Page 39 of Devil to Pay: Cutter

It’s all cover bands but feels like we’ve been transported back to the original Woodstock—now with corporate sponsoring. We’ve got The Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, The Byrds, The Who, and so many more.

There’s a giant collective smoke cloud hanging low over the music area. Most of these people are high as fuck, wearing body paint and dancing around with flowers in their hair. I don’t think any one of them would’ve had a better time if it were 1969 and they were watching the actual bands rather than cover bands.

The four of us stake out a cherry spot and I go on a beer run. Somehow in the time I’m gone, both Dusty and Aja have managed to get flowers painted on their cheeks and both are wearing flower crowns. They’re dancing to “Me and Bobby McGee,” arms above their heads, eyes closed, swaying to the beat of the music like so many around them while Reap watches on.

Those bitches are a fucking trip.

I toss Reap his beer. “Thanks, man.”

At the sound of his voice, Aja opens her eyes and smiles at me again. “Come dance with me, Cut.”

“Sorry, baby. The only dancing I do is naked between the sheets.”

“The best kind of dancing!” she hollers, throwing her hands up higher in the air and spinning around, laughing her fool head off. I haven’t known her that long, but I’ve never seen Aja so carefree and happy before. Dusty falls into her for a girl hug and before they’ve even broken out of that, they’re doing some sort of jumbled kick line. It’s insane. It’s amazing.

“Seen that look a time or two,” Reaper says to me.

I stop watching the women for a minute to look at him. “What look?”

“Fell for her, didn’t you?”

Fuck.Is it that obvious? “Didn’t expect to—didn’t mean to, either, what with the way things started with us.”

“She’s a good woman. Dusty’s crazy about her.”

“Honestly, I don’t know how she’s not damaged beyond repair, all the shit she’s lived through. Strongest woman I’ve ever met and we know a lot of strong women now.”

Reaper stares at me like he wants me to give more, but I can’t. “Not my story to tell, brother. She’ll tell when she’s ready—ifshe’s ever ready to tell the lot of you.”

“That bad?” he asks.

And that, Icananswer. “That bad. How it hasn’t jaded her, I have no fucking idea. But she had to work to find her way to my heart way harder than I had to work to find my way to hers. I want to take care of her, protect her.”

He slaps me on the back. “Welcome to the club, brother. Best club I’ve ever been a part of, and I’m Horde through and through.”

Best club he’s ever been a part of? I have a feeling he’s all kinds of right. Guess I’m about to find out.

After a night of drinking, shooting the shit and watching the bands, with Aja curled up against my naked and sleeping an exhausted, sated slumber, I know this is how I want my life to go forever. Just me and Aja, my brothers and their women, and the club life.

I never thought I’d say this, but life is good.

13

AJA

The weekend went faster than I wanted it to, but after both Cutter and I admitting that we love each other, I feel more confident about my life with him and my place in the club, which I actually feel like I have now: a place.

Dusty’s my employer, but she’s my friend, too. A real honest girlfriend. I haven’t had one of those since I roomed with Renee all those years ago. I know the other women like me—they’ve proven that time and again—but I never felt like one of them. Now, and maybe I’m thinking prematurely, but now I do.

I finish cleaning up the campsite while Cutter dumps our trash. He makes sure the hook to the pop-up is secure to his bike, then he helps me on the back. We rumble out of the campsite, but rather than hit the highway right away, Cut and Reaper turn us in the direction of the city. We stop at an old greasy spoon that looks straight out of like the ’30s or ’40s.

“Best breakfast in Lexington,” he says to me.

“I love a good breakfast.”

“Well, since breakfast is kind of our thing, I thought it fit.” He’s right. We started with breakfast at a twenty-four-hour diner. The day I fell in love with him, we’d started that day out for breakfast. In this moment, I love him even more for thinking of it.

In the diner as the others are eating and talking, I get that burning feeling on the back of my neck like someone is watching me or us. I fear it’s me. Slowly, I turn my head, silently praying to the universe that I don’t see anyone attached to the Death Bringers, or who looks like they could’ve been paid by the Death Bringers to take me out. But it’s a woman, and not one who looks like she’d fit in at their club, but a smallish woman, about my height, I guess from how high she’s sitting in the booth. About my age, too. But she’s blonde, and it looks natural, not dyed, and she’s wearing a simple ponytail. She’s dressed, well, she’s dressed a little conservatively, not like me or even Dusty. She’s definitely been crying. But why is she staring at us?

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