Unplugged: A Bad Boy Rockstar Romance (33 page)

Henry lifted a hand to signal to their
waitress and shook his head.
“
No, I
don’t think so Ned. Just holler at us if you remember
anything else, or if you see any strange ou
t-of-towners
around.
”

“I will,”
said Ned. Henry paid the bill and shook
Ned
’
s hand. The MC left him to finish his
breakfast.

As they exited, Jase lingered in the
foyer behind to wait for Drake as he sweet-talked one of the waitresses near
the pie cabinet,
preferring to be the last one out.
Drake came sauntering by him as he held open the door when he stopped and
sniffed the air.

“Ha, I
’
d know that delightful musk anywhere,
”
said Drake. He poked two playful fingers
into Jase
’
s chest.
“
You got yourself some p
ussy bro! Light me up.
”
He put up a hand waiting for a
high-five.

Instead, Jase
’
s eyes went wide and he grabbed Drake by
the collar, shoving him up against a novelty claw arcade machine in the corner
of the lobby. Jase looked around to make sure no one fr
om the MC was eyeballing them, but the rest of the men had grouped in the
parking lot.

“
What the fuck is your deal?
”
said Drake. He gave the hands around his
collar a stinking expression.

“
You wanna keep your goddamn voice down,
Drake?
”
said Jase. He
released
Drake
’
s shirt with a huff.
“
I
don’t need you spouting my business to
everyone in this fucking town.
”

“
Spouting your business? Christ, man, we
’
re in a motorcycle club, since when is
it news when we get pussy?
”
said Drake.
“Unless…”
His eyebrows wen
t up, eyes behind
his sunglasses wide.
“
Unless it
’
s secret pussy. Or
forbidden
pussy. Are you sticking it to Oliver
Jr.?!
”
He poked fingers into Jase
’
s chest again and Jase swatted his hand
away.

Jase got low and close to his face.
“
Drake, this is not a f
ucking joke,
”
he said.
“
If you say a word of this to Henry or anyone else, I will
beat the shit out of you.
”

“Dude, I
’
m just here to congratulate you on your
victory,
”
said Drake with his hands up in
surrender. He had that shit-eating grin on his face he a
lways got when he talked his way out of a punch.
“
That is some prime beef on your grill.
”

“Don’t
fucking talk about her like that,
”
said Jase, stepping away from him.
“
Just keep your mouth shut, alright?
”

“
You have my word, brother. But you
’
re probably
kidding
yourself if you think Henry can’t smell that, too.
”
Drake laughed and straightened his
sunglasses before he headed out into the parking lot. Jase took a few deep
breaths to calm his anger, and then followed him.

The rest of the men waited by the bi
kes, and nearly finished with their post-coffee smoke. Jase
lit his own and took a puff before he spoke.
“
So what is the feeling about this guy?
”

“
That he hasn’t had a hot meal in ten
years,
”
said Drake with a chuckle from the seat
of his bike.

“He
’
s the
only
person to mention seeing the Crosses at the roadhouse. I don’t know what to
make of that,
”
said
Beck.

“
If I remember the map of the bar from
the sheriff
’
s report, Ned
’
s table was somewhere near the back end
of the roadhouse. If they weren’t being craz
y, and
they left early, I say they could have gone unnoticed on a busy night,
”
said Henry.

“
And why did they leave early?
”
said Drake.

“
Is it possible they knew about the
shooting? Could they be in on it?
”
said Jase.

Henry and Beck exchanged glances. The y
ounger generation of Black Dogs had little interaction with
the Rebel Cross.
“
Sure, they could be involved in a
shootout, but it still doesn’t explain why they were involved in
this
shootout, or what they were looking for,
”
said Henry.

“
If they were
looking
for bikers, maybe they were trying to settle a score,
”
said Drake with a shrug.

“Haven’t
heard about anything like that down the
pipeline,
”
said Beck.
“You
’
d think a club with beef that bad with
the Crosses would have spoken up by now. And it woul
dn’t
explain the drive-by at Maggie
’
s unless the beef was with us, and I
can’t find anybody who has heard of one.
”

Something was nagging at Jase.
“
Ned said their table left a few
half-empty pitchers of beer. Party night at the roadhouse, pitchers started,
that sounds to me like they were planning on getting
comfortable, and something changed the plan.
”

The group was silent for a minute.
Finally Jase continued,
“
If we had planned the shooting in a
place we knew some Black Dogs might be hanging out, we would
try to clear them out, right? Not just to keep them from
getting hurt, mind you. But if what we were after was tied to an MC, and we
mowed down members of every club
except
our own, we
’
d basically be solving the case for the
cops.
”

Henry said,
“
They
’
re loo
king
mighty suspicious right now. We have to follow up on this, quietly. It seems
very unlikely these two things are not related.
”

Jase couldn’t believe how messy this
entire thing was getting. A few days ago, his biggest concern was fine-tuning
the angry
speech he was going to give his
ex-girlfriend who had just blown back into town. Now he was unraveling a
criminal plot to murder her that was beginning to look bigger than any of them
expected. He rubbed a tired hand over his face and hair.

