Page 36 of Knuckles (Dragon Riders MC 4)
I had to make it work.
“How much longer?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Thirty minutes? Maybe more? Why?”
She peeked over her shoulder. “How far away are we from the world?”
“Once we get to the camp, we’ll be about an hour away from civilization. And that’s in a car with decent tires.”
She looked up at me. “Are we in a truck that doesn’t have decent tires, Justin?”
I paused. “So, I’ve been thinking.”
“I see you dodged my question just fine.”
I chuckled. “Through all of this craziness you’ve gotten launched into, I’ve been wondering what brought you to my doorstep in the first place.”
I felt her eyes staring at me. “The reason why I tracked you down.”
I looked over at her. “Yes. That. Because I gotta tell you, you’ve been rolling with these punches with the finesse of someone that’s been through this shit before. Either that or you’re dealing with something scarier, and this is like a vacation.”
She blinked. “Maybe it’s a mixture of both.”
My back stiffened. “This would be a good time to talk about it. It’s just you and me. This is an old truck, so no GPS or any shit someone can hack to listen. Just an old ass radio on an old ass truck with an old ass camper trailer attached to it.”
“And bald tires.”
I grinned. “Supposedly. You haven’t actually checked them yet.”
She snickered, shaking her head. “You’re something else, JayJay.”
I shrugged. “I do my best.”
“You’ve always been a bad boy, too. Always gravitated to leather since you were thirteen years old.”
“Oh, Pa was so fucking pissed when I spilled Kool-Aid on his leather jacket I borrowed.”
“God, the ass-whoopin’ they gave you scared even me.”
“I’ve still got a scar on the back of my upper thigh from where the metal tugged open my skin.”
She gasped. “That happened to you? Jesus, JayJay.”
“Hey, neither of us pretend we came from some sort of privileged situation.”
Her eyes fell out the window. “This is true.”
I settled my hand on her knee. “Talk to me, Simone. What really brought you to my house in the first place?”
As I watched her stare out the window, my heart sank to my toes. All of this stuff she was already worried about, and I had to pull her into all of this shit? She never should’ve gotten wrapped up in my bullshit. She never should’ve been front and center for any of this. Maybe it wasn’t safe that Simone was with me. Maybe I needed to send her on her way. Or call someone and have them pick her up.
Or take her home and tell her to stay away once we could get out of this campground.
“Simone,” I said softly.
She sniffled. “Just give me a second.”
Is she crying? “You’re worrying me here. Talk.”
She wiped at her eyes. “Brookie.”
I blinked. “What the fuck is a ‘Brookie?’”
She scoffed. “It’s not a thing. It’s a person. A loan shark, actually.”
My eyes finally turned forward. “Oh, boy.”
“Hey, don’t say shit like that. Okay? I thought I had things under control.”
“So, what was it? Gambling? Poker? Run up too much credit card debt?”
She shook her head. “Whatever. I knew you wouldn't understand.”
“I’m just trying to get to the truth of what’s really going on.”
She looked at me with fire in her eyes. “If you really wanted to do that, you’d know damn good and well I don’t have the time nor the patience for card games.”
“Just like when you were little.”
She looked out the windshield. “Yep.”
“So, what happened? Why did you go to a loan shark for money?”
Tears welled in her eyes. “Ma and Pa.”
“I’m sorry, run that by me again?”
She put her head in her hands. “Ma and Pa. They got me into this situation. They paid for my schooling and I was thankful for it. But a little less than a year after I graduated, they called me and held it over my head. Told me that I owed them for my education and that they were in a real bind they needed help with.”
“And that they would’ve had the money had they not put you through school.”
Her eyes gravitated toward the profile of my face. “I see you still know how they think.”
“People like them never change, S. No matter how much we want them to. How much did they need? And for what?”
She slumped. “Ten grand. To put a down payment on refinancing their home.”
“And you didn’t have that money, so you went to a loan shark?”
“No, I went to the banks first. I maxed out my credit cards to find you because I knew you’d be able to talk some sense into me. But they kept calling and calling and Ma even cried over the phone to me and Pa was talking about them getting thrown out onto the street or some shit so they had to refinance or whatever the hell it was they were doing and I panicked, okay?”
