Cole
“Hey, I’ve got some news,” I started as I opened the door to our room. When the door swung open, I stared at the empty bed where I’d left Lilah, and I stopped short.
Whatever, maybe she’s in the bathroom or something.
I walked in, closed the door behind me, and went to check the bathroom. The door was open, the light was off, and no one was inside.
“Lilah?” I called out in the small room like there was somewhere she could have hidden where I wouldn’t have seen her.
I checked the windows facing out from the front of the building, but they were still closed and locked. I wondered if I had passed her downstairs somehow when I came in. That didn’t seem likely, but I thought that it was worth a check.
I wandered back downstairs, checking in the main room to see if she was there, if there was a way I could have possibly missed her. I didn’t see her, but a few people were hanging out playing pool and having a few drinks. Mick wasn’t behind the bar. Everyone was sort of helping themselves. He had to sleep sometime, I figured.
She wasn’t hanging out with the old ladies, the groupies, or any of the guys. I stood in the middle of the room, looking from the TV and couch to the pool tables, and from them to the bar. I was starting to get worried. Girls came and went all the time. It was likely she’d just walked out without even being noticed, except some of the guys already knew who she was and could easily recognize her. Someone had to have seen her, I convinced myself.
“Hey, lookin’ for your old lady?” a voice behind me asked.
I turned around to find one of our pool sharks, Q-Ball, leaning on one of the tables. He often played alone, practicing trick shots or simply running the table. Most of the guys in the MC weren’t dumb enough to play him.
“Yeah,” I answered simply, not wanting to explain to him that Lilah wasn’t my old lady but that she was just staying with me. It was easier to run with whatever he said.
“Saw her leaving with Razor a little while ago,” he said absently, turning back to the table to take another shot.
“What’s she doing with Razor?” I asked, walking over to the table where he leaned over sighting his different possibilities. He was looking for the least likely shot, probably trying to figure out how to make it as if it were the only one available.
He didn’t look up from the table. He was wholly focused on the shot. In his mind, as long as I wasn’t reaching for him or the table, I probably didn’t even exist.
“Q, what do you mean she left with Razor?” I asked again, standing over him. He was bald and ripped. He looked like muscle rather than a hustler of any type. The truth was, he was both. He had to be; people hated to lose.
He answered in a tight, low tone, like the low warning growl of a large cat. “I mean, she left with Razor. I didn’t ask where they went.” He glanced to the side and turned his eyes from his shot for a moment without looking all the way over at me. He wasn’t answering any more questions.
I left him to his game and pulled out my phone as I walked away. I pulled up Razor’s number and tapped it. What the hell was going on?
“Hey, Saw,” he answered as if there was nothing strange about having gone off with my girl at all.
“Razor, where are you?” I asked.
“Hey, man, your old lady asked me to ride with her over to her place so she could grab a few things. We’ll be back as soon as she’s got everything she needs. No funny business, brother,” he answered nervously. He’d heard the accusation in my tone.
“What few things is she grabbing?” I asked, and why the hell hadn’t she waited for me to get back before running off like that?
“I don’t know. She said she needed something for work.”
“Work,” I repeated. I put my hand over my eyes and rubbed my temples.
“Yeah, that’s what she said. Hey, if you want, I can put her on the phone for you so you can talk to her and see what she’s up to.”
“No, that’s fine. Just make sure she’s safe. Keep an eye out for her. I mean it. People are looking for her right now. There could easily be somebody watching her house right now,” I told him, hoping he’d take me seriously instead of thinking I was being paranoid.
“That’s why I’m here,” he assured me.
“Alright, I’ll see you when you get back.” I tried to relax my tone, so he knew I wasn’t going to try to start anything with him when he finally got back.
I hung up and slid the phone back into my pocket. I needed a drink. She didn’t need to be out running around, and she certainly didn’t need to try to go to work right now. I needed her to stay where I could protect her.
At least she had Razor with her. I laughed to myself. I felt sorry for anyone who fucked with him. He didn’t play when it came to hurting people. He enjoyed it. She was pretty safe with him.
“You look like you need a drink,” Mick said, clapping a hand on my shoulder and walking me to the bar.
One of the young groupies who hung around the clubhouse walked outside huddled in her own arms, her hair and makeup a mess. The walk of shame. She didn’t look at anyone as she left the building, presumably to walk home.
“Do you ever sleep?” I asked him.