Henry pulled u
p
his phone and got on the line with Tommy back at the clubhouse. He had him go
through some of the club
’
s paperwork to find an old contact Henry knew at one point
who had a line with the Rebel Cross. It had been a few years since they had
spoken, thanks t
o the Crosses being mostly
non-existent in LeBeau
’
s world, but it seemed to be the only lead he could follow
for the moment while still remaining under the radar.

“
Until we have a better handle on this
thing, I don’t want it getting out that we
’
re checking
out the Rebel Cross,
”
said Henry as they loaded up.

“Gotcha, boss,”
said Jase. He straddled his bike and
pulled his phone out of his pocket to give it a last check before he put his
gloves on. He had a text from a number he didn’t
recognize.

It said simply:
“Sorry.”

Jase stared at it as the bikes rumbled
to life around him. For a few seconds, he contemplated a response to Maggie.
Instead he dropped the phone into his cut pocket and finished putting on his
gloves.

~
THIRTEEN ~

All she could think about yesterday
morning, before the drive-by, was getting as far away from Jase as possible.
Now that she had her wish, Maggie wanted to take it back.

It wasn’t that she was ready to talk
about walking out on him, quite the opposite, b
ut the
sudden vacancy created by his absence felt so much darker and absolute now.
Maybe it was just stress-induced trauma making everything look bigger and
meaner than it actually was. Maybe it was because the feelings she’d had for
Jase had never been ki
lled, but merely buried alive,
and now they tore through the dirt of her mind, bent on reclamation. Even if he
didn’t talk to her, even if he spent all day in a different room of the
clubhouse, Maggie wished he had stayed.

Tommy and Ghost did their best t
o keep her cheered up and occupied. At first, she had
hidden away in her room like a stubborn teenager, planning to tick away the day
in isolation. A quiet knock on her door and an invitation to lunch had changed
that. They let Maggie pick whatever she wan
ted and
sent Ghost out to pick it up. To their delight, she felt like nothing more than
a giant, greasy pizza and a bunch of beer. They kicked up their heels in the
den as they ate, the jukebox playing softly against the wall.

“
Now, this is my kind of assi
gnment,
”
said Ghost as he lowered a line of dangling cheese into his
mouth.
“
Think about those jerks out there in the
hot sun, all beer-less.
”

“
Well, thinking about that just makes me
feel like a lazy dickhead,
”
said Tommy.
“
Shouldn’t we be helping?
”

“
We
are
helping,
”
said Ghost. He gestured his beer bottle
to Maggie.
“We
’
re supposed to keep her alive, and
eating is part of being alive.
”

Maggie popped an olive into her mouth
and raised an eyebrow.
“He
’
s got you there, Tommy.
”

“
In that case,
”
said Tommy wit
h
a laugh as he uncapped another beer.

The three of them had a pleasant few
hours doing a whole lot of nothing but eating pizza, drinking beer, and telling
stories. Maggie didn’t know either one of them well, so she had the pleasure of
hearing fresh tales
from the exploits of the MC,
instead of the rehashed greatest hits from the old timers. It didn’t completely
distract her from thoughts of Jase. Like a sea monster in the ocean of her
mind, he always lingered just beneath the surface of any thought.

Some
mechanical
problem interrupted the meeting, and Ghost went out to help one of the rookies
with an engine on a bike. Maggie didn’t quite feel up to spending one-on-one
time with anyone, even someone as nice as Tommy. A group tended to keep things
light, but
duos invited secrets. She just wanted to
breathe for a while. She told Tommy she was going to take a nap in her room,
and mostly did that. But first, she squirmed around a while trying to fight off
the urge to contact Jase.

In a moment of weakness while
Ghost was getting the pizza, Maggie had asked Tommy for
Jase
’
s cell number as a precaution. Tommy had
given it up without a second thought, for obvious reasons, but Maggie
’
s motives weren’t so pure. She was
hurting. She couldn’t believe how badly she misse
d
him. She hated thinking about him out around danger, alone, without her
—
as if some childish part of her heart
thought she could protect him. And her guilt about the night before was
crushing.

After four or five false starts, Maggie
decided to keep her te
xt message simple.
“Sorry.”

She waited for him to reply for about an
hour-- enough time that she knew, rationally, he had looked and decided to
ignore it. The first fifteen minutes of waiting gave her chest pains so bad,
she thought she was having a heart
attack. But by the
last fifteen minutes, it had melted and dulled to join the chronic mix of pain
that had settled somewhere between her heart and stomach. She knew in her mind
that she didn’t deserve a text back. Everything she was doing just displayed he
r cowardice. But she had hoped for one, anyway.

