Chapter 26

Briar

The meetings with all the guys under Parker were surprisingly awesome. Each and every one of them, with the exception of the direct street dealers, were dressed in nice slacks and button-down shirts. It was a nice change from the group of thugs we were working with a couple months ago. They may be selling dope in the slums of the city, but they’re doing it with professionalism, and business-like accountability.

The get-togethers were over yesterday, but Lynch still hasn’t said anything about heading home. After the incident in Parker’s house four days ago, he hasn’t said much to me. The tension is almost as unpleasant as the time he nonchalantly informed me that the only reason I’m the club’s VP is because Professor turned the position down.

My phone buzzes, and I’m slow to pick it up from the bedside table. Lynch gives me the side-eye from his bed in the hotel we’ve been camped out in for days when it buzzes the second time as if I’m irritating him. He’s been watching reruns of some stupid show from the nineties all damn day.

When I see that it’s a video from TJ, I’m reticent to open the damn thing. It could be anything from a stupid cat video to a clip of someone getting disemboweled.

Bored, I press the triangle. Cherry Pie by Warrant blares through my phone even though the damn thing is on silent. When Lynch grunts in agitation, I hit the tiny speaker on the corner of the video to silence it.

A growl erupts from my throat at seeing Molly shaking her sweet little ass, sandwiched between two hangarounds I’ve seen in the clubhouse before. They aren’t touching her, and she isn’t swaying her hips as provocatively as I know she can, but being here and not there to watch it live is enough to make me spit fire.

“I hate that fucking song,” Lynch says.

I thought Molly hated that song too, but telling by the loose smile on her face, she’s had a few drinks so she may not even realize what’s playing.

ME: And where is Zoe?

If TJ sends me a picture or video of Zoe wiggling on some guy, maybe Lynch will want to get home quicker. He sure as fuck wanted to rush back when we were in Richmond, and I have a sinking feeling that the only reason we’re still here is because he’s punishing me.

My phone buzzes again, and a picture of Zoe fills the screen. She’s sitting at a table with a bottle of water clasped in her hands as she smiles at a familiar looking blonde girl.

“Fuck,” I grumble. Well, that idea won’t work. Zoe is being a good little girl while her man is away.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing.” I darken my phone and rest it on my chest. I’m turning over, ready to just fucking go to sleep to pass the time when Lynch speaks.

“Don’t knock out. We’re leaving after this episode is over.”

That gets my attention, and like a suspicious fool, I jump up from the bed. “I’ll pack.”

I don’t even know why I said those words. I don’t have shit to pack in this room.

“You’re way too excited for a man that’s about to ride over twelve hours on a damn bike.”

“I like riding.”

“Funny.” He doesn’t look at me. “You didn’t want to do it last week in Richmond.”

He’s needling me, the exact way he has been for the last two weeks. I’m ready to get some distance between the two of us. It’s getting harder and harder not to tell him how I feel about Molly. I might have survived the conversation if I had fessed up the very first time he said, “You have something to tell me, Brother?”

He might have considered giving us his blessing if I had done it then. Now? After touching her, after tasting her sweet mouth, I’m pretty sure he’ll hang me and let TJ gut me. Molly will end up with the vet at Lynch’s insistence, and I’ll be hating him from hell.

“Where are you going?”

My hand is on the doorknob before I realize I’ve crossed the room.

“Gonna take a quick walk.”

“We’re hitting the road in fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll be back in ten.”

I swear I hear him laughing when I walk down the hall and out the front door of the hotel.

Instead of walking around, I check the oil and tire pressure on both of our bikes. We’ll have to stop for gas, but I don’t want any other issues coming between us and getting back to the clubhouse.

Having taken more time than expected, Lynch meets me outside just as I’m lifting the gauge from his back tire.

“Tampering with my bike?” There’s humor in his voice. No matter what shit is going on between us, he knows better.

“You know me,” I tell him as I stand and put the tire gauge in the pocket inside my cut. “Always looking for a way up the totem pole.”

Lynch huffs as he climbs on his bike. “I already turned in the keys, so you’re fucked if you left anything in the room.”

It’s like his asshole level has doubled by the day since we left Sutton. At least back at the clubhouse, Zoe distracts him and keeps him off my back.

“I didn’t ever unpack.”

Joke’s on you, motherfucker.

I sling my own leg over my bike, feeling childish and loving every damn second of it.

Well, the joke is actually on me because Lynch is riding up front. When we ride south out of Detroit toward Toledo instead of getting on Highway 401 toward Niagara Falls, I know he’s purposely taking the long way home.

“Why did we come this way?” I ask a couple hours later when we stop to fuel up.

Lynch shrugs as he places the nozzle in his fuel tank. “I wanted to ride on the south side of the lake.”

Darkness wraps itself around us. We lost the daylight about an hour ago, and technically the wider lanes on the interstate are safer than the highway, but I know safety wasn’t on his mind when we left Detroit.

His eyes burn a hole in me as I pump my own gas.

“Where are you going?”

My leg hangs over my bike as I look back at him.

“Let’s grab something to eat.” Looking past him, I see the flickering lights inside of the small café beside the truck stop.

My lips are in a flat line when I lower myself on my bike and crank it only to move it thirty yards away to the gravel lot in front of the diner.

By the time we get on the road over an hour and a half later, my skin is itchy.

When we pull up to the clubhouse, the sun is already lighting the horizon with pinks, oranges, and yellows, but I can’t enjoy the beauty of it. A twelve-hour trip has turned into over fifteen. My back is killing me because Lynch decided he needed to stop in every single town on the way back that had a population over two hundred.

I knew he was just doing it to fuck with me when we stopped in Springfield, an hour from home to get a pack of fucking chewing gum. We’d both still had a half of a tank of gas.

“Wanna grab a beer?”

I don’t even look at him before walking up the front steps of the clubhouse. “Fuck you.”

He laughs at me all the way inside. When he’d first mentioned driving home, I had all sorts of devious thoughts. Waking Molly with my head between her thighs was winning out over all of them. Now, all I can think about is going to sleep. Which is exactly what I do. At least I manage to get my boots and jeans off before falling into bed and passing the fuck out.