Chapter 7

In college, my favorite course was intercourse.

-Truth’s secret thoughts

Truth

The first time I saw the meme floating around the Internet, I had zero to nil patience left in me.

Everything that was left was rage.

Normally, I would’ve handled it better.

I would’ve told the person who shared it on Facebook that they needed to take that meme down before I beat their ass.

Instead, I went straight to beating their ass.

Well, not the person who shared it with me, but the person who made the meme.

‘Hey, isn’t this you, bro?’ I read again on my company’s page.

But it wasn’t just me who saw it.

So far, it’d been shared over a thousand times, and multiple people who I knew that were commenting or tagging me in it.

The picture wasn’t that bad.

Of me, anyway.

Well, not of Verity, either.

It was the words that had me pissed off.

The picture itself was of Verity and I riding on the back of my bike, my helmet seated firmly on her head, and her hands around my waist.

It was a profile shot, but it clearly showed part of Verity’s ass hanging off the back of the bike seat.

But that wasn’t because she was fat, it was because the seat on that bike was on the smaller side, and really only made for one person.

Yet, the person taking the photo had no problem putting ‘watch out—wide load’ across the bottom of the photo right under Verity’s ass.

Picking up the phone, calmly, I called in a favor from a friend of mine in Kilgore, Texas. A man whose wife was a computer savant that could find out anything I wanted to know with only a few minutes’ effort on her part.

“Hello?” Jack answered shortly.

I could hear kids screaming in the background, and I found my first smile in two days.

Jack was a good man. I’d met him while he was deployed at the same time that I was, though he was Army and I was Navy. Usually we would’ve never crossed paths, but a SEAL never knew where he’d end up or what mission he’d be needed on.

Ten years later, he was married with a shit ton of kids and living about four hours away from me in a biker club of his own.

“I need help tracking down the original poster of a picture on fuckbook,” I said without preamble.

I hated Facebook. It was a waste of precious time and brain cells, yet it was a necessary evil that I couldn’t stand.

“Shoot me the link,” Jack said.

He didn’t even need details. That was how much both of us trusted the other.

I did, and a few minutes later he whistled.

“Hot man. She yours?”

Heat pooled in my belly.

“Yeah,” I confirmed.

She was.

I just had to pull my shit together, first.

***

Two hours later, Jack shot me the original poster as well as the original poster’s address and photograph, and I found myself in front of a metal shop, idling on my bike, waiting for the motherfucker to come outside.

It didn’t take long.

It was near lunch time, and the entire lot was emptying faster than a disturbed wasp’s nest.

The man went to his own bike, straddled it, and I pounced.

One second I was on my bike, and the next I was eight spaces over, pulling the motherfucker off of his.

One well-placed fist to the man’s nose had the little shit doubling. The next fist hit one of the man’s kidneys.

“Pissing blood for a week,” I heard someone mutter.

I knew they were there.

I could see about ten of them, but not one of them tried to interfere.

Either that meant they didn’t like the guy I was about to teach a lesson, or they didn’t want to be on the receiving end of my fists…or possibly both.

“Should we call the cops?”

They could always try, but likely the one to come was going to be Aaron since I’d warned him it may happen twenty minutes before.

“No.”

That was the same voice that said the man would be pissing blood for a week, and I found that I kind of liked him.

Reaching down, I picked the man’s head up by his hair, and turned him to look at me.

“You took a picture,” I said angrily. “Do you know which one I’m talking about?”

The lower half of the man’s face was covered with blood.

“No,” he said.

Tears and snot were intermingling with the blood on his face, and I sneered at him in disgust.

“Let me remind you,” I pulled out a photo I printed out and shoved it up against his face, letting the blood hit the paper and smearing it hard into his face.

He cried out.

“How about now?” I asked, pulling it back slightly. “Do you remember now?”

He started to fight back and I grinned, dropping the photo on the ground.

The man with the deep, amused voice behind me picked it up, and then cursed.

“You did this, Tyson?” the man asked.

Tyson, the douche that deserved way worse than an ass beating, threw out a punch that landed on my arm and grazed my bicep.

I retaliated by dropping my knee down onto the man’s balls and grinding down.

I followed it up by kicking the man’s knee, causing it to turn sideways—likely breaking his kneecap in the process.

He bellowed in pain, unsure what to hold—his balls, his nose, or his knee.

I stood up and started to back away, and he tried to follow.

So I dropped back down, the weight of my knee on his chest.

It was a miniscule try, but I had to give him credit. Most men would’ve been down and out by now.

“Stay the fuck down,” I growled, leaning my knee into the man’s sternum. “I ever, ever, see you share something this offensive again, I will rip your goddamn eyes out and shove them up your ass with the rest of your head.”

The man nodded, licking his broken and cracked lips.

I stood, this time happy to see he wasn’t going to try to follow.

Turning to my bike that was still running at the edge of the parking lot, I started towards it, uncaring that the men surrounding me watched me with wary looks.

“Truth?”

I looked up to see a bearded man holding the photo.

His beard was much larger than mine, and tied in a goddamned braid.

“What?” I half snapped.

“My name is William.”

I shrugged.

His mouth twitched.

“I’m Randi’s husband. Verity’s best friend.”

Understanding dawned.

I held my hand out as I said, “Nice to meet you.”

He took my offered hand and shook it twice before letting go.

“I like what you did back there. Had I known, I’d have done it myself four days ago,” he promised.

I shrugged.

“I just saw it this morning. Been dealing with funeral arrangements for my grandparents.”

And waiting for my family to make it into town.

Not to mention finishing up a class session.

And avoiding anything that had to do with Verity.

Any sympathy on her part would cause me to break down, and right now I needed to be strong.

Because if I wasn’t strong, I would cry like a goddamned baby.

“You ever need anything, a favor, I’m here.”

I studied the man’s face, noted his sincerity, and nodded once.

“Thanks.”

With that, I mounted my bike—having gone back to the seatless one—and throttled it up as loud as it would go, sparing one final glance at the piece of shit still on the ground, before I rode away, back to my workshop and all of the problems that plagued me.