she’d come to me, laughed. Actually fucking laughed. Her nose wrinkled as she murmured, “Well, I am a girl, and I’ll say it for you. Ew, LJ, that’s fucked up.”
He shrugged, but shot her a wink. “I love me some spit.”
She groaned. “Yeah, but a stranger’s? In your food?”
“Prefer a chick’s.”
I blinked at him. “Can’t believe we’re having this conversation.” Rubbing my eyes, I mumbled, “Dude, you’re gross.”
He slapped me on the back. “I’ll remember that when I send you off to do some shit on my behalf. I’ll enjoy the fact you can’t say ‘no’ even more.”
Shooting him the bird, I sank back into the booth and sighed.
“Surprised you haven’t bitched about the long ride by now,” Crocker pointed out over his coffee mug. In his cut, he looked like the mean motherfucker he was. With the skull on his throat, the one that was smoking a cigarette, you wouldn’t think the bastard could get through four boxes of cake mix in a week.
The bastard was skinny as a fucking rake too, and he had all his teeth. Somehow. Maybe that was more of a miracle than anything else.
“My ass is aching,” I admitted, and grinned when they all hooted. Though I flipped them the bird again, I just mumbled, “Where’s the spit-pancakes?”
Kenzie grunted. “You trying to make me puke?”
“If four hours on a goddamn bike doesn’t make you puke, I think we’re good.”
“I’d have preferred a chauffeured limo to be the vehicle that was used to rescue me,” she stated with a wry smile, “but I’ll take my knights however I can get them.”
“Seriously, you okay?” Crocker asked, all serious now.
“Yeah. I’m used to being on the back of a bike. More than boy wonder over there. This the first time you’ve left the county?”
Fuck. Hadn’t taken her long to turn back into a bitch. Still, I preferred that to her flinching at everything and anything—in fact. What was that about?
As I said, “Not my fault. Only just fucking graduated, Kenz,” I studied her. Studied her and saw that she was leaning into Long John.
The hell?
Long John was twice my age, which made the fact he wore thermal undies all the time even fucking weirder in my opinion—dude wasn’t pushing eighty, after all.
“Bullshit. You still panting after little miz angel?” Kenzie taunted.
My narrowed eyes should have told her to back off. “What’s got you in a snit?” I demanded. “You go from flinching when Saint helped you off the damn bike to, what? Turning back into a grade-A bitch?”
“Just making a comment, that’s all,” she sniped back.
“Fuck, well, I didn’t miss this Kenzie. I can tell you that for nothing,” I ground out. “Ama has never done anything but be nice to you, and fuck, if it weren’t for her, you wouldn’t even be here. Her granddaddy would have let you rot with that cunt of an old man you chose. So don’t you dare talk shit about her when she ain’t here to defend herself.”
I wasn’t ashamed of the words I spoke, but I was annoyed at myself with the tone and the volume. She flinched again, but there was no way in fuck I was going to let Kenzie revert to the bitch of old just because she had a friend on her side again—because, now that I thought about it, Long John and my dad had been pretty close. But I’d been twelve when dad had been put inside, and I barely knew him, never mind his friends.
Long John, to me, was just another brother. Wolfe, Flame, Dagger, and Axe had all helped raise me after Lucie insisted I come and stay at their house when dad had been locked up and my mom had died. They were the ones who’d taken over that role, and it was why I’d die for them, why I’d do anything in my power to give them whatever they needed because they’d taken a terrified orphan in and had treated me well.
Long John… not so much.
Not that I held a grudge or anything. Why would he give a fuck about a snot-nosed kid? But I just remembered he hung around a lot back then, and…
My frown turned into a glower.
Five years ago, my sister would have just been turning nineteen. Jailbait, sure, but fuck, when had that stopped anyone in an MC before? We didn’t allow sick shit to go down, at least not in the Rebels, but nineteen? Nah. That wouldn’t stop Long John, and it would explain