“Nope. You?”
Reed rounded the desk and flopped down in his leather chair, raking both hands through his messy black hair. “No clue. Are the guys keeping their eyes open?”
Gage nodded. “Nobody’s seen a thing.”
“And yet we’ve talked to dozens of people who claim they bought the stuff right here in the club.” Reed ground out an expletive. “We need to find this asshole.”
Gage shared his partner’s anger. With the number of people who packed the club on a nightly basis, it was impossible to stop customers from coming in with a few lines of coke or some tablets of E, not unless they thoroughly searched everyone at the door. Which meant they had no choice but to tolerate some drugs floating around Sin. But someone selling the stuff directly from the club was a big fat no-no. The cops would shut them down in a heartbeat, and Gage wasn’t about to lose the hefty profits the club brought in.
“I’ll tell the guys to be extra alert tonight,” he said, sinking into the armchair across from the desk. “Once we figure out who the dealer is, it’ll be easy to put him out of commission.”
“Good.” Reed grabbed a pack of Camels from the desk and lit a cigarette, then proceeded to blow a cloud of smoke in Gage’s direction.
He winced, trying not to inhale. “You just have to flaunt it in my face, don’t you? I’m trying to quit, asshole.”
“You’ve been trying to quit for two years.”
“This time it’ll stick.”
“Ha. Sure.” His friend suddenly broke out in a grin. “Hey, so when can I expect the deets about your lady friend? You know, the one you almost boned in the alley yesterday?”
He stifled a sigh. It had been too much to hope that Reed wouldn’t bring it up. “It was nothing,” he mumbled.
Reed smirked. “Didn’t look like nothing.”
“Well, it was.”
Liar.
All right, so maybe it had been the furthest thing from nothing. Maybe he’d stayed awake half the night thinking about Skyler. Maybe he’d jerked off three times before the arousal had finally dissipated, and even then, it still lingered under the surface, waiting for any opportunity to rear up again.
But he didn’t regret sending her away. If she didn’t have the word “relationship” written on her forehead in huge block letters, he might’ve given in and taken her to bed, but he got the feeling she was the kind of girl who wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than a commitment. Well, Gage didn’t do commitments. He wasn’t cut out for relationships—past experience had proved that—and he wasn’t about to risk breaking another heart.
Women like Skyler deserved better than a breathless, hurried screw outside a nightclub, and besides, she was only twenty-four, which made her way too young for him. Not that he was an old man at the ripe age of thirty, but Lord, he felt that way sometimes. Felt like he’d lived ten lifetimes already.
“Fine, I’ll drop it,” Reed said. “Just know that I wholeheartedly approve of last night or any future nights you might spend with your mystery girl. It was kinda hard to tell from a security feed, but she looked hot.”
Gage rolled his eyes again. Of course Reed approved. Hot was the only requirement the guy had for hooking up, with temporary coming in at a close second. Reed was a player to the core, and had been from the moment Gage met him, back when they were two punk-ass teenagers growing up in South Boston. They’d both dreamed of becoming professional MMA fighters, though Gage’s style leaned toward boxing while Reed was an out-and-out brawler, not above fighting dirty. And they’d both retired at the same time, taking the cash they’d earned over the years to open the club.
“Are you fighting tomorrow?”
The abrupt demand summoned an inward groan. “Yeah.” He kept his tone vague.
“Only one more after that, right?” Reed asked carefully.
“Two more.”
“And then you and Mitch are square?”
“Yep.”
“You sure about that?”
He met Reed’s uneasy expression head-on. “Damn sure.”
After a beat of silence, his friend heaved out a breath. “I sincerely hope Denny appreciates what you do for him, bro.”
“He does.”
“Yeah? ’Cause I don’t see a lot of gratitude coming your way.” Reed took a quick drag, this time polite enough to exhale in the opposite direction. “Look, you and I go way back. Which means Denny and I go way back too. And in all these years, not once have I heard a thank you leave that little bastard’s mouth.”
Gage stiffened. “Watch it, man. He’s my brother.”
“Doesn’t make him any less of a bastard.” Reed leaned forward and snuffed out his cigarette in the ashtray. “The way I see it, a real man cleans up his own messes.”