A Very Venom Christmas - Kristine Allen Page 0,16

I answered as I threw enough shit to get me through the night in an old rucksack.

“What’s up? You sure are asking a lot of favors,” my old friend teased.

“Fuck off.” I grinned as I replied. Then I told him I was headed up there shortly and explained what my grandmother had said.

“No problem. I got you.”

“Thanks. And Snow?”

“Yeah?”

“Bro, you know if you ever needed me or my club, we’d be there for you. Even if you were wrong as fuck. I’d just beat your ass afterward.” A lopsided grin stole over my face.

A boisterous laugh carried over the line. “Likewise.”

“Later,” I said before ending the call. For not the first time, I wished he’d come with me and Raptor when we joined the Bastards. But I got that he wanted to go home.

I simply had not.

Raptor had tried to insist that Voodoo or Angel needed to go with me, but I wasn’t one to air my personal life in front of the club. They didn’t need to know I’d fucked my grandmother’s neighbor who was possibly half my age. They also didn’t need to know that I was inexplicably driving up there intent on checking on her. There was no real reason for me to want to, so I said I’d do it under the guise of appeasing my grandmother.

After I was on the road for a while, I thought about calling her. Grams had given me her number, but I figured she would be working. Instead, I called Snow to let him know I was getting close.

“You got a room I can stay in tonight? I’ve been thinking, it will be late by the time I get there. Grams’s bed was a twin, and that pull-out loveseat is uncomfortable as fuck.” The truth was, I didn’t trust myself to be sleeping across the street from Loralei. It made it too convenient and too much of a temptation to cross the road once again.

“Hell, yeah. Come on over to the clubhouse when you get here. I’ll have a room made up. Let me know when you pull into town.”

“Will do. Oh, and one more thing,” I said, tapping on the steering wheel.

“Boy, these favors are adding up.” He laughed.

“Put them on my tab,” I joked, then casually asked if he’d have someone swing by Loralei’s house to check on shit. “For my grandmother,” I added.

“Bro. All you had to do was ask, and I would’ve had someone check on her anytime.”

“Well, I didn’t know. Grams mentioned that she thought something was bothering her. Says she’s not one to ask for help, but—” I insisted. He was quiet.

“I get it,” he finally replied. I wondered if he really did.

We ended the call, but he called back briefly to tell me he sent a prospect by who said her vehicle was safely in the driveway and her lights were on in her home. They were making rounds and said they’d call me if anything was out of the ordinary.

Once I got closer, I called him again.

“Everything still seems good at her place. I even had Blue walk around the house to make sure nothing was out of place. Other than the porch light, that is. I’ve already got one of the prospects on that.”

“Thanks, bro. She was close with my grams, but I don’t really know her.” Which was true despite me having fucked the hell out of her the night before I’d left with Grams.

“By the way, I thought her name sounded familiar, and I was right. She worked at our strip club for a few months about a year ago,” he said.

“What?” Outrage jolted through me at the thought of men jerking their shit to thoughts of her tiny body undulating in front of them.

“Chill, she was a waitress. Jesus, don’t go telling Grams her friend was a stripper,” he said with a humorous tone. That only slightly mollified me. She’d still strutted around in a strip club. I knew what their waitresses wore.

“She’s obviously more than a friend of your grandmother’s from the way you responded to that information. You fucking her?”

“No!” Though I tried for indignation, I sounded fucking ridiculous. “Well, I did, but I’m not currently.”

“Of course you’re not, you’re driving,” he teased.

“Fuck off,” I grumbled, and he busted a gut.

“I never asked before. You alone?” he finally asked me when he finished laughing.

“Yeah,” I admitted.

“Is that wise?”

“I’m not flying my colors. No one should know it’s me.”

“We all have enemies. They don’t need to see