You don’t
deserve a lot of the things you get.

The thought hurt her, but Maggie knew it
to be true. Last night proved she wasn’t the only one with leftover feelings
burning her world down. But she didn’t des
erve
whatever feelings Jase still had for her. Anyone could see she just brought
trouble.

Maggie did fall into a light nap for a
while before the rumble of approaching bikes woke her with a start. Her dreams
had been tense, not quite nightmares, but still
enough that she woke surprised by the sweat on her clothes. She took a shower
and changed, but afterwards a quick glance at her phone on the nightstand
confirmed there were still no new messages.

Maggie ran a brush through her curls and
tried to get her h
ead on straight. Jase would be back
soon, and she still had no idea what she was going to say to him. She went into
the den for a few minutes to check in with Tommy and steal a pack of smokes
from Ghost. Some of the bikers on smaller tasks arrived back to
the clubhouse first, and the den started to get crowded
with loud, smoking dudes passing around beers. Maggie didn’t have the energy
for it. She took a few beers and her fresh pack and told Tommy she was going to
go out back. 

“
Do you need me to come with
you?
”
said Tommy.

“I’ll
be fine, I’ll stay close,
”
said Maggie.
“
Just poke your head out every once in a
while, right?
”

Tommy seemed settled with her answer.
Truly, Maggie wasn’t in any hurry to put herself in danger, but the backyard of
the clubhouse
didn’t strike her as vulnerable. The
huge space had once been used as a range before Rudy
’
s opened, but now it was just for
barbeques and summer nights. It had a full privacy fence on its perimeter with
motion sensor lighting. And then there was the clubho
use-full
of heavily armed bikers just feet away to consider.

Maggie opened the back door. Twilight
was already beginning to fall, the sky a swirling mix of pinks and blues that
hung in the still air. The yard was empty. Maggie walked the extra feet out to
the northern fence where a large picnic table had been set
up and sat up on the tabletop, making herself comfortable before she tore into
the beer and smokes.

Night had all but arrived before the
clubhouse door opened again. She turned to wave at who she a
ssumed would be Tommy checking up on her. But instead she
saw Jase, hands in his pockets, hesitating under the porch light.

Maggie felt her chest tighten. The
cigarette in her hand began to tremble.

“Fuck,”
she whispered to herself. She looked
away from h
im and took a good long drag. She heard
his footsteps approaching in the grass and quickly stamped out the smoke.

“
Not in the mood to party, or what?
”
said Jase from behind her.

Maggie didn’t
turn. She took a drink of beer.
“It
’
s too loud in there.
”

“Yeah,”
said Jase.
“
That kind of aversion happens a lot
after trauma.
”

“I
’
m fine,
”
said Maggie on impulse. She winced at
the harsh edge on her tone that she hadn’t intended.

“
I didn’t mean
…” Jase
’
s voice trailed off in the dark. He let
the misunderstandin
g die and just stood in silence
for a few moments. Then he said,
“
We found some good leads today. Sounds like your ex had
some connections to an MC around here that
’
s probably helping him out. I think this
might be close to over.
”

“
That
’
s great news,
”
said
Maggie,
though she was barely processing what he told her. She realized she still
hadn’t found the guts to turn and look at him. She did her best by offering him
a beer, and giving him a pained smile when he accepted it. Even then, she could
only look for
a few seconds.

Jase opened his beer and tossed the cap
carelessly at the picnic table. He took a long drink.

Maggie cleared her throat.
“
I sent you a text
…”

“
I got it,
”
said Jase.

Maggie nodded and stared at the beer in
her lap until Jase came around the
table to stand in
front of her. He said,
“
Does that mean you want to tell me what the fuck happened
last night?

Maggie looked up at him. Even in the low
light from the porch, she could see the twisted expression on his face, the
pain in his eyes. She uncr
ossed her legs and sat on
the table
’
s edge. “
I
don’t know, Jase, I just...I got mixed
up.
”

As if to calm his nerves, he finished
his beer off while she talked and dropped the bottle to the grass.
“
So, what, you just fucked me because you
were confused?
”
sa
id Jase, a
little louder than she would have liked. She looked back towards the clubhouse
and saw nothing but empty light.

“No,”
she said.
“
No, it
’
s not like that. I mean I didn’t
….”
Her thoughts rushed through her head,
clogging the channels in their effo
rts to escape at
the same time.

Jase seemed to take a step back. He
looked off towards the horizon where stars had begun to bloom into view, and
breathed deeply.
“I
’
m not trying to stress you out, I
’
m sorry. After everything you’ve been
through
…”

“
I want
to be
honest with you,
”
she
said, grasping her hands together.
“
I
just can’t
get
it out.
”

“
What if I go first?
”
said Jase. He watched the night sky.