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I close down the message and place the phone back into the inside pocket of my suit jacket. “Yep. You know I do, man. I was happy enough to stay here and work for him six, seven, eight years ago, when you came to me and asked me to move out east. Nothing’s changed.”
“A lot’s changed,” Rebel disagrees. “I have a proper operation now. There’s a lot I need to tell you. It’s time you come work for me.”
Rebel’s most annoying trait, aside from being arrogant as fuck, is that he likes to tell people what they are going to or not going to do. Doesn’t matter what plans you may have made for yourself, Rebel knows better, always has, and you’d better be prepared to do as you’re told with him otherwise you’ll be finding out the shitty way what it’s like to get on the wrong side of him. It’s a trait that’s been passed down to him by his father. His old man does the exact same thing, but woe betide anyone who might point this out to Rebel. The least said about his father, the better.
I sigh and stare out at the road. No point in arguing with him. I’ll just let him take my silence on the matter as an agreement until the time comes when I tell him to fuck off. I may not want to discuss my work arrangements with him right now, but there are a few things I’m curious about. “What the hell were you thinking marrying that girl, anyway?” I ask. I wasn’t going to do it; I was going to keep my cool, but some things just need to be said. “You bought her from a pimp, man. What kind of asshole are you these days, because the guy I knew would never have needed to grab himself an over-the-counter wife.”
Rebel huffs out a breath, slapping his palm against the steering wheel. “Don’t—seriously, Mikey. You really don’t know what you’re talking about. Please don’t bring her up again. I would really hate to have to beat your ass for you.”
“Try, man. Just try.”
Rebel looks over at me, and a grin blossoms on that too-handsome-to-be-a-criminal face of his. Fucker. “You know I can take you,” he informs me. The truth is that he can, but I honestly wouldn’t mind going a few rounds with him anyway, even if he would end up beating me. I’d get more than a few good shots in, and he deserves every one of them for bailing on me.
“You’re mad at me,” he says.
“Yes, I’m mad at you.”
“Why? You’ve known where I was this whole time. You could have come to me.”
“I didn’t want to come to you, Jay. I didn’t want to work for you back then and I definitely don’t wanna work for you now. You have money; I get that. But we are equals. You are never going to be my employer. You’re my cousin and you were my friend, but it appears that as soon as some hot piece of ass comes along, you forget your boy’s phone numbers.”
Rebel shakes his head some more. He clenches his jaw, runs his hands through his hair, does everything but look at me or talk to me for the next fifteen minutes. The asshole doesn’t even deny he ghosted himself out of everyone’s lives.
Another fifteen minutes of driving, and driving in silence. This whole waiting on Medina is getting old. The guys on the motorcycles behind us—no cuts, don’t want to draw any attention to themselves—are even getting pissy. It’s raining, of course, and it can’t be much fun sitting out in that, covered in sodden leather.
Eventually Rebel pulls into a gas station and kills the engine. “Wait here,” he tells me. He probably needs a piss. Our entourage of bikers draws up beside the Humvee and three of them climb off their rides and follow Rebel not to the bathroom out back, but into the actual station. The only Widow Maker who stays behind is Carnie, a guy I already know pretty well. He came up here with Cade to try and persuade the Doc to go help out with Alexis. They never got the chance to try and convince her, though. Charlie went nuts and attacked that girl at another of Seattle’s fine gas stations, which initiated a series of events that have led us here, to me, simmering on low in Rebel’s Humvee, and Carnie scratching his ass, soaked to the bone.
The door opens, startling me, and Rebel hops back up into the driver’s seat. “That was quick.”
He tosses a packet of something silver and shiny at me, starting the engine again. “Didn’t need much. Just thought you might appreciate those.”
There’s a pack of collector cards in my lap—baseball cards. That’s what he went into the gas station for. I give him a dry laugh—ha, ha, very funny motherfucker—but I still pick them up and run my fingers across the foil wrapper. Matt Shoemaker’s on the front, mid-way through a pitch, with a look of concentration on his face I recognize all too well. I was supposed to be Matt Shoemaker. I was supposed to make those pitches.
“Never did come pick up your collection,” Rebel says. “Figured you could start a new one.”
“That collection’s worth thousands of dollars, you bastard. This”—I wave the pack in his face—“is worth seventy-five cents.”
“Dollar ninety,” he shoots back. “Price has gone up since we were eight.”
I let myself laugh. I have to. Rebel laughs, too. This is his way of apologizing. It’s a shitty way of doing it, but the effort’s there. It’s almost a record-breaking effort on his part, in actual fact. An apology is an admission of weakness; that’s what his dad says. Rebel clears his throat.
“Listen, things with me and Soph—Alexis,” he says, correcting himself. “They’re way more complicated than they look on the outside. Trust me when I tell you I have not bought myself an over-the-counter wife. Not even close.” He laughs, and it’s the laugh of a man who might prefer an over-the-counter wife instead of what he actually did get. I know he’s joking, though. “I swear I’ll explain everything, but all in good time. Right now, I just wanna get Cade back.”
