Page 14 of Rodeo (Marked Skulls MC 2)
“We should go to the bar where those fuckers hang out. Maybe we’ll see him there, for starters,” Abe said. I got off my stool to follow Girth and Abe out of the bar, but Lila had caught my arm and she was pulling me back to herself.
“Hey, Rodeo, what’s going on with Jordan and you?” she asked, dropping her voice to a whisper. I looked around to make sure that nobody else was listening in on this conversation.
“What do you mean? I fixed her door,” I said, trying to act casual. Lila had tilted her head to the side and pursed her lips, she was giving me a knowing look.
“Can I guess where you went last night when you stormed out of here?” she asked and crossed her arms over her chest. I ran a hand through my loose hair and shook my head.
“Yeah, whatever, I went to her place. So what?” I grunted and Lila sighed.
“Rodeo, she’s a sweet girl and she’s scared right now. I know you like her. I can see it on your face and the way you look at her. Just don’t fuck with her all right? She’s really vulnerable right now. There are loads of women out there to choose from, just don’t take her along on your rollercoaster if you’re not going to treat her right,” she said. Lila had always tried to knock sense into me, she’d been doing that for years—but she had never spoken about a woman like this before.
I clenched my jaws and stared at her. She continued to glare at me and I had no other choice but to nod my head in agreement. Lila was right. I shouldn’t have gone to Jordan’s place the previous night. I shouldn’t have fucked her like that if I had no plans of staying in the morning. I had seen the disappointment in her eyes when I refused to even accept her coffee.
“I gotta go,” I said to Lila and gave her a quick peck on the forehead before I rushed out of the bar.
Girth and Abe were waiting for me outside with their bikes.
“Let’s go find this motherfucker,” Abe shouted, revving up his engine. I couldn’t fucking wait.
***
We rode out to the bar where the Hell’s Drifters hung out. It was still midday, which meant that most of their MC members might not have been present, but it was still worth staking out.
We parked our bikes behind a wall and stood watching the entrance to the bar from a distance. Abe passed cigarettes around and we smoked a few as we waited.
There wasn’t much activity at the bar at this hour, but I was willing to wait as long as it took, just to get a glimpse of the guy who had killed Fred.
“Was the chick sure about the patch?” Abe asked.
It made me strangely annoyed to hear Jordan being referred to as a ‘chick’. It felt disrespectful somehow, but I couldn’t say anything to Abe about it because that was how we spoke about women all the time. I didn’t want Abe getting any ideas like Lila had.
“Yeah, she described the patch to me. Jordan doesn’t know anything about MCs. She wouldn’t have known about their patch if she hadn’t actually seen it,” I replied, pulling in a drag of nicotine from the cigarette. Abe nodded his head and I looked at Girth, who had his eyes focused on the bar doors in the distance.
For some reason, I felt a sudden connection with him. In a lot of ways, the two of us were in similar positions. If he hadn’t met Lila, if he hadn’t been sent here to fill in for a job at our MC—he would have been a free and independent man, just like I still was.
I was happy for Lila, and I was glad that she had found herself a man who was capable of taking care of her the way she deserved. But at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel sympathetic for Girth, for being tied down. I wished I could have spoken freely with him and asked him how that was working out for him. He seemed happy, but I was forcing myself to be pessimistic.
“And she said this guy was bald with a thick long beard?” Abe broke through my thoughts again and I nodded my head.
“Yeah, that’s what she said. She got a good look at him because he took off his helmet and stared up at her,” I replied. Abe was scratching his head.
“It’s kinda weird that they haven’t come after her yet,” he added.
I clenched my jaws.
“She’s pretty much been with me this whole time, since I broke into her apartment,” I admitted. Abe’s eyes lit up and there was a grin spreading on his face. Girth had shot me a surprised look too. I refused to meet either of their eyes.
“You tapping that ass?” Abe asked and thumped my back in congratulations.
“She’s scared, I felt responsible for her so I spent the night at her place. It’s no big deal,” I said and Abe laughed.
