Stay Vertical (The Bare Bones MC #2)(45)

It sounded like smacking and chewing. Some animal was probably eating garbage. Instinctively, Lytton took a few steps to peek around the corner of the trash receptacle. What he saw stunned him so profoundly he fumbled the poison and nearly dropped the bottles.

Turk Blackburn was on his knees hungrily gobbling down the erect cock of another biker.

Lytton felt as though his brain was bleeding. Shocked to the core, his entire consciousness felt sucked from the top of his head.

It was evidently Turk giving head to the rough-and-tumble, teddy bear animal of a biker. Lytton knew right off by the man bun at the back of his head, some locks of which had slid out in the biker’s eager mauling of his skull. Turk gripped the guy by the hips and pistoned his head back and forth with such vigor, it was obviously not his first time. The teddy bear’s eyes rolled up in their sockets and the muscles of his hairy, well-developed chest and abs rippled and tensed with pure pleasure.

It took Lytton a few seconds to fully recover and take a breath. He soundlessly tiptoed around to the front of the trash bin. He just prayed the teddy bear hadn’t seen him. He lifted the lid. He was in luck—the trash already in there was filled almost to the brim, although he knew it wouldn’t be picked up for another two days—he’d checked. He could easily reach over and place the bottles somewhat quietly atop the apple cores and empty envelopes already inside.

He quietly lowered the lid and made tracks in his Nikes. Holy shit. That wasn’t the first thing I expected to see while doing this job. He mentally filed the sight away under “Blackmail to be Used Later.” So Turk Blackburn was an inspector of manholes? Lytton knew right off the bat that would not go over well with the outlaw biker crowd. That was probably the reason the couple was literally skulking in back alleys kneeling at the altar. Interesting. Very interesting.

Now Lytton’s heart started pounding, a bit belatedly, as he power walked past the Staples truck, whipping his ski mask off and tossing it into some bum’s lair.

He wanted a drink. This retribution business wasn’t what it was cracked up to be.





CHAPTER THIRTEEN




JUNE


You know those events where you look back and go, well, maybe if I just wouldn’t have done XX, then XX wouldn’t have happened? They explore that in science fiction all the time. I think they call it “probable realities.” In some of my probable realities, I didn’t study hydraulic engineering but maybe nursing, like my sister. In one of her probable realities, maybe she was the engineer, and so on. In some of mine, I’m already dead. I died in Kenya during one of those tribal cattle raids. Or, really, during any of the dozens of dodgy border crossings where boys armed with machine guns rob you of your last cigarette.

Or maybe it’s just called “second guessing.”

It started out just being one of those dumb-ass things. I’d left my phone at Lytton’s.

I was almost to Mormon Lake in my rental car when I realized that, so it was natural to go back to his house. He’d already gone out on his bike with Toby on some sort of errand. I had the impression it had to do with sabotaging Ford in some way. He’d been obsessed with retaliation against Ford ever since finding out about Cropper’s death. The night before last, I’d asked Lytton if he could ever, under any circumstances, see forgiving Ford.

No f*cking way. That was basically his response.

I knew I’d break down Lytton eventually. One move in the right direction was him asking me to be his old lady. I was shocked and overjoyed to accept his plain brown leather cuff. He didn’t say anything about love, but then, tough guys like him rarely do. We had basically been f*cking the past thirty hours, the next few times with rubbers, so I had plans to go back on the pill.

Lytton had to know that blood was thicker than water. After all he’d been through with his tribal identity, that girl he mentioned who’d dumped him when she found out he wasn’t a full-blood native, I imagined he’d give more weight to the few people he discovered who truly were his blood relations.

I wanted to ask Madison permission to tell Lytton about Ford’s reasoning behind the murder. It would have been betrayal to tell him without permission.

I didn’t exactly want to do that over the phone, but that’s what I was thinking about when driving down toward Mormon Lake when I realized my phone was back in Lytton’s bedroom.

It was a Saturday, so Crybaby’s “rice rocket” Suzuki wasn’t in the driveway, just Helium Head’s Prius and Toby’s Camry. I couldn’t find my phone in Lytton’s bedroom, which was strange, so I went into the family room to look for it. This was basically the Leaves of Grass’ office, where they printed pot accounting reports off their marijuana program and played video games. It was also where they ate. Chemists were predictably notorious for disorderly conduct in their housekeeping, so I sifted through stacks of bar and pie charts that were spotted with hamburger and other grease.

I’ll keep a tidy house when Lytton and I live together. I stood tall and looked blankly at the wall. What am I thinking? Live together? He hasn’t even bought me a proper collar yet. Lytton was so dead set in his retaliation against his brother, I knew he didn’t have the right amount of space in his brain for me. It would take time for him to get over it and stop obsessing on revenge. In the meantime, I’d be there for him.

I was about to go down to the greenhouses and ask Helium Head if he’d seen my phone when I heard crunching footsteps coming down the back path toward the house. I was staring dully at a profit and loss spreadsheet when the back kitchen screen door banged shut and heavy boots stomped into the adjoining kitchen.