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“Hey,” Jay said in greeting. “You here for gas?”
“Nah. Chocolate. I’m on my way to see Athena. That asshole from her school dumped her, and she’s crying her eyes out.”
Athena was Apollo’s kid. She was deaf and had gone to a special school, where she now worked as a tutor. She’d been dating one of the PE teachers there for a while—long enough that most of the family, at least of their generation, had met him. Right off, Jay hadn’t liked the guy. He was so good looking he was pretty, and he knew it. Nothing worse than a dude all up in his ego over his looks.
Sam and Athena were a few months apart in age and had been as close as twins from their days of diapers. Everybody in the family had learned ASL to some degree, so they could talk to Athena and she didn’t have to read lips or get interpreted all the time, but Sam was probably the most fluent of everyone who didn’t have the last name Armstrong. He’d even dated one of Athena’s friends from school for a while.
For years, people in the Bulls family talked about Sam and Athena being a couple one day. When they were little, all the moms cooed about them being boyfriend and girlfriend—which was gross, but moms were weird—then when they’d gotten to around middle school and high school, all the grownups had acted like they had money riding on the question.
But when they’d started dating, it hadn’t been with each other. They were just best friends.
For Jay’s part, he didn’t give a fuck about all that. They were his cousins, in the way their family worked, and he loved them like family. Also, he liked them as people. They were both cool, and among the few who never made him feel like a headass. But maybe he occasionally felt a bit of butthurt over how even the totally manufactured romantic drama around them seemed more compelling to their collective parents than anything he had done or been.
But Athena’s current, and real, romantic drama offered a chance for Jay to clear out his head. “We should go hunt the fuckface down. Make him regret his choices.”
Sam wasn’t a patch, but he was a Bull at heart. Son to Simon and nephew to Gunner. He was also tall and strong—bigger than Jay,of course—and happy to dive into a scrap. The two of them—and Duncan, too—could put some real hurt on the pretty deaf boy.
Duncan was still being a diva with Jay over last night, but he’d shake that off to defend Athena.
Sam, unfortunately, was shaking his head. “She wouldn’t want that. I just need Ben and Jerry’s, and HoHos, and Hershey kisses. Oh—and a bottle of Kahlua. She loves that shit.”
Jay reached over the counter and snagged a paper sack. “Time to build a first aid kit.”
Monty put his knee on his funky scooter and came around from behind the counter. “I’m gonna go try to sweep the bays. I want plausible deniability when Eight runs the totals this month.”
“Pussy!” Jay called after him. Monty flipped him off.
If Monty did that to almost any other patch, he’d end up with a bloody nose and a weekend spent cleaning the septic up at the cabin, but as far as Jay was concerned the friendship was older than his patch.
He shook the sack open. “Okay. Let’s fill this fucker.”
While they did, as Sam was deciding between the quart and the pint of Chocolate Therapy, he asked, “Can I get your opinion about something?”
Jay snagged the quart. “Quart, obviously. Don’t cheap out on your stolen groceries.”
Sam laughed. “Fuck off. That’s not the opinion I want.”
“Boxer briefs. Tighty whities are for nerds, and boxers bunch. Commando equals chafing. Boxer briefs are the way to go.”
Now Sam, still smiling, punched him in the arm. “Fuck off! No, something serious, asshole. Are you capable of that? I know it’ll be a challenge.”
Actually a little offended, Jay played it off. “I’ll try.”
“I’m kinda comin’ around to the idea of prospecting.”
Jay stopped cold. “What? Seriously?”
“You think that’s a bad idea?”
Jay’s first thought was a mental sigh. Another son who would be better than him, who would measure up to his father’s hopes and dreams and do the club proud. It was all Jay wanted, but he couldn’t figure out how to be someone his old man could, and would, be proud of. Zach was already that someone. Position filled.
What he said to Sam, though, was “No. Not if you want it. For yourself, I mean.”
“Yeah, maybe I do. I don’t know.”
“Well, know first. That’s my opinion. If you want it, go for it. But make sure you really want it. Being a prospect sucks hard. You get treated like dirt every fucking day. You gotta want the patch enough to survive that.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen.”