“Didn’t say it was, brother,” he said, still laughing. Girth on the other hand was eyeing me curiously. He had a knowing look on his face, like he had a pretty good idea of what was going on. I knew Lila wouldn’t have told him about any personal conversations between her and me—it was just the look of a guy who had gone through a similar thing. He was the one sympathizing for me now.
“Whoa hold up. Do you see that motherfucker?” Abe ducked and I followed his line of vision. He was staring at a rider parking his bike outside the bar doors. I waited and watched, hoping that he would take his helmet off.
I could see his beard already, and it looked similar to what Jordan had described.
He did take his helmet off and now I saw that the man was bald too. He had the Hell’s Drifters patch on his leather cut at the back, just like Jordan had said and now he was walking into the bar.
“Fuck! Do you want to go after him?” Abe hissed.
I saw Girth counting the number of bikes parked outside the bar.
“There are at least twelve of them in there. If we go after them, none of us are coming out of there alive,” Girth mumbled, like he was calculating things in his head.
I clenched my jaws, trying to hold myself back from darting across the road to the bar. Every cell in my body was screaming for me to do something. He was right there. The motherfucker was right there in front of me!
The shooter disappeared into the bar and none of us had made a move.
“We should hold back,” Girth said.
“Yeah, I agree. At least now we’ve identified him. We know for sure that the shooter is from Hell’s Drifters,” Abe said and thumped me on my shoulder again.
I knew they were right. I knew it would be stupid to just walk into the bar and open fire right now. All three of us would get shot and they wouldn’t let us live. Then they would come after the rest of the MC, and Lila and Jordan…I couldn’t let that happen.
“We need to get that guy alone, and we need to do it soon,” I mumbled.
The three of us were walking back to our bikes now. Girth and Abe nodded their heads. I had to force myself to be satisfied with the little progress we had made. At least I had a face matching the description. At least I could follow this guy and keep an eye on his whereabouts.
We were riding back to T Bone together, and again, I found myself thinking about Jordan. I was itching to go back to her, to check on her, to apologize for getting spooked like that in the morning. But this time, I forced myself to have better control. I wasn’t just going to show up at her apartment tonight. I needed a break from her.
Chapter 12
Jordan
Back in the diner that night, Flora was refusing to meet my eyes and it was making me sick. I could sense that she was avoiding me, even though I desperately wanted to talk to someone. I had been feeling worse since Rodeo left that morning, I needed someone to lend a friendly shoulder to lean on.
I had woken up feeling much better about my life that morning, just knowing that he was a part of it in some way. It had only been a day since I’d known him, but we had been together intimately, he kept me close to him and then spent the night at my place. I had somehow convinced myself that all of those things meant something.
When I woke up and saw him getting dressed, I felt safe. I was glad that he hadn’t snuck out in the middle of the night—a part of me was hopeful that maybe our sudden meeting could turn into something else.
/> But I had been foolishly hopeful. I had seen the look of annoyance in his eyes when I offered him coffee and breakfast. He couldn’t have bolted out of my apartment fast enough.
I had spent the rest of the day trying to study, trying to focus on my life. I was still too afraid to leave my apartment, I was too scared to even come to work. I had no choice though, no matter what was going on in my life; I still needed to get paid.
At the diner, things seemed normal—other than my rapidly beating heart. I was still suspicious of every person who walked through the doors. The fact that Flora, my only friend in this place, was refusing to associate with me; made matters even worse. I couldn’t stop the shaking of my hands, I couldn’t stop looking over my shoulder at every face in the diner.
Nervously, I walked around, trying to get my job done. I took orders, delivered food at the booths and cleared up the tables. As usual, I was getting a lot of stares from the men at the place, as were all the other waitresses but tonight, I couldn’t deal with it. I wanted them all to just stop looking at me and to leave me alone.
Rodeo had said that I could call him if anything happened, but I wasn’t going to. He had made it very clear to me that his responsibility towards me was over now. I blamed myself, maybe I pushed him too hard. Maybe this was all my fault.
I had to try very hard to not just burst into tears as I got through my shift. It was late at night and I was already worried about walking back to my apartment alone later. But I had nobody to turn to, I couldn’t even ask Flora to walk with me anymore. She didn’t want to have anything to do with me.
