Crash (Brazen Bulls MC #1)(25)

“Shit,” he grumbled and snatched it off his belt. The number was a code, directing him to call the clubhouse, and it ended with ‘911,’ meaning he needed to call immediately. There was some kind of trouble.

“Sorry, baby. I need your phone.” He lifted her off his lap and set her carefully back on the sofa.

“Trouble?”

“Maybe.” He looked around the living room but didn’t see a phone.

“It’s on the kitchen wall.”

He eased out from under her legs and picked up a throw pillow to prop up her knee as he stood. When he went to the kitchen, Ollie followed him, stopping in the doorway. Rad had the impression that he was being kept in sight.

Her phone was an old model, in that rancid gold color that had been big in the Seventies. That surprised him; it clashed with the rest of the kitchen, and Willa’s style was precise. He picked up the handset and dialed the clubhouse.

As he waited for the call to connect, he noticed a small chalkboard on the wall above the phone, in a curlicue metal frame with the white paint rubbed artfully off. His card was tucked in the frame. In blue chalk was the beginning of a grocery list: toothpaste, tampons, butter (x2), rye flour. Rad grinned; she had round, pretty handwriting, with a flourish to her Ps and Ys.

“Yeah,” was Dane’s gruff answer. Rad heard the twang of the jukebox in the background—Randy Travis, singing about a better class of losers.

“Rad callin’ in.”

“What’s your 20?”

“Northside. What’s up?” There shouldn’t be trouble. They were between gun runs, and they hadn’t finished the plans for the scouting run north. For the next week or so, they were just mechanics and Harley riders.

“Gunner.”

“Fuck. Where?” Gunner was the club’s loose cannon, a younger patch with a mountain for a chip on his shoulder and a crazy sense of humor about it. They tried to keep a brother on him, because he had a whole gut full of bloodlust. That could come in handy in a fight, or when they needed to persuade some *, but on his own, it meant costly damage to life and property. Often Gunner’s own life and property—he loved nothing better than unwinnable odds. With enough Southern Comfort in him, he’d take on a whole army singlehandedly, knowing full well he’d lose. It was like he was looking to get beaten to death.

“Terry’s. Lita called—he’s got the place fully involved.”

“Fuck me sideways. He alone?” Terry’s was a Northside pool hall, so he was close. But full involvement was more than he could handle himself. And nobody at Terry’s was going to be calling law. That brawl would go until there was nobody standing to fight. “I need Eight and Ox. Simon, too.”

“He’s alone. Already paged Eight. I’ll get Simon next. I’ll have ‘em meet you. Ox is on his way in the flatbed. I don’t think Gun’ll be ready to ride.”

“Alright. Fuck this kid, I’m tellin’ you.”

Dane hung up with a smoky chuckle. Rad was not laughing when he put the handset back.

Ollie was no longer guarding the doorway when Rad went back to the living room. He was standing with Willa, who was on her feet, in the middle of the open space between the living and dining rooms—as if she’d been curious but hadn’t wanted to eavesdrop. Her arms were crossed over her waist.

“There’s trouble?”

“Little bit, yeah. Gotta go help a brother. I’m sorry, baby. I can’t stay after all.”

“Okay.”

He reached out to her, but she moved to the side, eluding him, and limped over to the box on her sideboard. Keys in hand, she crossed to the front door and began opening the locks.

First chance he got, he was replacing her door and putting safe locks on the f*cker.

The atmosphere in the house had chilled markedly, in a way that made the back of Rad’s neck prickle. She was putting guards back up. He went to her and laid his hand at the small of her back. “Willa. I’d stay if I could.”

“I know. I get it.” she turned the last lock and opened the door. “Go help your brother.”

It occurred to him to say he’d come back later that night, but he had no idea what was in store for him at Terry’s, and after she’d laid herself open to him, he didn’t want a make a promise he wasn’t sure he could keep.

He caught hold of her hand. “I’ll call you.”

At least she smiled and gave his fingers a squeeze. “Okay. Be safe.”

“Do my best.” He bent to kiss her, meaning to make it good, to let her know that he really did want to stay, but she didn’t open her mouth for him. It was the first time that she didn’t give over to his touch.

He had to go, so he backed off and said, simply, “I’ll call.”

She nodded, and he headed toward his truck as she shut the door and turned the locks.

Fuck. Women were complicated business. He’d be better off in a pool hall brawl.



oOo



Terry’s Billards took up just shy of half a block in Tulsa’s Greenwood District, a historic area that had once been an enclave for affluent African Americans. Most of the district had been burned to the ground in a massive race riot in the Twenties. The community rebuilt, but then the district started to fail again in the Fifties and Sixties, as suburbs grew up around the city, and then a chunk of the area was leveled when they put up the expressway in the Seventies.