Page 46 of Tormented
THIRTEEN
Sawyer
Rejection never did really fly with me. Her shoulders hunch as she walks into the clubhouse, cool, calm, and collected. And yet here I stand, anything but. The frustration boils inside until I literally shake from the pent-up energy.
Thank fuck I’m leaving in the morning with the Cali boys.
Told you she’d be trouble . . . .
Bullshit, you did. Fucking encouraged me to try and crack her, and now here we are, huh? How do you like that?
Well, when asking politely doesn’t get what you want, then you know what to do . . . .
Not again. I’m not that man anymore, and be fucked if one goddamn puzzle I can’t figure out is going to change that. Maybe it’s for the best? Maybe this is just fate’s way of redirecting me to what’s really important now: Mack.
That kid’s entering the most critical part of his life: the years that shape the man. And maybe it’ll hurt for a while that I’m not going to be around as much as I should, but it’s for the best.
Keep telling yourself that . . . .
What would you know? Asshole.
More than you realize . . . .
I let out a growl at the smarmy fucker in my head as I bash the heels of my hands into my temples. One day. Just one day without the asshole in there, pushing and pulling the levers, steering me in the wrong direction.
It’s only wrong to you . . . .
“Shut up!” I roar, eyes jammed shut with the force of my words.
It only takes seconds before Hooch shows his face. “What’s up, brother?”
“Another day in fuckin’ paradise,” I announce sarcastically, arms thrown wide.
He chuckles, stepping out into the mild morning sun. “What you doin’ for the day?”
“Hadn’t decided.” I know what I’d rather be doing, but the other half of that equation isn’t quite so keen.
“You want me to send your shit over to LA for you?”
“Fuck.” I hadn’t even thought about the few things I’d acquired in the weeks I’d been at Fort Worth. “Yeah, that’d be good, man.”
“No sweat.” He eyes me cautiously, and then pulls up a free chair. “So.”
“So,” I echo.
“You think runnin’ across the country will really get him off your back?”
I sigh, dropping into the seat Abbey was in. “Fuck knows.”
“How do you feel about King’s plan?”
He wants to steal the distribution out from under my father’s nose. Thinks that the revenue will get the club out of the financial shit nobody knew it was in. Reckons that for this one time he can drop the club’s morals and get involved in the drug trade, all in the name of keeping the Fallen Aces running into the future.
“He’s playin’ with fire,” I answer. “It sounds easy enough in theory, but he of all people should know what it’s like to wrestle something my old man wants out of his tyrannical grasp.” Shit—it took King almost ten years just to get my father’s ex-wife, and King’s baby mama, out of the line of fire.
For now anyway.
“It’s risky,” Hooch agrees, “but do you see another way?”