Page 102 of The Price of Love

I take it as a small victory as I leave her office.

CHAPTER 39

STORM

I run a brush through my hair, hoping to tame it. It doesn’t help. I consider shoving my head underneath the faucet, but I don’t want to ride with a wet head. While the temperature is getting warmer, it still gets cold at night. I check myself in the mirror one last time before I turn off the light.

Dimples is waiting, so I’d better get downstairs.

It’s only six, but halfway down the steps, I can hear music and voices coming from the clubhouse. Even though it’s Tuesday night, with the warmer weather, there’s more action. It’ll fill up with patches and their friends and family.

When I enter the clubhouse, Dimples is already at the bar chatting with Nails. I stop and have a few words with the patches, doing my president duties before I slip onto the stool beside Dimples.

I touch her scalp and run my fingers over the bump on her head. “It’s almost gone.”

“Would you stop it?” Dimples slaps my hand away. “I told you, I’m fine.” She turns to Nails. “Would you tell our president to keep her hands off me?”

Nails laughs. “Hell no. I’m not getting between the two of you. You’re on your own.”

“Traitor,” Dimples says with a smile and then asks me, “About ready to go?”

Nails moves her chair closer to Dimples and leans in. With all the noise, nobody will overhear, but I respect her discretion. “You sure you don’t want me to ride along?” Nails asks. I can tell by her expression that after what happened with Frost, she’s worried about Dimples and me riding alone.

“We’ll be fine,” I say. “Shadow asked me to bring Dimples.”

“She’s still not telling you what’s going on?” Dimples asks.

I shake my head.

Something’s not right, and I know it, but Shadow isn’t talking. I worry that something happened with her girls or Margot on Sunday since she was fine Saturday night. For two excruciating conversations on Sunday and Monday night, I tried to break through her wall—with no success.

This morning, my hopes soared when she called and said she’d switched to the morning shift today and wanted to meet me after work, but when she invited Dimples along, I knew something was up.

“Ya think the fight freaked her out?” Nails asks.

In the past two days, I’ve asked myself the same thing, but it’s only caused my head to hurt since I have no answers.

“I can’t see that,” Dimples says. “She was cool. When it happened and the next day. I can’t see her freaking out a week and a half later.”

I don’t wanna talk about this. I just wanna get there. “We should head out. I don’t want to be late.”

Dimples smiles and bats her eyes at Nails. “Of course, we can’t make Shadow wait.”

Nails laughs. “Never seen you so whipped, Pres.”

“Shut the fuck up.” I glare.

Nails just laughs and turns away.

By the time we pull into the bar, halfway between Cinder Ridge and Shadow’s, despite the cold, my palms are sweating. The ride should’ve cleared my head. It didn’t.

As we dismount, I spot Shadow’s red car. “Looks like she’s already here,” I say, motioning with my head.

Dimples turns up her nose. “Looks like it’s in worse shape than her bike was.”

I smile. “I’m trying to figure out how to convince her to let me take it to Black Briar.”

“Good luck with that.”