into anything. You two watch the bar for me.”

Axel didn’t know fuck all about bartending, but he knew that tone and got his ass behind the wooden partition as two men bellowed for a couple beers. Beer was easy. He’d watched Scout fill glasses, always holding them at an angle.

Shit.

Okay, maybe that was too much of an angle.

He stepped back as beer flowed over the toe of his sneakers, forgetting to take pressure off the handle and making a bigger mess.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Okay, maybe not as easy as he thought it was.

He tried again and this time got the beer in a glass, though it was a little foamy. Hopefully that was a good enough head. His old man had never bothered with a glass, just sucked it straight from a bottle, usually so he had permanent projectiles to hurlwhen he got pissed off. He filled the second glass with greater ease while Creature poured shots and bellowed for people to come get the damn things if they wanted them; otherwise, he was gonna drink them himself.

Man people moved at hearing that.

“No one’s in the cabin,” Kat announced, her phone pressed to one ear as she stormed back in. “Teddy says he ain’t seen him since he left for work this morning. I guess that was a lie then. His bike’s gone too, for the first time this week. Looks like he might have taken off.”

Axel shook his head, unwilling to believe that. When he glanced over at Creature, willing to plead Scout’s case, he saw him frowning and looking contemplative too.

“I don’t think he took off,” Creature said. “But he might be in trouble. He did have another job, said he’d have it wrapped up before Monday. I need to talk to Mark.”

While he scurried back from behind the bar, Kat caught Axel’s sleeve and pulled him through to the back, into the much quieter kitchen. Night glanced up, surprised, until he saw it was them, and then he went right back to chopping onions.

“What’s Scout gotten himself into?” she asked point-blank.

Blinking, he started blurting out the truth before he had time to consider whether it was a good idea or not.

“He’s been doing porn to help pay off this loan for the scrapyard his family owns,” Axel said. “He’s been doing shoots in the morning, then working here at night. He asked them to finish the shoots one after the other so he’d be free by Monday. That’s all I know. I haven’t talked to him since the night I told Creature the truth about what happened during the robbery.”

“And what did happen?”

“Scout’s brother was there. He rushed the robbers when one of them pointed their gun at Scout and took off before the cops arrived. He was going to the shoots with Scout to keep an eyeon things since the guys running the production were pushing Scout to do things he didn’t sign up to do. Sawyer hasn’t been around since the robbery, so Scout’s been going alone.”

Kat’s face turned a mottled purple right before she let out the most impressive stream of profanities Axel had ever heard.

“Are you telling me that my husband knows that Scout is making adult videos and that he’s not only allowed him to continue to do it but let him do it alone! I’m gonna kill him.”

When she whirled for the door, Axel did the only sane thing he could think to do, which was move out of the fuckin’ way so he didn’t get run over. Fortunately, the man in question, flanked by Kong and Creature, burst through at almost the same time, ending in a brief showdown and a slap across the face that Mark didn’t try to block.

“I just heard,” Mark said as Kat squared off with him. “Yell at me all you want when I get back; right now we need to look for him.”

“And you tell him he doesn’t have to shoot another movie!” Kat bellowed. “Why didn’t you put a stop to it?”

“Because he was determined to do things his way.”

“And now look what’s happened.”

“We don’t know that he’s in trouble; right now he’s just….” Mark began.

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