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What the hell did they put in the water here?
I stood up, my legs screaming in pain from having been crouched down like that for over twenty minutes. “Let’s do this. Who do you want up there?”
Bayou grunted. “Linc and I’ll both have to go up there. Are you two ladies okay with staying down here with Hoax just a little while longer?”
I poked Hoax in the chin. “The Hoaxmeister and me are BFFs. We’ll be okay.”
The snake was now dead…I thought.
Yet Hoax still held him in a death grip under the water just in case.
The woman beside me scoffed again, and I would’ve tossed her a look over my shoulder and glared had we not been in the middle of something extremely important.
“Brielle…” Hoax grumbled. “You need to get rid of the attitude. She’s just trying to lighten the mood.”
Truth.
I looked over at the woman out of the corner of my eye and wondered what, exactly, she had a problem with.
It would appear that this problem was with me, but I didn’t know what I had done to her.
Nothing, really.
Maybe it was just my presence?
Linc and Bayou were halfway up the steep incline, and I watched as Linc limberly climbed up the muddy slope as if he did something like that every day of his life.
I knew for a fact when I got up there later, it would be a slippery death trap that could likely have me risking life and limb.
I turned back to the woman and offered her my hand. “My name is Conleigh.”
“I know who you are,” the woman said with a soft voice, taking my hand for a quick second. “Linc talks about you all the time.”
I frowned. “Are you part of the MC?”
She shrugged. “Benson is my brother.”
“Benson?” I asked in confusion.
“Bayou,” came Hoax’s grunted explanation. “This is his little sister, Brielle.”
Oh. Well, they couldn’t be more complete opposites.
Where Bayou was big, Brielle was tiny. Where Bayou was dark, Brielle was light.
“Y’all don’t look like brother and sister,” I pointed out.
“Basket!”
“I was adopted.”
I looked up to find the basket lowering down.
Once we had it in place where we needed it, Brielle took charge.
“You grab one end, and I’ll grab the other. We’ll lift on three,” she ordered.
I shrugged. I’d done this a million and one times. I could do this in my sleep. Yet she was looking at me like I was the weak link in this scenario and couldn’t possibly do it.
Well, she was freakin’ wrong.
I may be small, but I was mighty.
“Let’s go.”
“One. Two. Three.”
On three we moved him and set him in the basket.
The snake came with him.
Brielle made a gagging sound as she had to buckle the straps up around the snake.
“Disgusting,” she gasped.
I giggled and patted Hoax on the shoulder. “Careful there. If you drop it, she might very well have a heart attack.”
“I hate snakes,” she muttered as she did the final buckle. “All right,” she called out. “Ready!”
It took all of ten seconds for the basket to move.
All the while, he kept hold of the snake. Which, as it turned out, ended up being a water moccasin. A poisonous snake that would’ve been the cherry on top of Hoax’s very shitty sunday.
Brielle deftly climbed up the incline, not sliding once.
Me, on the other hand? Yeah, with every step up I made, I slid down two more. Linc eventually took pity on me and came down to help me despite my assurances that I could probably, maybe, eventually get up on my own.
Having him at my back, pushing me up by the ass, was definitely the highlight of my night.Chapter 10I need to lose weight. I know how to lose weight, but losing weight means giving up cookies, and I’m not sure that I’m that committed yet.
-Text from Conleigh to Linc
Linc
The way she took charge turned me on.
The way she was fawning over Hoax? Not so much.
Every couple of seconds he’d toss me a knowing grin, and I’d narrow my eyes at him.
She rode to the hospital with him. She started an IV. She cleaned up his face.
Basically, she fawned all over him until he was taken to surgery to remove the fish hook-shaped piece of rebar from his side.
It was then that I ordered Conleigh to come home with me so we could shower and change.
“But I don’t have any clothes,” Conleigh explained.
“I have an extra pair at the clubhouse if you go there,” Brielle offered softly.
Brielle didn’t look happy to be offering up her clothes, either.
But since she’d already changed at the hospital—she kept a change of clothes in her locker on the PICU—pediatric intensive care unit—she had no immediate need for her spare change of clothes at the clubhouse right now.
“Perfect.” I nodded, tugging on Conleigh’s hand. “Let’s go.”
Conleigh came willingly, both of us squishing and squelching our way out of the hospital.
