Arnold

 

Arnold woke up around two in the morning to 18 text messages waiting for him on his phone. All of them were from Gary. Fuck, Arnold thought as he rolled away from Macie and put his feet on the ground next to his bed, sighing deeply as he began to scroll through the various messages Gary had sent during the night. “Anything on the Gorge?” “New info?” “Did you talk to Macie about Jessica?” “What’s up with that Pax guy?” “Have you seen Jessica recently?”

 

“Will check in with Jessica today and get back to you,” Arnold typed out before sending the message to Gary, who was probably still up late at Sully’s. The Nightwalkers’ leader had become a little obsessive recently, sending various agents over to the nicer part of town, trying to expand their territory further out. On one hand, Arnold understood why. It wasn’t like the Eagles from the next town over were sitting on their laurels, resting pretty and giving them plenty of time to protect this town from any invaders. There was real, urgent need to expand, and fast. But in the process, Gary was freaking out a lot of the junior recruits, the young guys who’d just signed up to have an excuse to ride bikes and drink all day. They weren’t made of tough enough stuff to last, and Gary was going to be pissed when he had to resupply his ranks with fresh blood.

 

Arnold slowly got up and got dressed, being as quiet as possible so as not to wake Macie. He quickly sent a text to Macie’s phone for her to read whenever she woke up, telling her that he had to do some quick Nightwalkers business and would be back as soon as possible.

 

After exiting the room and standing out in the main hallway of his house, he considered his options. He could stand in place and wait for Pax to come back, maybe strike up conversation with him and ask if he’d bedded any chicks recently. That way he could find out if something was really going on between him and Jessica. But so far Pax had been so silent and gruff whenever Arnold tried to talk to him. It was pointless trying to squeeze information out of him. So maybe he’d have to tackle this problem from another angle.

 

Arnold quickly googled the Gorge on his phone, discovering that they closed at 3 AM on most days. He still had about twenty minutes to get uptown and catch Jessica before her shift ended—except he couldn’t exactly hang out in the bar without attracting attention. No, instead he’d have to “accidentally run into” Jessica, as if by chance. That way she wouldn’t get suspicious that Gary was looking into her private life.

 

He headed in the direction of the Gorge, aimlessly walking the streets for a bit before 3 AM hit, at which point he set into motion in the general path that Jessica would have to take on her walk home. It was possible that she got a ride from somebody with a car, in which case Arnold would just have to try again another day, but it was worth a shot.

 

Sure enough, within ten minutes Jessica’s familiar silhouette walked down the street in his direction. Arnold walked in the opposite way, pretending that he was on his way uptown for another purpose entirely, keeping his eyes glazed-over and focused on the empty space at the horizon until Jessica yelled out, “Arnold!”

 

Arnold turned, feigning surprise as best as he could. “Jessica! What are you doing around here? It’s so late!”

 

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Jessica said with a friendly smile, playfully punching Arnold softly on the side of his elbow. “I work uptown now. At this place called the Gorge.”

 

“Oh, yeah,” Arnold said, raising his eyebrows in inauthentic interest. “I remember hearing something about that. It’s a bar, right?”

 

Jessica nodded. “Yep. So what are you doing out tonight?”

 

Arnold sighed deeply, trying to appear as exhausted and worn-out as he possibly could. “Well, it was a long night at Sully’s. Just regular old MC business, boring shit, really. But then I have to chase down this motherfucker who thought he could stiff me on the rent this month. He keeps avoiding me, but I’m going to catch him on his way home from work.”

 

“I see,” Jessica said with a smile. “Same old, same old, huh?”

 

“Just about,” Arnold said, setting into motion alongside Jessica when she started to fidget and walk past him. “I can hang out with you for a few minutes, though. What have you been up to? We’ve missed you around the club, you know.”

 

Jessica looked sideways at him, her smile slipping off her face for a second before she recovered. “Yeah, yeah, I just had to get out and do something new for a change, you know?”

 

“And you like it?” Arnold asked.

 

Jessica nodded. “It’s fun. Busy. Hectic, you know, being a new place and all, still getting on its feet. But it’s been good so far. The people are nice to me.”

 

“Like the other employees and stuff?” Arnold asked, feeling his blood rush harder in his veins and his abdominal muscles tighten up, even though he was trying to appear as casual and uninterested as possible. He was just a nice guy, making polite conversation with his girlfriend’s best friend.

 

But Jessica seemed to hesitate before answering, her eyebrows furrowing up when she thought that Arnold wasn’t looking at her. “Um, yeah, yeah, they’re all nice. I mean, we don’t really hang out after work or anything like that, but everybody gets along.”

 

“How many people work there? Is it a big place or more intimate?” Arnold asked, feeling beads of sweat start to appear at the back of his neck, right under his hairline. He needed to find a way to get her to talk about Pax, without alerting her to his real purpose.

