Still, hearing Twister say it out loud made it real.
Wheels looked at me.“You up for that?”
“A tour?”I asked.
“Yeah.”
I glanced toward the door.Wheels noticed because he noticed everything.
“No one’s coming through that door without Swift ripping their head off first,” he said.
Swift looked over from the door.“I’d shoot them before I ripped anything off.”
Britta sighed.“That’s comforting.”
“It should be,” Swift said.
“It’s something,” I muttered.
Wheels chuckled low.“Come on.”
I grabbed my backpack from beside the table out of instinct, but Wheels reached out and caught the strap before I could sling it over my shoulder.
“You don’t need to carry that around.”
I tightened my hand around it.“I know.”
He didn’t pull.
He just held the strap, his fingers close to mine, his gaze steady on my face.“You sure?”
No, I wasn’t sure.I wasn’t sure about anything.
That bag had become my emergency plan.Clothes, phone charger, cash, a toothbrush, a granola bar smashed flat in the front pocket, and not much else.It was pathetic when I thought about it, but it was mine.The only thing I’d had with me when I left everything else behind.
“I don’t like not having it,” I admitted.
Wheels’ expression didn’t change.He didn’t make fun of me.Didn’t tell me I was being ridiculous.He just nodded once.“Then bring it.”He let go.
I slid the bag over my shoulder, and Wheels nodded toward the room.“This is the main room, obviously.Bar over there.Kitchen behind it.Pool table.Couches.TV.Everybody ends up here even when they say they’re going somewhere else.”
“That sounds accurate.”
“It’s annoying as hell.”
“You live with a dozen men.I feel like annoying is part of the lease.”
His mouth twitched again.“You’re not wrong.”
We started moving through the main room slowly.The place looked different now that I wasn’t stumbling through it half-dead in the middle of the night.It was rough around the edges, but not in a neglected way, more like it was still becoming what it was supposed to be.
The bar was long and old, scarred in places, but polished clean.A few bottles lined the shelves behind it, mixed in with tools, a roll of duct tape, and what looked like three different jars of screws.The floor had patches that looked newer than others.One window was covered with plywood from the shooting, and a bucket sat beneath another where someone had apparently been washing glass out of the frame.
The walls were exposed brick, some of it freshly scrubbed, some still stained from years of whatever had happened here before the club bought it.A Saint’s Outlaws flag hung behind the table where Twister had sat, black and silver against the brick.
Britta leaned out of the kitchen as we passed.“You need anything, Goldie?”
I shook my head.“No, thank you.”
