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Country took two more steps before stopping dead in his tracks. “You didn’t,” he said slowly, his voice low and filled with dark intent.
“Wouldn’t I?”
Moose saw the exact moment that he remembered the night that inspired it all and burst out laughing.
“You dirty motherfucker!” Country bellowed. “You’ve gone too far! After I take a shower, I’m kicking your fuckin’ ass. You’d better use that time as a head start because I’m going to mess that pretty face up.”
Moose blew him a kiss. “Assuming you can catch me.” He stepped down from the stool and casually tucked in his shirttails. “Enjoy that shower. And make sure to use some petroleum jelly after. Helps with the residual burn. Oh, and you might want to check the rest of your drawers to make sure nothing else has been tampered with.” He clicked his tongue, shaking his head. “Man, never know who you can trust these days.”
Country glared. Moose laughed. Man, it wasn’t even noon yet, and it was already turning out to be a damned fine day.
As Country stormed off to get that shower, Moose sidled up to the bar and took the seat beside Cricket, who was looking a touch worse for wear this afternoon. “You look like something the cat dragged in.”
“Thanks, bro. Just the look I was aiming for.” He thumbed over his shoulder. “What’d you do to him?”
Moose lifted a shoulder. “Just a little itching powder in the boxers trick I learned back in college.”
“You went to college?”
Moose should be offended by the surprise in his voice. “Not officially, but that didn’t stop me from being on the campus every night of the week.” He winked, letting the man fill in the blanks.
There was no shortage of trouble for a growing man to get up to when there was an endless river of booze and girls on tap. He didn’t need studying getting in the way of all the fun. Now that Moose was an adult and looked back on it, he had to agree with his original assessment that higher education wasn’t for everyone. Who needed a lifetime of debt for a degree they were never going to use? He’d always known where he was going to end up. Didn’t need a piece of paper for the kind of work he did.
Cricket snorted. “I’m glad I’m not on the end of whatever game you two are playing. You know he’s gonna pay you back, right?”
“Counting on it,” Moose drawled. Let Country try. He would be ready and waiting. Maybe with a shotgun, ha! Send that country bumpkin back to the prairie he came from. He cast his friend a curious look. “So what’s up with that little chippy at the bar last night? You dating now?”
“She’s not a chippy, for one,” Cricket said, getting all defensive. Moose held up his hands, letting him know he meant no offense. “Two, yeah, I guess I am.”
“Cool. How’d it go? Since you’re sitting here, I assume you didn’t get lucky.”
“I didn’t get laid if that’s what you’re getting at, but I did get lucky. She’s a catch, that one. I couldn’t have found a better woman if I’d handpicked her myself.”
“Wait, is this the toothpaste chick?”
Cricket chuckled. “Yeah, that’s her.”
“Nice. If I’d known women like that were just hanging out in the general merch section, I wouldn’t have wasted so much time combing through the want ads.”
“Dude, tell me you didn’t look for women there,” Cricket said with heavy disapproval.
“Do I look like an idiot? Don’t answer that,” Moose said quickly. “No, they’ve always just sort of fallen into my lap, literally in some cases. Curse of having such a gorgeous mug.” He shrugged, allwhatcha gonna do?
Cricket rolled his eyes. “I swear, every one of the brothers in this place has an ego the size of Texas. It’s a wonder we haven’t had to expand to accommodate your fat heads.”
Moose shot him a look.
“I’m not talking about the little one in your pants, numb nuts,” Cricket amended with an exasperated sigh that said he was surrounded by children. He wouldn’t be far off. Put a bunch of men together in one room and IQs tended to drop a few points.
“I’ll have you know, there’s nothing little about anything going on in my pants,” Moose assured him.
“Don’t know, don’t care.” Cricket shook his head, staring off over the bar, and the two men shared a light chuckle between friends.
***
Blake hadn’t been on a run like this is ages. It was, in a lot of ways, kinda cleansing in a risk-your-life sorta way. So he hadn’t told everyone the whole truth—they rode out to do a little investigating and, if it came down to it, a little—or a lot—of face pounding.
He was up to his eyeballs in frustration, hearing about the ongoing trades and sales of illegal arms in his county. Sure, it wasn’t his county, per se, but he’d lived here his whole life, so he felt he had more than a little say in how its successes or failures—especially since he had a whole lot more than a little power to affect change.
