Memories flashed back of the good times he and Nickel had shared, until he remembered who else had typically been there—Memphis and Crash.
Their betrayal of him was something even death couldn’t repair. What they had allowed to happen to him showed a deep-seated hatred from two men who he had considered friends.
If he misjudged their friendships, then who else had he misjudged? He had no intention of allowing anyone close enough to find out.
“She’s an attractive woman. Could be I’ll have better luck than the rest of the other brothers.”
Reaper didn’t feel any qualms at drawing Nickel into his ploy to piss Ginny’s stalker off. The more people believing there was a developing relationship between Ginny and him, the more likely the stalker would find out.
“Go for it, brother,” Nickel encouraged.
An unexpected pang of guilt at deceiving Nickel almost had him revising bringing Nickel into his plan. Squashing it down became harder when Nickel started confiding about Ginny’s likes and dislikes.
“You can’t crack Marty’s skull as much as you want to. Rider tried that, and Ginny busted a napkin dispenser over his. Plus, Ginny didn’t talk to him for two weeks.”
Reaper narrowed his eyes at Nickel on that bit of information. Nickel wasn’t so gung-ho on Marty as he pretended to be in front of Ginny. The fucker had been trying to get laid.
No longer feeling guilt at lying to Nickel, he listened, stunned at the intel the brothers had gathered in their efforts to get Ginny in their beds.
“Getting on Willa’s good side will help, but not much.” He snorted. “I tried that myself. Any mention of Ginny to her, and she sics Lucky on you, giving you one of his sermons on chastity. Have you had to listen to that spiel from Lucky?”
“No … I can’t say I have.”
“The whole time I just … I just wanted to smash his nuts with the Bible sitting on his desk.”
“I take it listening to the sermon didn’t help your cause with Ginny?”
“It did jack shit. Save yourself the effort. You have a better chance of kissing Marty’s ass.”
“I take it that was the route you were taking.”
Nickel uncomfortably breezed on past that fountain of information. “Another thing, don’t bad-mouth Lucky in front of Ginny; she’ll rip you apart. Moon found that out when he was complaining to Shade about Lucky winning his paycheck playing cards. Since then, anytime Viper wants to send Moon to relieve one of us, she turns him down.”
“I thought it was because he was hitting on the women backup singers and crew?”
“Fuck no! Moon was doing his best to get Ginny. He was behaving. At least, for him. He had his pick of the women, but he was keeping on the down-low because he had higher ambitions.”
Crossing his arms over his chest, Reaper listened to Nickel spill Moon’s secrets, none of which was interesting to hear. What had grabbed his attention was the part about Lucky.
“It was a dumb move from Moon. Lucky was her pastor and mentor when she was younger.”
“Yeah.”
“Anything else I should know?” he gritted out. If the brothers had made as much effort in finding Ginny’s stalker as getting her in bed, the fucker would have been caught by now.
“Act like you like kids. Doc screwed the pooch on that one. He wouldn’t let one of Kaden’s kids sit on his motorcycle. Ginny crossed him off the list too.”
Reaper could imagine the hardcore biker’s reaction to letting a kid touch his motorcycle. He had yet to allow any brother to park anywhere near his prized possession.
“Oh … before I forget, don’t tell her—”
A throat being cleared had them turning and startled to see Ginny opened her door.
Reaper was at least able to keep his shit together, while Nickel turned bright purple, trying to find his way out of explaining why they had been talking about her.
“I was just talking about … Jewell. Reaper was asking how she was doing managing the factory.”
Rolling his eyes at Nickel’s entreating expression to back up the lie, Reaper decided not to throw himself into that fire pit. Nickel was on his own.
“You need something?”
Ginny quirked an eyebrow at him. “No. It’s time for me to be back on stage.”
It was his turn to be embarrassed. How had he lost track of time?
Nickel’s smug smile at having Ginny’s focus turned on him had Reaper considering several options for payback when they got back to Treepoint. The fucker wasn’t going to know what it was like to have a Saturday off.
Nickel started after Ginny as she headed toward the stage. “Cool. It’s my turn—”
A hard elbow shoved him back.
“Nothing’s wrong with your ears. You can listen here,” Reaper ground out, going after Ginny before Nickel could catch his breath.
Sparing the hunched-over brother a gloating glance, he bumped into Ginny.