the knowledge that she’d never see me that way.
Thankfully, T-Bone seemed just as antsy as me to hit the road. As Mari and Jandro joked and dawdled, he collected our dishes to return to the kitchen downstairs. “Meet you all in the garage,” he called on his way down.
I collected my few belongings and followed after him.
The open road and my bike felt like the final pieces of healing that I needed to be one-hundred percent better. Once I settled into my seat and felt the rumble of the engine beneath me, I remembered how I felt more than human while riding, not sub-human. The motorcycle became an extension of me, carrying me with speed and strength no one had with just two legs. And when we pulled into Four Corners at the end of a long day of riding, I was elated to be seeing a sunset again.
As we pulled up to the B&B and parked, I felt the desire to point out the sky to Mari, to just watch and enjoy it with her. Maybe, like with the Night-Blooming Cereus, share for the first time why they were important to me. But she was already off in search of her men.
“You’re back!”
I turned to see Dyno walk up, clapping T-Bone and Grudge in a three-way hug. The three of them kissed and muttered affectionate words to each other, while I busied myself with removing my saddlebags from my bike.
“Shadow!”
I looked up. “Yes?”
“Come have a drink with us.” Dyno tilted his head toward the bar up the street. “Since the other Demons are busy, you can hear updates first.” He waggled his eyebrows. “It’s official business from the governor. Trust me, you want to hear it.”
“Uh, okay.” I had nothing better to do, and rather than fatigued from the ride, I felt amped up and energized.
I set my things in my room, then returned outside to follow the Sons to the bar. Dyno seemed completely unable to wait until we were actually sitting and drinking to start talking.
“You got anything nice to wear, big guy?” He faced me, walking backwards down the sidewalk. “And I don’t mean like, nice leathers, but nice. Fancy shit like a suit or something.”
A sense of dread crept over me. “Do I look like I do?”
“Didn’t think so,” he laughed. “It’s all good, I was just curious. Vance has tailors and seamstresses and shit, though they’ll probably need a whole bolt of cloth for you.”
“What exactly would these things be needed for?”
We reached the front porch of the bar. Dyno grabbed the door and held it open for us as he explained.
“The governor’s throwing a dinner party in honor of us bringing his daughter back safely. It’s gonna be one of those big, grand ballroom type of things. Dignitaries and officials from allied territories will be there. Other important assholes, I dunno. Yo, a bottle of whiskey! Shadow, what’re you drinking?”
“Um, whiskey’s fine.”
Dyno slapped my chest as we made our way to a table. “We’re heroes now, dude! Aren’t you stoked?”
“What are we supposed to do at parties like this?” I asked. “I barely know how to be around people as it is.”
“Relax, man.” T-Bone had his arm around Grudge’s shoulders, tangling his fingers in the silent man’s long hair. “You’re around people right now. Hell, you’re hanging out with us! And you barely know us compared to the rest of your crew.”
“I like you guys better than some of the Demons,” I admitted. “And I can be in places like this,” I gestured around me to the bar, “without much issue. It’s ballrooms and important people who are complete strangers that I’m unsure about.”
“Important people are just like normal people.” Dyno pulled an empty chair over and stretched his legs over it. “Although, we might get a lot of weird questions from these fucking politicians because they know jack shit about our lives.”
“They want to live vicariously through us,” T-Bone smirked. “Like all we do is ride and fuck chicks. It’s no big deal, Shadow. Just wear the fancy threads, drink the good shit, smoke the Cubans, and enjoy yourself.”
“I’ll try.”
The whiskey bottle placed on our table called out to me to finish it, to numb the anxiety and retreat into the dark recesses of my mind. I knew if I did, I’d find another bottle and finish that one too. And then maybe another, however many it took to wrap myself in that protective layer of numbness.
But now I felt stronger in