“Ready. Let’s go,” King said.
“Nah, man. No need to put yourself at risk for this shit. I’m gonna get out there, neutralize the bullshit and get the fucking girl out of your house. The sooner I do that the sooner I can hit the road again.”
“Fuck off. I’m going with you.” He pointed to the door of the apartment. “You know you can stay, right? That apartment is yours. Always has been. Rebuilt it with you being there in mind. Also, I built something else. A sort of fall out building, it’s on the island.”
“Fallout building? Like a bomb shelter?” I asked. The back island was an acre of land that blended into the shoreline of the preserve on the other side of the bay. If you looked across the water from King’s property you couldn’t see that it was even an island. When King and Prep had first moved in he didn’t even know it was there until we came up on it by boat.
“Something like that. I’ll show you one of these days,” King said.
I shook my head. “Won’t be here long enough. Just me being here puts you and your family in danger. You got kids now man. Wouldn’t be able to live with myself if something happened to them.”
Like something happened to Preppy.
That wasn’t your fault, dick slick. It was mine. I literally couldn’t dodge that bullet. See what I did there? Oh my shit I’m hilarious.
“Do you think I’m stupid? I’m not. I know the MC isn’t in the business of killing civilians,” King said, “besides, we’re wired up here like there is no tomorrow. See that?” King asked, pointing to a high corner of the garage where a small red light was blinking. “Got cameras everywhere. Everything is hooked to my phone. I also give the local sheriff a cut of the Granny Growhouse operation plus all the fucking weed they can smoke and now they look out for us. MC had a few deals go south lately so they stopped paying off the law. So you can stay here. Nobody is coming to our door. Nobody.”
I cringed, remembering when Eli had done exactly that. He didn’t just come to the door. He bulldozed his own door and half of King’s garage in the process. King must have noticed my reaction. “Never AGAIN,” he amended. I hated the way he was looking at me, like he was about to ask me about how I was doing so I changed the subject.
“I thought you were planning on going civilian?” I asked, surprised to hear that King still had the Granny Growhouses operating.
“There’s only so much civilian a guy like me can go. I scaled back and I don’t bring anything to our doorstep. We keep busy though. During the day Grace has been watching the kids and up until we had Nikki, Ray had been apprenticing for me. She’s pretty fucking amazing. Can draw better than I ever could.”
“That’s why I need to leave,” I said. “You got all this shit going on that I have no business being part of.”
“Brother, we’ve had no business being part of a damn fucking thing that we’ve been doing since we were kids and that’s why you need to stay. Shit’s not the same without you. At least stay until you figure shit out and clear your head. Then if you still think being on the road is what you want you can go back to Bear’s Pussy Parade across America without ever thinking about Logan’s Beach again.”
I laughed at how well he knew me. Better than anyone.
Better than myself.
He knew me so well in fact that he already knew there was no way I was going to stay. Logan’s Beach was my home, it’s where I was born, where I grew up. But right now there was nothing for me there except problems, and I wanted nothing more than to put the distance back between me and my bike, and the constant reminders of the shit my life had become that were on every street, every sign, every shell and piece of sand of my hometown.
King ignored my refusal of his help and opened the driver’s side door. He set a radar detector on the dash, hooking it into the lighter outlet. Red numbers flashed to life and it made a sound like a metal detector hovering over a nickel in the sand. “Figured it could shorten the drive. Coyotes could be dragging her mama’s head around by her neck on main street by now. Every minute counts.”
I nodded, time was definitely not on our side. “Good call.”