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“That is… that is… very interesting,” he said, and, again, I couldn’t quite pin down the strange look in his eye or the tone in his voice.
Something was going on that I wasn’t aware of. It shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did. After all, I’d been the one who’d been away and out of the loop for so long.
“Yeah. It’s been an adventure. So how are things? What’s new?” I asked.
It was then that the smile went from mischievous to downright wicked.
“Oh, you know. Riding bikes. Doing drops. Hazing the prospects. We got some new blood around lately,” he said, and I had no idea why he was giving me details about a club I’d never shown any interest in before. “Some feral dog named Voss rode in recently with Valen,” he said.
And I got it.
I finally got it.
The look.
The tone.
The glee.
Because he knew.
Of course he knew.
Everyone probably knew.
When I’d finally dragged myself out of my depression cave after all that shit went down, I’d skipped out of town so fast, not wanting to face all the people who knew. Who might judge. Who might find humor at my expense.
There were so many things to love about close-knit towns like Navesink Bank. But when something shitty happened, there was no dealing with it privately, no keeping things to yourself.
Everyone knew.
And everyone had something to say.
I hadn’t been in a place where I’d wanted to deal with it. So I’d skipped out of town. And, to an extent, I’d almost forgotten that people would know when I came back.
But, of course, everyone knew. And no one had forgotten.
It had been a really fucking long time.
But the sound of that bastard’s name was still like a kick to the stomach.
I guess I was lucky thatValenwasn’t exactly a common name. In fact, outside of the one I’d known, I’d never met another. I’d been able to go many years without hearing it spoken.
Maybe, though, if he had been a John or a Shawn or something like that, hearing the name often would have hardened me to it, would have made it lose all its impact.
Hearing Valen’s name, though, fuck, it damn near doubled me over.
“Oh yeah?” I asked, proud with how indifferent my tone sounded, despite the chaotic stream of thoughts and emotions that were swarming around inside of me right then.
“Yeah, crazy shit. He’s been gone all this time. Just blew into town a little bit back.”
“Interesting,” I said, though my tone made it sound like it was the mostuninteresting thing I’d ever heard.
“Yeah. You should drop in sometime,” he said, smiling. “We are constantly having parties,” he added.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll have to drop in,” I agreed, nodding toward the counter that had just opened up, where Gala was standing with his drink in her hand, impatiently tapping a nail onto the side of it, waiting for him.
“Great. Hope you do. Nice seeing you again, Louana,” he said, smiling, then making his way to the counter.
