"Sorry, man," I said. "I didn't realize she was back in town."
I sat there in silence, digging the toe of my boot into the cement. Dani was a nice girl, don’t get me wrong, but when you start to get so wrapped up in a piece of ass that you forget where your priorities lie, that’s a big fucking problem. And I was worried that Blaze had forgotten his priorities.
“You ever think about having a family?” Blaze asked, his eyes still half-closed.
“Used to,” I said. “Not anymore.” Once, though. A long time ago. There was this girl, back then...
“Because of the club?”
That ship had sailed for me.
I shrugged. "I don’t know. It’s not like you’re ever going to get the white picket fence and shit, doing this.”
“You think you can have both?”
“I don’t know, man,” I said. “People in the club have families, keep them separate.”
“You think it’s possible to keep them separate?” Blaze’s eyes were open now, but he was staring off into the distance. I wasn’t comfortable with wherever the fuck this conversation was headed.
“You having some kind of personal crisis or some shit?” I asked.
Blaze was silent for a while, and when he spoke, I didn’t believe him. “Of course not. It’s not like I’d ever leave the club.”
“Does Dani want you to leave?” Dani had never seemed like the type to want to be part of the MC lifestyle, even if she’d proven she had the balls to handle it. She had an air of being above all this shit.
“No, man,” Blaze said. “She’d never ask me to do that. She knows it’s been part of me forever.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know. It’s all going fine, the gig with Benicio and shit. It’s sometimes I just get to thinking about where we’re headed, what the long term plan is.”
~
Where we were headed is that I knew there was going to be a vote on the cartel thing, but I didn't tell him. I wanted to see the look on his fucking face when he showed up for church and found out just how much he'd been missing by visiting Dani all goddamn year.
I was pissed off at him for neglecting the club.
It was petty, especially in light of what was happening now.
Crunch's voice jolted me back to the present.
“You ever think about coming back here?” he asked.
“I used to,” I said. Not anymore.
“This place is a fucking trip,” he said. “Maybe because I grew up in the city or whatever, but holy shit, it’s small.”
I laughed, wiping my palm on my jeans. “You think this is small? It’s huge now. It was an event when we got a traffic light here. The newspaper covered it.”
Crunch laughed. “No shit?”
“Not only did they cover it, they sent out a reporter to stand by the side of the road, interview people after they went though. Caused a traffic jam.”
"Guess you knew everybody here, huh.”
"Everybody knew everybody," I said.
Crunch nodded. "You and June seemed like you knew each other pretty well."
I groaned. Not this. I didn't want to talk about June. I didn't want to think about her.
My dad saved me, waving at us from the porch. "I think we’re wanted up there, man,” I said.
"So I'm not going to get the story on June, then."
"Not on your life," I said. I glanced behind us, over toward June's house. I hadn't seen her, not even run into her, since the night I'd gotten back here. I'd drunk too much, gone over there thinking I might get lucky. Like she was a club whore or something.
It was stupid, and I deserved worse than I got from her that night.
We walked toward the house. "How's Mac doing with all of this, anyway?" I asked.
“She’s an easy kid,” he said. “Been taking it in stride. She thinks it’s a big vacation.”
“That’s good.”
“We probably need to get them out of here.”
I nodded. “I think it would be for the best.”
“You think shit’s going to hit the fan out here?”
"Not yet," I said. "You been working on getting us any intel?"
Crunch nodded. "Seeing if I can get anything through the medical examiner's office, newspapers, that kind of thing. Doesn't look like the ME's office has anything I can hack into though. Might all be old school."
"Can we get them back with your mother-in-law?"
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s how we had planned it anyway. Should we get them set up?”
"Let's wait, see what intel we can get," I said. "If they think we're dead, at least right now, we may be able to buy some time, get in touch with Blaze."
"You think we should get in touch with Benicio?"
"Not Benicio," I said. "Blaze might know him, but I don't."
“If shit goes down, this isn’t the place to be,” Crunch said.
"I don't know about that," I said. "This town's full of ranchers, armed to the teeth. But yeah, I don't want anything coming down on my old man."