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"Maybe she took a page out of your book and took a walk." Edison wasn't usually the kind of guy to try to comfort and sugarcoat, always being someone you could rely on for the truth, even if it was brutal.
"That's not exactly helping," I snorted, my head shaking as I raked a hand down my face, feeling the callouses of my hand get caught on the rough stubble on my cheeks. "You know my neighborhood."
"Third Street might be assholes, but they aren't known for hurting women either."
That was true enough.
But the hurt I was concerned about had nothing to do with them putting their hands on her and everything to do with them putting their drugs in her hand and letting her walk away to use them.
She wouldn't have the same tolerance if she used again, a fact I wasn't sure she was even aware of. She wasn't some deadbeat junkie who had been down the road. She was someone who got pulled into the awful world of needed prescription pain killers becoming a crutch and then a full-blown addiction.
She never touched illegal drugs.
God, if she went to fucking heroin...
My gut felt pressed between a vice grip as the bar tightened.
Would I come home to find her overdosed in my apartment?
"I don't know what kind of fucking party these Polish fucks are throwing when they don't have any chicks around," Pagan said, making my head swivel to find him standing in the doorway, awake as could be despite being the one who perhaps partied the hardest the night before. "Spending my night in a goddamn Barbie Dream House with six other fucking men isn't exactly what I'd call a good night," he added, stepping out, closing the door, and leaning back against it, tipping his beer up in salute before taking a long pull. His eyes moved between us, furrowing slightly. "What's with the mood?"
"He's worried about his girl," Edison supplied, making me sigh out a breath.
"Yeah? The girl from Hex? You think she's fucking someone else or slipping up?"
Mother fucking Pagan, man.
It was easy to underestimate him- being a brute, a general whack job, and as a whole not seeming like someone who picked up on much.
"Slipping up?" Edison asked, dark brow lifted, his dark eyes accusing like he already knew I had been purposely keeping shit from him.
"She was drinking fucking ginger ale at Hex, man." Pagan shrugged, looking not the least apologetic as he went on. "No one drinks ginger ale unless they're driving but I knew your bike was there. So the only other explanation is she's clean." He paused, taking another pull of his beer before adding, "Like you."
Knowing there was no going back, I exhaled and gave it to Edison. "She was clean. But only for a couple of days."
Edison, being Edison, was quick to put two and two together. "You were detoxing her. That's why you wanted us to cover for you, why you missed church." His smile went a little devilish then. "And that comment about fucking electrolytes didn't have a goddamn thing to do with fucking." He looked off for a minute, his face slipping into a mask of seriousness. "Call Reeve and send him over if you're worried. Don't need to worry about protecting the secret anymore thanks to old Loose Lips over there," he went on, jerking his head toward Pagan.
"I prefer an una-fucking-pologetic truth speaker. Besides, how the fuck could I know the rest of you would be so blind?"
I took a steadying breath and scrolled for Reeve's number. Despite the late hour, he picked up on the second ring. "Yeah?"
"I need to ask a favor." I wasn't sure I had ever heard my voice quite so desperate before. Suddenly, I was glad I called Reeve and not Renny who would have taken that information and run with it.
"Whatever you need." I could hear him moving around as he spoke, likely getting himself dressed.
Reeve was perhaps the most mysterious of all of us. Even Cyrus who would talk about any goddamn thing in the world, was uncharacteristically tight-lipped about his older brother. We knew about their dad being in the MC before he died, about how their mom pulled both them and their sister, nicknamed Wasp, and kept them the hell away from the bad influence of The Henchmen MC. We all knew that they had always wanted in, wanted the legacy, wanted to follow their father's footsteps. After the war, they saw an opportunity and took it.
Cyrus was a guitar player and ladies man.
Reeve had been an electrician- quiet and serious.
That was about all we knew about their past though. Or, maybe it was more accurate to say, any past that involved Reeve. Cyrus talked all the time about every time period of his life, but Reeve was almost never a part of the story.
