#Junkie (GearShark #1)(17)

Actually? Yes.

I felt the muscle in my jaw jump. Was he questioning my loyalty to this house?

Fuck. That.

“I’ll be back Sunday,” I said, short, and then shouldered past him. I didn’t have to explain myself to him. I was the president. Not him.

“Say hi to Drew for me.” His words followed me as I jogged down the stairs.

It pissed me off. Everything about Con just then pissed me off.

Jack was standing just inside the living room with some guys, including a few of the brothers that rushed the same time I did.

They all glanced over and saw me and my bag. I tossed it over to the front door and slid the hat on my head, backward. “Hey,” I said, approaching the men. “I know it’s bro night, but something came up. I gotta head out.”

“Everything okay?” Scott asked.

“Yeah, it’s all good. Just something I need to do.”

“Shit happens,” the guy next to Scott drawled.

“Hells yeah,” I replied and slung an arm across Jack’s shoulders. “So listen up,” I said to the group of guys. I noted a few others close by looked our way.

“Since I’m gonna be gone, if you got a problem or something, see my man Jack here.”

Jack glanced up at me, surprise in his eyes.

“Think you can handle that, Jack?” I asked.

“I know I can,” he replied.

“I think we just got a nod from our prez,” Scott announced.

“Behave,” I told everyone within earshot.

They all saluted me with their SOLO cups.

I grimaced and pulled Jack along with me toward the door and my duffle. “You got a problem with me leaving?” I asked directly.

“Should I?” he countered.

“Nope.”

“Good enough for me.” He shrugged.

“You cool with keeping an eye on things?” I wanted him to know I was serious about that.

“Did you really just give me your support as the next president?”

I grinned. “Yep. So don’t f*ck up this weekend.”

He nodded seriously. “I won’t.”

I suppressed a laugh and picked up my bag. “See ya Sunday.”

I didn’t wait for him to reply. I was too anxious to get outside.

The Fastback was running and the headlights cut across the grass and asphalt. My stomach fluttered with excitement as I jogged toward it.

Road trips were fun.

Road trips with Drew.

Soon as I opened the door, he started riding my ass. “You color coordinate all your outfits? Bring along four pairs of shoes?”

I threw the bag into the backseat and slid into the dark interior of the Mustang.

“You took so long I almost ran out of gas,” he cracked.

“You waited,” I said and spread my hands out in a what can you do gesture.

Drew rolled his head in my direction and grinned. “Put on your seatbelt, frat boy. I got some driving to do.”





Drew

I don’t like French fries.

I love them.

Golden and crispy on the outside, warm and potatoey on the inside, with just enough salt to make it like a damn party in my mouth.

With ketchup.

A man couldn’t eat fries without a bucket of ketchup. And not some off-brand, bottom-shelf kind of ketchup. There was only one ketchup: Heinz.

About an hour from the hotel where Gamble so generously reserved me a room, we pulled off at some roadside diner that looked like a grease pit. That meant they probably had some kickass fries.

I was starving. I’d skipped dinner because right after I’d gotten the call from Gamble (not his assistant, but the man himself), I’d headed out to the driveway and did a complete tune-up on my car.

No, technically it didn’t need one.

But one didn’t simply not do a tune-up when they were driving for a man who could quite literally make your dreams come true.

“I’m so hungry I could eat my own cooking right about now,” I said, killing the engine and pocketing the keys.

Trent made a face. “No one’s that hungry.”

“I can make shit,” I argued.

“Yeah, shit that makes people sick,” Trent quipped.

He was right. I was the worst cook known to man. Sometimes I burned shit in the microwave… I didn’t even know that was possible until I did it.

“Like you’re any better,” I retorted as he pulled open the glass door to the bullet-shaped silver diner and stepped in.

“I’m better than you.” He flashed me a smile over his shoulder. The dark-green fleece pullover he wore had the collar turned up, and the backward hat worked together to give him a sort of mysterious look. Kind of covered up, like someone with a lot of layers.

I knew all of Trent’s layers.

Or did I?

I didn’t let on I was thinking about anything other than what we were talking about, and I chuckled. “Well, that is true.”

Trent didn’t cook much either, but he was better at it.

His stuff was at least edible.

There had been more than one night of hanging out and playing video games that we were too lazy to go get anything, and he’d managed to put together some pretty good eats in the kitchen.

The diner was just like the cliché kind you’d see on TV or find on a roadside during a random road trip like tonight.