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“So, what’s next? Wanna stay for the rest of the show?” Hunter asks.
“Yes, absolutely,” I say and wrap my arm around his waist. “You won’t believe this but the singer just offered to work with me.”
Hunter narrows his eyes and looks up at the stage, everything about the expression on his face telling me he finds the singer, and probably the rest of the band, wanting. He’s always been very protective of me, him, Chance and Jax all were. Not to mention my father and the rest of the MC execs. But I don’t need to be coddled and I don’t want to be.
“I promise I won’t exploit my looks to advance my career,” I tell him before he can say anything. “Pinky swear.”
I’ve known Hunter all my life and we barely knew what sex was the first time he made me make that promise.
He grins at me. “Was I that obvious?”
“You were,” I assure him and grin too.
“He just doesn’t look like a guy who treats women well, but what do I know?”
I eye Manny too and can’t help but see what Hunter sees. But Manny is also very soft spoken, and who says I want to be treated well all the time? I don’t say that though. Instead, I grin wider and tell him I want a drink.
He eyes me sideways, and I just know he’s thinking that I’ve been drinking a little too much lately. He’s right, I have. I’ve needed something to dull the scorching pain of heartbreak that threatened to consume me and to quiet the voices telling me I’ll never feel joy and love again. But that’s behind me now too and my throat is parched.
More than one person comes up to me as we meander through the crowd to get to one of several white tents where they serve their drinks. And a good number of them want to know when they can see me perform again.
“Wow, everyone wants a piece of you,” Hunter says once we finally each have a cold bottle of beer in our hands—paid for by one of my fans who wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“Yes, and I’m ready,” I say and smile at him. “Because I know where I come from and where I want to go. Don’t worry so much about me all the time.”
He wraps his arm around my shoulders and hugs me tight. “That’s good to know. And I’m not worried. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
That sadness that I’ve been trying to leave behind is still clinging tightly to him and seeing Jax only made it worse for him. I hope he’ll find his peace with it all where he’s going just like I found it on stage today. And I’d tell him that, but that would only bring it all to the surface where it would have to be acknowledged and that’s not something either of us need.
The past is the past. Bad, good or otherwise. The only thing it’s good for is learning something from it and then forgetting the terrible bits. That’s the only way forward. The only way to live.
* * *
Jax
It took two more conversations with Snake—one inside the tiny closet full of shelves stacked high with bleach and other corrosive shit in the laundry room, the other in the shady alcove where the hall meets the dining room. The first time, he tried to talk me into going along with their original plan of luring Harper away to a dark, secluded place where they could grab her from in here, and I insisted that I need to be on the outside for it to work.
“There’s bound to be at least five Devils trailing her,” I told him in that cramped closet. “I can get past them, because I know how they operate and they know me. You can’t. Make it happen.”
Then I walked away and the next time he found me the plan was laid. Pretty much exactly as I suggested it. A false floor in the truck. A couple of Renegades posing as drivers. Room enough for four men to get out.
“Gene’s not coming,” Snake said after he laid out the plan.
“He has keys,” I finally told him, which made his almond shaped eyes go so wide it looked like they were about to pop out.
“That’ll be the price of him coming with us then,” he finally said and walked away. I spent the rest of the day making sure none of them killed Gene.
I didn’t tell him about the plan until just before lights out, since I was worried that he’d blather it all out in his excitement.
What he actually did was freeze up, his face turning grayer and grayer until it was roughly the color of the uniform we’re forced to wear.
That’s soon to be a thing of the past. For how long though? That’s not a question that I’m tackling now although it keeps popping up into my mind.
Harper wants to live her life in the spotlights and she can’t do that with an escaped convict by her side. And that’s not even the whole of the problem. The Renegades won’t stop chasing me until they get their revenge after I double cross them.
But all those are problems to handle on another day.
“I know,” Gene said. “Snake already explained the plan to me. I just hope it works.”
