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Eight sat in his office the next afternoon, scowling at the spreadsheet before him. October’s totals for the service station. He hated this part of being president above all else: the paperwork for the fucking station. For the first time in his life, he’d had to learn to use a computer for more than checking email, and he was fairly certain this Excel bullshit was some kind of evil plot.
A year after he’d taken the gavel and all the fuckery that went with it, he understood Excel enough to make it do what he needed it to do, but he was never going to be some tech nerd like Apollo and Jazz.
His phone chirped, alerting a text, and he snatched it off the desk without looking, expecting it to be Christian, for the fourth fucking time.
Jenny, Mav’s wife, was apparently taking over for Sage in the club queen department, which was fine. She’d put together a Costco list for Duncan’s patch party on Friday night, and had sent Christian, now their only prospect, out on that errand. For some reason, the kid was more afraid of Jenny than Eight, because he wouldn’t call Jenny with these stupid questions. While he’d sat here wrestling with Excel to get the October totals right, he’d also fielded such riveting queries as ‘what’s a case of Jack handles?’
A Bulls prospect should fucking know what a handle of booze was.
Expecting another stupid question from the stupid kid, when he read the text—I need a favor—he fired off an aggravated reply—jesus christnow what—without thinking much about it.
A response came back almost at once:Watch your tone, biker boy.
Then Eight finally looked at the top of the screen. Oh. Fuck. Marcella.
They’d been trying this relationship thing for a few weeks now, and they’d been alone together a couple times a week, always while Ajax was in school, and always at his place, where they’d fuck and talk and eat takeout for lunch.
It was great, but it also felt a little furtive and dirty. Normally, furtive and dirty got him off good and plenty, but this … he didn’t know. This dirty felt a little bit wrong. Like Marcella was ashamed of him.
He was pretty sure that wasn’t true, he understood why she wanted them to keep a low profile until they were sure they worked, but the secrecy felt just off enough to make him restless.
Not sure how to talk about shit like that, he hadn’t told Marcella how he was feeling. It was good between them right now, and he wanted to keep it that way.
Now, he sent back a text he hoped was appropriately apologetic.
sorry baby thought u were some1 else
He sent it and then remembered that she’d said she needed a favor, so he addedwhat you need?
His phone actually rang—Marcella. He answered, “Hey.” He could hear instruments in the background. The Lowdowners were rehearsing for their big video shoot.
“The English language is your friend, Eight. Punctuation and capital letters are helpers.”
Not the first time she’d complained about the way he texted. But his fingers were too fucking big for the touch screen, and it was easier to use as few characters as possible. He hated technology. All of it.
“Yeah, yeah. Old dog here, all out of new tricks. You said you needed a favor?”
“Um, yeah. Might be a pretty big one. Are you busy this afternoon, maybe evening?”
Eight frowned, both curious and leery. “Not too bad. Mostly office bullshit. Why?”
“Okay. Well, we’re not coming together well at all here. It’s a lot of shit I don’t want to get into right now, but we’re running out of time to rehearse and it’s been a mess. Everybody wants to keep going, but Ajax is out of school in less than an hour. My dad’s in Dallas for some train convention, it’s Yvonne and Chase’s wedding anniversary and they have a big date planned, and my mom’s working overtime today helping her boss prep a case.”
“You want me to pick Ajax up from school?” His heart did some weird jig in his chest—he was actually fucking nervous at the thought of going to his son’s school.
Well, yeah, of course he was. He went to some ritzy private school, and Eight was … not ritzy. What would they think of him pulling up on his Fat Boy, with all his ink and leather and general appearance of not being an upstanding member of elite society?
Well, it was cold enough the ink wouldn’t show, at least. And he could swing by the house and get his truck. But that didn’t move the needle much on the ‘upstanding’ scale.
“I wouldn’t ask, but there’s nobody else.”
Now the kick in his chest was offense. All the thoughts he’d just had aligned with what Marcella had just said, but hearing it was harder than thinking it. A snide remark did a superhero landing on his tongue, but he was trying to be a better man, so he swallowed it back down and asked a practical question instead. “Will they let me pick him up?”
“Once school’s out for the day, they don’t monitor who comes for the older kids. If you’re there, he’ll know you’re there for him.”
“Will he know you’re okay with that?” The last thing he needed was his kid thinking he was there to kidnap him or some shit like that. “If he had a phone, you could tell him.”