“Sometimes.” He walked behind the bar, grabbed a bottle of whiskey, and poured us a couple of glasses on the rocks. He fished out a cigarette from a crushed pack he kept in his jeans. He nodded toward the door as he put the cigarette in his mouth and grabbed his glass.
We walked away from the bar as he pulled out a lighter and lit his smoke.
“I don’t like smoking behind the bar, and I’m not going to hang around inside so everyone can start asking me for drinks,” he grunted out as we walked through the bay door. He took a sip of his drink and a couple of puffs of his cigarette. “You smoke, Saw? I didn’t even think to offer you one.”
“Nah, I’m good,” I told him. “Not a habit I ever wanted to pick up.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I usually only smoke on certain occasions, as you can probably tell.”
We stood staring out into the darkness, not facing each other. Standing there, looking at the night, listening to how peaceful it was outside, sipping a drink with one of my brothers, I felt my worries trying to melt away.
“How old was she?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “Old enough. She had a few tattoos. And dirty, man. You wouldn’t have liked her. You would have kicked her out hours ago.” He let out a hoarse laugh.
“No more of those girls for me,” I said. “They may look young and innocent, but when you get them upstairs, it’s a different story.”
“Yeah, she taught me a couple of things,” Mick bragged.
“I’ll stick with my inexperienced girl.”
“Careful that her inexperience doesn’t cause you more trouble than it’s worth, brother. Where is she now?” He took a sip of his whiskey.
“She got Razor to go to her house with her so she could pick up some stuff for work. I imagine she’s getting a couple of changes of clothes.”
“You letting her go to work?” he asked. His tone said it all; he felt the same way I did about it. “I know you like playing nice with the ladies, brother, but you’ve got to put your foot down with her. You don’t need her running around with other guys, not even from the MC. If she needs an escort, it needs to be you.”
“You have no idea how right you are.”
“I might know more than you realize. Trent tells me everything that’s going on with the MC.”
“Well, there’s more.”
“Tonight?”
I told him about the attempted break-in and the guy I left in the woods on the outskirts of town. I told him what the guy had told me about working for Lilah’s ex. He shook his head and finished his cigarette, flicking it out to the parking lot.
“You definitely need to keep her on a short leash. If the guy’s coming after both of you, might as well force him to show up here,” Mick grumbled out.
He turned around and started to walk back inside.
“You want another one?” he asked, nodding at my drink, which I’d barely touched.
I shook my head. “Nah, I want to be awake when she gets back. I think you’re right. It’s time to put her on lockdown.”
Sure, I’d told her what I required of her if she wanted to stay with me, but I needed to assert some kind of authority over this situation with her. What she was doing – running around like everything was okay – was not okay. It wasn’t safe, and it made me look like a joke. When she got back, I was going to have to put a stop to it. She needed to understand how much danger she was in.
“Alright, brother,” Mick said. “I’m going to get some shut-eye before morning. Don’t go too hard on her.” He put his glass on the bar and headed upstairs for what was left of the night.
I sat at the bar and finished my drink, trying to go over what I was going to say in my head. I didn’t want to run her off. There wasn’t anything stopping her from packing up and heading home. Not really. She had to stay of her own accord. I couldn’t force her.
Her problems with her ex-husband seemed fresh enough to make her likely to run if I came down too hard on her. Then again, she seemed to want some of the control I tried to exert over her. She had given herself to me after I’d told her I wanted her to put out if she planned on staying.
I drank the rest of my whiskey and checked the time. How long did it take to pack a few more changes of clothes? Or to drive back from her house?
I found another reason to stay awake until she got back: to make sure she got back. I didn’t need to pass out and wake up in the morning to realize that something had gone wrong while they were at her house or on their way back.
I ran a hand over my face. Well, I was certainly getting what I’d asked for. I had an inexperienced woman who was willing to trust me in bed, but she’d maintained such a sheltered life that she didn’t know when to stay put without someone telling her.
I left my glass next to Mick’s and got up from the bar. I knew if I went upstairs, I’d probably kick off my boots and call it a night, so I grabbed a pool stick and walked over to the table where Q-Ball was practicing.
“Rack ‘em up,” I told him.
He looked at me with a sadistic grin. I didn’t stand a chance, but it was something to do to occupy my time. Besides, on the off chance that I beat him, I’d have bragging rights from here until eternity. I had a better chance of winning the lottery by not playing.