Hector scoffed in disbelief. “Judging by the state of that fucker, there’s no way he’d be reeling chicks in.”

“You’d be surprised the amount of women that find that rugged look appealing.”

“Rugged? Try filthy. Either they’re blind or getting paid for that shit.”

“After a handful of razor blades, he’d look better than you.”

“Well, we know why that can’t happen.”

True. Hawke was keeping his identity close to his chest. Only the club and Borden knew who he was, and it was a matter of life and death it stay that way.

“So what’s the plan?” Hector then asked Borden, moving back to the topic at hand. “What do you want to happen?”

Borden’s face darkened. “What do I want? I want Bull singing.”

Hector smiled widely, tipping the neck of his beer in Borden’s direction. “That we can do.”

Emma

Two hours later, Borden and Hector still hadn’t appeared, and by then I was a little unbalanced and giggling my ass off. Who knew that Hawke and Graeme would make the best drinking buddies?

Hawke was purposely working on one beer, meanwhile Graeme said, “Screw it, I work every fucking day, hour on the hour. I deserve this.”

I gasped. “Did you just swear, Graeme?!”

“He fucking did,” Hawke said, giving him a hard slap on the back. “Down that sucker. This is Operation Get Graeme Smashed and we’re going to fucking nuke it ‘til his mouth makes a pirate blush.”

Graeme did. He drank his beers like it was water. By beer number four, he got up and turned the stereo on, cranking it up to a radio station with horrible country music.

“No!” I shouted, jumping off my stool and running to the stereo. “Not the hillbilly stuff. Anything but the hillbilly stuff!”

But Graeme blocked the way, shaking his head at me solemnly. “This is my jam, Emma. Do not be a party pooper.”

I died. Fucking died. Laughter poured out of me as I exclaimed, “I’m the party pooper?”

“Yes, you’re pooing on my party.”

This guy.

I heard Hawke choke on a sip of his beer. “Leave it on, Emma. This is good shit.”

“You like country music too?” I gaped at him, although I knew he was full of shit. “You’re meant to be a metal head! I’m surrounded by hard ass criminals who like the beat of banjos and fiddles instead of screeching voices singing about death and turmoil?”

“We have enough death and turmoil in our lives as it is,” he replied.

Shrugging to myself, I returned to my beer, letting Graeme have his country music. I was taking reserved sips, making sure the bottle would last so I didn’t get carried away. Remembering my younger days, I was capable of drinking an absurd amount in a short period of time. Now I was a lightweight and I needed to keep it to a minimum. Part of me kind of wanted to just get shitfaced so I had an excuse to dodge going to Granny’s house.

Oh, God, I was going to Granny’s house!

Even if I wasn’t, I had to be modest about where I was. It was still work hours and if I wasn’t fucking Borden, he’d probably fire me for my actions. Wait…

“Is Borden going to get pissed at us for this?” I asked them.

“Probably,” Graeme answered.

Hawke took another sip. “Borden gets pissed at everything. Why should it matter?”

I shrugged. “Good point.”

We lingered around the main bar. I couldn’t later recall what we talked about. It was mostly small talk. Pointless conversations. Drifting from random facts to dirty jokes, the latter of which Hawke seemed to have an endless supply of. He was currently on to his hundredth joke. They were tasteless and crude, just the way I liked them.

“What’s the difference between a drug dealer and a hooker?” he asked, looking between Graeme and me with this straight face that made him even more laughable.

I gasped and jumped up and down. “Oh, oh, I actually know this one! A hooker can wash her crack and resell it.”

Hawke laughed. “What the fuck? Where did you hear that?”

“Oh, come on! I’ve been around.”

Graeme shook his head, flaring his nostrils. “Disgusting.”

“I talked about Santa’s ball sack before that and suddenly this one is disgusting?” Hawke retorted.

“Graeme’s got sensitive ears,” I said, smiling.

“More like pussy ears.”

Graeme exhaled. “You’re shit drinking companions, the both of you.”

He sulked off to the other side of the bar, his ear right next to the music. We watched him relax in his own little zone, his eyes closing shut, his lips moving knowingly to the lyrics of every song.

“Does Graeme do this a lot?” I asked Hawke.

He nodded. “He used to before you came along. Would knock off work and spend hours at the bar.”

“He doesn’t have a wife or…husband?”

Hawke chuckled. “Nah, he lost his wife years ago.”

My eyes widened. “How’d she die?”

“She didn’t die. She ran away with his partner, and he quit law enforcement a week later.”

Whoa. What? “He was a cop?”

Hawke took another swig of beer. “Yep. One of the best.”

“How’d he end up working for Borden?”

“I don’t know. Borden went to him and offered him the job. Maybe he was tired of walking the line and wanted to look after number one. Or maybe the pay was too good to knock down, even for a copper.”

I didn’t say anything for some moments. I continued to watch Graeme lose himself to his shit music, and then I turned and faced Hawke.

“What about you?” I wondered aloud, searching his face. “How did you end up with Borden?”

His lips pressed tightly, and then he took another drink of his beer. His adam’s apple bobbed, and it made me stare at it for some time before my eyes wandered to his upper body. He was big guy, Hawke. Almost as big as Borden. He paused his sip when he caught me staring, and I casually looked away.

“What about me?” he then asked, his voice low.

“How did you end up with Borden?” I forced out.

He glimpsed at his scarred up hand. I looked there too, at the middle finger missing. Now that I was openly staring at it, I could see how fucked up it looked. It was definitely not a clean cut, like he’d accidentally sliced it or something. No, it looked uneven, the scar tissue thick, trailing up his arm.