 

Jessica shrugged, and for a second Arnold thought that was all that he was going to get out of her, but then a moment later she spoke again, albeit in a tentative, haltering tone of voice. “There’s not that many employees there, like there’s just two bartenders per night, and four of us total, so we rotate nights to make sure that everybody gets equal amount of shifts.”

 

Fuck, Arnold thought. She was being really sly, not allowing the topic of conversation to go anywhere near Pax. All right, I’ll just have to take the gloves off then, he thought to himself before speaking again.

 

“What about security? New place like that, I imagine it gets a lot of assholes who think they can come in and harass the women or get in fights. You know, lots of wannabes in this town who never got into any of the MCs in the area,” Arnold said as casually as he could.

 

Jessica was silent for a long moment, making Arnold feel even more awkward than he already did, his skin crawling like it was trying to escape his body. He was just about to make up an excuse for why he had to leave, just to get out of this uncomfortable interaction, when she finally spoke up, breaking the silence.

 

“Yeah, we have a couple of bouncers, just to make sure that the crowds don’t get out of hand. But so far nothing bad has happened. We’ve got it under control.”

 

Arnold wondered if there was another meaning hiding within Jessica’s words, telling him that she didn’t need the MC’s help for protection. It would make sense if that was what she thought this whole thing was about, Gary trying to make sure that she was safe. It almost hurt Arnold’s heart, thinking of it. In a way, he wished it were true, that Gary only had the most selfless intentions possible in making Arnold keep track of Jessica and the new man in her life. But he shook those thoughts away. Gary was his leader, and even though he was going through a hard time, Arnold had to support him. No matter what.

 

“That’s great. That’s really great to hear, Jess. We’ve all been a little worried about you. You know, you really shouldn’t walk home alone, either. Sometimes things get rough out here in your neighborhood. Do you have any friends at work or anyone that could give you a ride or something like that?”

 

Once again, the air between them practically crackled with discomfort, Jessica’s breathing going silent even as her pace increased, her legs moving faster to get herself closer to her apartment, where she’d be able to get away from this conversation. Honestly, Arnold didn’t blame her. He wanted nothing more than to walk away from this whole thing, too, and just leave her in peace. Unfortunately, with the way things had been going lately, there was no way he could return to Sully’s without at least a little droplet of information to tide Gary over. The guy was desperate, obsessing over Jessica in every single conversation. Arnold knew without even checking his phone that he could expect several more text messages from Gary until he gave him something else to hold onto.

 

Finally, Jessica spoke again, faking a broad smile as she turned to address Arnold. “Yeah, I’ve got a couple new friends in my life. Don’t worry, though, nobody is competition for Macie. She’s still my number one.”

 

“That’s great!” Arnold said enthusiastically, probably performing a little too hard. “It’s really great that you’re branching out. I know it’s hard hanging around the MC for too long.”

 

Jessica nodded, even though her smile grew weaker, like it was taking up too much energy to sustain it for his benefit. “Yeah, I know you understand what that’s like. But anyway, you can rest easy and tell the boys to stop worrying about me. I’ve got people in my life who can look after me now.” Jessica stopped walking, gesturing to the street going perpendicular to the one they’d been walking along for the past few minutes. “My apartment’s down here. Good luck with your asshole tenant. I hope everything works out for you.”

 

She turned and marched away before Arnold could come up with anything to say. He just stayed rooted to the spot, watching as she accelerated her pace until she finally turned in front of her apartment, disappearing inside without turning back to look at Arnold.

 

Goddammit, he thought to himself, barely holding himself back from stomping his feet or punching a tree in his frustration. He’d learned nothing, effectively. Gary was going to be so pissed.

 

Arnold wracked his mind for a solution, staring down Jessica’s street like the answer was going to appear out of thin air. His thoughts traced over everything that she’d said over the past few minutes, going over every last detail, every single word to try to extract something that he could use. Something valuable.

 

But instead, all he felt was weirdly anxious. Arnold couldn’t put his finger on why for a minute, but then it struck him. There was something vaguely threatening about the last thing she’d said before disappearing. I’ve got people in my life who can look after me now. That’s what she said, putting the slightest bit of emphasis on the last word in her sentence. There was an implication hiding underneath her sugary sweet tone, betraying her real thoughts. She felt like she wasn’t protected back when she was with Gary, and now there was somebody else in her life that was willing to stand up for her if the Nightwalkers tried to claim her back.

 

She’s with Pax, Arnold realized. There was no denying it now. Maybe they weren’t fucking, maybe they were just friends. But he was a threat to Gary; that much was certain.

 

And threats to the Nightwalkers never went unopposed.