Scars Innis groaned as his cell vibrated on the hotel bedside table. He cracked one eye open, grimaced at the time.
Fucking ten o’clock. Really?
He stretched out one hand, and fumbled with the phone, cursing at the dull, dusty pounding in his head. Yeah, he was hungover. Again.
“What?” he ground out, his voice rough. “What?”
“Vic?”
Scars fell back on the bed, his muscular forearm covering his blue eyes against the bright late-spring sun. “Sam.”
“You OK?”
“I’m fucking sleeping, man.”
“It’s ten o’clock.”
“Yeah, yeah. You’ve been up since five, right, Doctor Innis? Saving lives, and being generally awesome?”
“Actually, I haven’t been to bed yet. I’m just leaving the hospital. There was a bad car accident last night, and I pulled a double shift. Nine people died.” Sam paused. “Including a family. Two young kids.”
Scars sighed. “Fuck, Sam. I’m sorry. You doing alright?”
His brother gave a shaky laugh, and right away, Scars’ body tightened up. He knew that laugh: it was Sam’s poor attempt to cover up bottomless pits of hurt and helplessness. The accident would have thrown Sam back almost twenty-three years, to that horrible icy night when their parents were killed. Watching those people die right in front of him would have just ripped scabs off old wounds; Scars was certain that his brother had fought like hell to keep those people alive, and the fact that he’d lost them would pierce him deep.
He imagined Sam in his scrubs, his dark eyes deceptively calm behind his glasses, his hands covered with the blood of strangers. He’d have intubated, and sliced, and sewn, and done CPR, and performed surgeries… and in the end, nobody had lived to see the sunrise. Talk about fucking devastating.
“Sam?” Scars’ voice was gentler now. “You alright?”
“Yeah, I’m OK. I’m just – I’ll be better after I get some sleep, and a hug from Annie and Cindy.” He paused again. “I’m sorry I woke you up… I just needed to talk to you. To hear your voice.”
“It’s fine, man. I’m sorry I shouted at you.”
“Where are you, Vic?”
Scars flinched at the use of his civilian name, but then again, nobody on the whole planet called him that except his kid brother and his niece, so he’d take it from Sam now.
“Not in Denver.” Scars shifted his large body on the bed, winced as his stomach heaved a bit. “Club business.”
“I see.” Sam’s voice was flat. “You’ll be back soon?”
“By tomorrow afternoon. You want to meet up on Sunday? Hang out a bit?”
“Coffee sounds good.”
Scars wished that Sam had said ‘beer’, but for his brother, he’d do coffee. Not before noon, though. Lines had to be drawn somewhere.
“Yeah, OK. Coffee it is.” Scars sat up carefully, wondering if he could handle coffee now, decided to go for it. “Sunday afternoon about three-ish?”
“Yeah. Call me when you get back.”
“I will.”
“Vic?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re being careful, right?”
“Sam, I’ve told you a thousand times: the club’s out of all that shady shit now.”
Scars paused, and both men passed silent words between them. Sam knew about the bloodbath with The Fallen Angels and Kirk Jensen’s people, knew that Scars and Wolf had been part of the rescue mission to get Ace Cuddy, knew that Wolf had broken his creed to stick to the legal high road, just that once. But Sam had understood that decision – he’d even stood by Scars on that one. The brothers had agreed to never talk about it again – and so they hadn’t and they weren’t. Not out loud, at least. Scars took a breath, got the conversation back on track:
“I’m not doing anything that any other businessman wouldn’t do, Sam. Everything’s on the up-and-up on this one.”
“So what are you doing?”
“I’m meeting with alcohol suppliers for the bar.”
Sam was silent again. “Really?”
“Yeah. Wolf’s unhappy with some of our current suppliers’ delivery times, and he asked me to find a few alternatives.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Scars swung his legs over the side of the bed, waited for his head to stop spinning. “It’s all above-board, I swear to you. Wolf has completely changed the club, and we’re all better off for it.”
“OK.” Sam sighed. “I’m at my car now, so I’ve got to go. Call me, alright? And be safe?”
“I will. To both things. Go get some rest.”
“I will.”
Scars disconnected and threw the phone on the mattress. He knew he should get some more sleep, but he was one of those people that when he was awake, he was awake. Still, though – he hadn’t hit the bed until five o’clock, and he could definitely use another three hours.
He got to his feet, ambled over to the coffee machine. He puzzled over the fucking knobs and buttons for a while – fancy-ass shit in this hotel, man – and after consulting the goddamn instructions, he finally figured out that the capsule thing went inside the top. He shut the lid, gingerly pressed a few buttons, remembered to actually stick the damn cup under the spout just in time. He was gratified when the coffee started to pour and he inhaled, starting to feel semi-human again.
As he waited for the coffee to finish, he hit the bathroom. He used the toilet, stared at himself in the mirror. Yeah, he looked pretty bad: his brown hair was standing up on end, his blue eyes were tired and bloodshot. And that was all before you considered the long, shiny scars on his face, hands, forearms and chest.
He went back into the main area, and grabbed the cup of coffee. He took a huge gulp, then another, wondered if he was up to opening the blinds. He knew it was another clear and bright late-April day out there, sunny and cool. Perfect weather for riding his motorcycle – but with sunglasses, of course. His hangover needed to be placated by shades.
His mind wandered back to the night before. He’d ended up in some dive bar on the side of the highway that reminded him of his second-favorite Denver bar, Dangerous Curves, in some ways. It had been full of questionable types, which he liked just fine, seeing as he was one such type himself, and easy women, which he didn’t like nearly as much.
The problem was that easy women liked him plenty. He got the attraction, he really did. The ladies went for large, muscular, scowling bikers with big hands, and lots of tattoos. If they weren’t repulsed by his scars, then they found them a turn-on. They usually imagined that he’d gotten them in some badass MC-related event, and Scars never bothered to correct them. It was none of their fucking business, anyway.
No, one-nighters had never been his thing, surprisingly. Scars was a one-woman kind of man, and the trouble was that his sort-of-chosen lifestyle made it hard to find a one-man kind of woman. Oh, sure, he’d had some girlfriends. Even serious ones. But there had been nobody since Rachel, and she’d dumped him more than a year ago.
Scars thought about Rachel for a few seconds, wondered if she’d found what she’d wanted with her new guy. Scars had tried hard to be everything that she’d needed, but he just couldn’t go all the way… hell was going to freeze over before he strung up a woman to the ceiling and hit her with a belt in the bedroom, or anywhere else. Even if Rachel had begged him to do it.
But he hadn’t hurt a woman in his forty-two years on the planet, and he wasn’t going to start now. Rough sex was one thing (and he had a thing for a bit of rough). Slapping a woman around until she bled and bruised and cried for mercy was something else entirely.
He shook his head, drank some more coffee. Maybe it was time to give it another shot on the woman front. God knows, he was ready to get laid again, and he also wouldn’t mind having someone around in the mornings. He liked making more than one cup of coffee, liked showering with a woman, liked having someone to call during the day. Now that all this shit with Dawson and the new club had started to settle down, maybe Scars would focus on his personal life once more.
Now the fun part: finding a woman with hot looks, and a razor-sharp brain, and a good heart, and an awesome sense of humor. Yeah, like a woman like that is just gonna waltz on in to Satan’s Bar. Dream on, man.