Shelter From The Storm (The Bare Bones MC Book 6)(5)
The guard at the door let a couple of new customers in. They went straight for the edibles where we stood, but I wasn’t allowed to sell yet. I needed more training. I’d used a cash register at the tux rental place on the way out of town, but that was the extent of my working with the public. I sort of disliked the public, to be honest. But I was thrilled to be invited to work at A Joint System. It was much more up my alley then renting out frilly shirts to pizza-faced boys.
“Shadow August here for an hour or so. I’ve got to meet someone for lunch,” said Lytton. He patted me on the shoulder. “You’re gonna do great.”
My hormones were disappointed when the impossibly tall, gangly yet muscular babe took off out the back door. I heaved a giant inner sigh and took my assigned spot next to the crazy-haired, roly-poly ganjier, August. Lytton was married, and besides, having a hookup was the last thing I should be thinking about these days.
Yet I did.
Somehow all of this year’s excitement and drama had stirred my hormones, too. I was dying for a f*cking hookup! I was thirty, yet measuring those teenaged bucks for tuxes with my trusty measuring tape had me all in a tizzy. They were not young enough to be my sons, so it was okay, but even the older men going to some benefit or other had me running to the bathroom to frantically relieve the tension. That bathroom saw more action than any Navy regiment. Those clients were none the wiser because I could seal the deal in less than two minutes flat, wash up, and be back all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
My type was tall, dark, and handsome, and Lytton Driving Hawk fit the bill. With his burnished copper skin, hawk’s nose, and slickly shiny black hair, there was a man I’d like to get up on. I just had to keep these hormones under wraps for now. Besides, I certainly didn’t need June Driving Hawk on my ass. Some of these men seemed to belong to a motorcycle club named The Bare Bones, and their “old ladies” were scary to behold. Some of them wore leather jackets with patches that told everyone they were PROPERTY OF some biker, if you can believe that. Property of a man? Not a Chinaman’s chance in hell. Even before…the incident, I would have kicked and screamed at such subservience.
August was showing the customers some elixirs, talking about their “activation time” and serving size. “This one’s derived from indica, so it makes you relax. It’s a body high, slower than the sativa. Sativa is a head high. Makes you energetic.”
“This one’s a hybrid,” said the customer, pointing to a silver bottle. “What does that make you do?”
I was dying to hear the answer, but I just noticed that my phone had been chiming insistently for who knew how long. “Excuse me,” I whispered, backing away from the pot lesson. It rarely occurred to me to turn my phone off anymore. No one had the number.
It was a text from the girl who’d taken over for me at the formalwear place.
EMILY: Pippa, there’s a guy here for you. Says he’s a friend of the family.
I texted right back.
PIPPA: What’s his name?
It took Emily awhile. She came back with:
EMILY: Randy Blankenship.
PIPPA: Oh, that’s cool. I’ll be right down to get him.
Good gracious Ignatius! Why the f*ck was Randy coming to the tux rental store? Did we have an appointment I didn’t know about? I grabbed my purse and headed past the guard for the door after whispering to August that I was taking lunch.
I had to go back toward my apartment, to the small parking lot out back, to get into my sensible Toyota Corolla. The rental store was a mile back toward the interstate. My hands gripped the wheel as if my life depended on it, and I sure could’ve used a bowl of indica.
Had Emily told him I’d quit the tux rental biz? She had no reason to cover for me, to tell Randy I was just out to lunch. Emily was just a young “hang-around” of The Bare Bones, or should I say a “pass-around.” That was more accurate. I’d heard these women called “Bone Lickers.” Emily was basically a slut, with her tatted-up sleeves and multiple facial piercings. She was basically a bank, open for all depositors.
The second I thought that, I felt bad. I liked some of the Bare Bones women. June, with her Berkeley education, her management of the Leaves of Grass pot farm up the mountain, she was a down-to-earth woman. And of course June’s sister Madison, a registered nurse. I liked her most of all. She was the one who’d gotten me the Joint System job. We’d been chatting after she came to pick up some matching powder blue suits for an R&B singing group she said she knew. Since her husband Ford owned the shop, she wanted to know all about me.
Of course I gave her our cover version, the story I’d helped create with Randy and his boss. I was from San Francisco, and I’d gotten my plant biology degree from Davis. The second Maddy heard that, well, she was all over how I was too good to be working in a tux rental place. How I could at least put my knowledge to use working at the weed dispensary. I wondered if perhaps I hadn’t blown it too heavily, but the lure of working with chemistry again had me throwing caution to the wind.
I had not informed Randy Blankenship.
And now he was pacing in front of the store, his irritation obvious a mile away. Randy was basically a cool guy, I liked to tell myself. He was just bound by an overbearing network of rules and regulations the government constricted him with. Deep down, he was a cool guy who wanted the best for me.
Or was he?