Okay, I was scarfing. Lottie was a drill master with the whole ironing-out-revue-routines thing.
Axl was eating normally.
I looked to my phone.
It was Joker.
“Joker,” I said to Axl when I saw his raised brows. I took the call with a “Hey.”
“We got a sitch at your house.”
I shot straight in my chair.
How could this be?
First, only the plumber was working, and he came by recommendation of Tack Allen, last president of the Chaos MC. So I’d felt safe leaving him alone because I was pretty sure he wouldn’t screw me by, say, yanking all the copper pipes out of my house to sell them on the copper black market, this courting the wrath of a bunch of bikers that seemed pretty easygoing. But I had a feeling if you screwed someone over that they’d taken under their wing, they’d frown on that.
And second, with the plumber the only one working, I didn’t know why Joker was even there.
“Why are you there?” I asked.
“I wasn’t, until I rode by and saw guys offloading a bunch of shit into your house.”
What?
“What kind of shit?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but I’m going in and I’m about to find out,” he answered.
“Be there in a sec,” I said without further delay. I disconnected and said to Axl, “We need to-go lids.”
He’d obviously read my mood because he was out of his seat, saying. “Leave it.”
Was he crazy?
Leave a perfectly good Chipotle burrito bowl?
“We can’t leave it,” I told him. “Neither of us are even halfway done. And it’s a Chipotle burrito bowl.”
“Ryn, do you have a situation?”
“I think so.”
“I’ll buy you another fuckin’ bowl. Leave it.”
After we dumped our bowls (oh, the humanity!), we hightailed it to my house.
And I realized we had more of a situation than the situation I thought we had when I saw Tack was there, as was Hawk.
And Boone.
“Uh-oh,” I said.
“Fuck,” Axl said.
Axl parked, we both got out, we did that quick, Axl headed to Hawk, and I moved across the lawn to Boone.
“What’s going on?” I asked him.
“You’ve had a delivery.”
Please tell me it’s not a dead body. Please tell me it’s not a dead body. Please tell me it’s not a dead body, I chanted in my head.
“Far’s I can tell from what you’ve shared about your plans, all the flooring, wood and tile, and all the cabinetry for the kitchen. Plus, a Wolf stovetop, a Dacor microwave and oven, a Sub-Zero fridge and a Bosch dishwasher,” Boone shared.
I blinked up at him, repeatedly.
When I could again operate my mouth, I asked, “What?”
“Not sure this neighborhood could support the increase in value all that means to the property, but easy, you could tack on another ten K, maybe fifteen, even if that shit is worth far more, and get it, because most homebuyers know how much that shit is worth,” Boone went on.
“What?” I asked again.
He had something in his hand I hadn’t noticed until then and I noticed it because he was now offering it to me.
It was a piece of paper.
I took it, and on it, it said,
Ryn,
This is partial payment on what I owe.
Keep cool,
BRWell, apparently, Brett hadn’t disappeared.
“Oh boy,” I said to the note.
“Yeah,” Boone said to me.
I looked up at him. “How did he know what stuff to buy?”
“I don’t know because we’ve been careful and you’ve had no tail, but at a guess, you got quotes for all that at stores and it would not be hard to call around, ask for quotes with your name on them, and order what was quoted.”
“This makes sense,” I mumbled.
Yeesh.
Brett.
“I can’t keep all of that,” I told Boone.
“You could argue that you could,” he replied.
I studied him closely, unable to get a lock on where he was with all this, though it didn’t seem positive.
“Would you argue that?” I asked.
“Your life is fucked up and will be for an indeterminate amount of time because of this asshole. So yeah. You’ve been scared out of your mind. Can’t move without protection. Can’t work. And your life is not your own. I think that’s worth some kitchen cabinets.”
And tile.
And wood flooring.
And appliances.
Top of the line appliances.
I did not remind him of that.
“But isn’t it dirty money?” I asked.
“He could use it for this, or he could buy himself a yacht. Don’t think you’d have to work hard at guessing which way I’d swing on that.”
I studied him even closer. “Are you angry?”
“I want you to be free and clear, not dogged by this asshole.”
That wasn’t it.
What it was, was that very morning, Boone had swooped in to save the day.
And now Brett had beat him to that punch and did it Sub-Zero style, something Boone probably wouldn’t, and maybe couldn’t do (I didn’t know, we hadn’t gotten to the discussing-finances stage of our relationship—his loft was sweet, so was his car, as were his clothes, not to mention his stoneware, but he didn’t have a Sub-Zero).