Page 38 of Courting Danger

Chapter 11

Pope

Riding with Ocean molded against his back was becoming one of Pope’s favorite pastimes, elevating wind therapy to a new level of relaxation. Today wasn’t about riding nowhere, though.

Pope had an upcoming speaking engagement in four days, halfway across the country in Tulsa, and they had no intention of getting on the interstate unless there were no other options available.

While Ocean had already experienced the thrill of a cross-country odyssey, Roan hadn’t, and much to Pope’s surprise, he’d enthusiastically agreed to leave his bike behind and ride with Danger to avoid drawing too much attention, since all of them, including Ocean, were wearing kuttes.

There was a longstanding tradition among the Jokers to acknowledge family, whether they were patched in or not. While Roan would have to earn the Joker’s full colors, Ocean’s kutte was already adorned with them, along with the Rollin’ Jokers top rocker and a bottom rocker that read“Founding Family.”Simply put, a vote at the chapel table had unanimously decreed that he was a Joker.

Period.

In time though, Pope could already see him earning another patch denoting who he belonged to, because now that Pope had gotten a glimpse of the possibilities, there was no way he was letting go of any of the three men riding with him.

“Have you lined up a crew for Tulsa yet?”

Danger’s question caught him completely off guard, dragging his attention away from the list of questions he’d been putting together for an upcoming sit-down with a legendary ridge runner.

“Still working on it,” Pope replied as he reached for his drink.

“You can stop,” Danger declared. “Roan and I will go with you and help out.”

“Sure you can stand to be away from your office for that long?” Pope asked. “I’m not planning on a quick trip.”

“You never do,” Danger replied. “It’s all good. Everything’s up to date, nothing needs collecting until the end of the month, and Teddy being back in charge of Joker’s Delight means that nightmare is over, so we’re good to go. I already cleared it with Mark.”

“If you two are going, I might as well see if Ocean wants to ride with me.”

Danger nodded, finger tracing a lazy pattern over the gleaming surface of the bar. “Might be better to take two bikes instead of three so people don’t go clutching their pearls when they see us roar through their town.”

“They’re gonna clutch ‘em anyway, but it might not be a bad idea,” Pope admitted. “If you can convince Roan to leave his bike behind and ride with you.”

“I’m good at being persuasive.”

“When you’re not being a snarly shit.”

“I haven’t bitten anyone’s head off all week.”

“So I’ve noticed,” Pope admitted. “That’s been all Kong. At this point, I doubt he’s ever going to uncover who pulled that prank on Scout. Half of the crew are avoiding him on principle, and the other half have already offered proven alibis.”

“He tried to blame Roan.”

“I heard,” Pope replied. “Was also told that you defended him, rather vehemently too. Glad you finally got your head out of your ass.”

“And it only cost me a hundred bucks, go figure.”

“Mark was laughing his ass off when he told me about that. I’d have loved to have been there when you handed it to him.”

“Why? You’ve been staring at that smug ass look for most of your life.”

“And been the recipient of it on more occasions than I can count, so yeah, I know it well, and you deserved it, much the way I did when he made a comment about seeing the four of us together in the dungeon the other night.”

“Sometimes I swear he has superpowers that allow him to be everywhere at once,” Danger grumbled as a drink appeared on the bar beside him, held in Mark’s meaty fist.

“And you’d best never forget it,” Mark declared before striding away.

“How does he always do that?” Danger grumbled as he picked up his beer.