As far as this stupid thing was concerned, we were meant to be headed at least an hour outside of the city and probably more. To some small town called Greenboro.

  Fuck, Dirk hadn’t exiled us to some small town, had he?

  But the closer we got to the place, the more I cringed. It seemed like we were headed farther and farther from the city that had been a temporary kind of salvation. Unwanted, unwarranted, exile…but still civilization.

  No, as we pulled into Greenboro, getting our first glimpse of the town’s quaint main street, with its mom-and-pop shops lining either side of it, I realized we had ended up in hell.

  We pulled up outside the clubhouse, and I glanced over at Devon. He was looking just as perturbed as I felt. I tried to come up with something to say in response to the place, but the words died in my mouth. Finally, it was Devon who spoke.

  “Seriously?” he asked quietly.

  “Let’s just get this meeting over with,” I muttered under my breath, throwing my helmet against my bike and stalking toward the door. “If nothing else, maybe this guy has some contacts we can use. Dirk’s been pretty useless to us so far.”

  We walked into the clubhouse unchallenged, though, and I couldn’t help rolling my eyes at Devon. Showed the kind of place that this was. No challenges whatsoever, apparently. We knocked on all the doors, peeking inside, and there was no answer until we reached the farthest door toward the back.

  I knocked, and the door swung open after a moment. An older man, maybe late fifties or early sixties, stood there. He nodded at us. “You must be Nate and Devon,” he said, his eyes sliding across both of us. “Welcome to Greenboro.”

  I stared at him but walked slowly inside as he took a step back to let us into the office.

  “I’m Otis McCraw, president of the Greenboro chapter of the Outcasts,” he continued.

  This old man? I couldn’t help thinking with a sinking sense of dread. Between the suburban location and the elderly man who was apparently the president of the club, I could only imagine the kind of place this was. Probably nothing happened here, ever. No action, whatsoever, and the guy was probably worse than Dirk in terms of counseling everyone in the vicinity toward patience.

  Not that it mattered how Otis wanted to run things here. What could he do against Devon and me? If he didn’t like the way we were running things, well, fuck the way that he wanted to run things. I wasn’t interested in acting like a little bitch. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have chosen this line of work.

  But all the same, even though I knew there was no way that this guy Otis could make Devon and I do whatever silly things he wanted, I began to wonder whether we had done the right thing in coming all the way across the country to this place. Not only was it fucking cold, but the Outcasts were apparently run with kid gloves here.

  Maybe getting a hit taken out on us wouldn’t be so terrible. Maybe we should have stayed in San Diego all along. Taken whatever it was that Paulie thought he could fight us with. Was it too late for us to return now?

  Something in the pit of my stomach was sure that it was, unfortunately. Return now, and it would look like we were running away, our tails between our legs. And besides, maybe this was Devon’s and my chance to do something more with our lives. Perhaps this was a gift from the universe.

  After all, this Otis guy couldn’t last that much longer. Maybe one of us could take over when the old man croaked.

  We should stick around and see how things went, I decided. Even if sticking around Greenboro, of all places, seemed like the closest I would ever get to hell.

  4

  Holly

  There was a knock on the door on Sunday morning. I frowned and brushed my hair back, setting down the broom I’d been using to sweep out the front hall. I peeked through the peephole to see who it was before opening the door. I didn’t live in the nicest building, and frequently, the people knocking on the door at my first-floor apartment were either drunk, lost, or just plain trouble. We didn’t even get the routine door-to-door politicians or anything like that there. It just wasn’t a very nice part of Greenboro, and everyone knew it.

  But this time, it was Marie standing out on my doorstep. I grinned as I opened the door, undoing the chain at the same time. Marie shook her head and sighed. “I can’t believe you live in a place where you have to keep the chain done at all hours of the day.”

  I rolled my eyes, but I knew she wasn’t saying it to be an ass. “Hello to you too,” I joked. “And come on, you know this place is loads better than the place I lived when I was still in Boston.”

  “True.” Marie sighed again. “But still, I think you could do better than this dump.” She looked around as she kicked off her shoes. “Although you have made it a rather homely dump over the years.”

  I laughed and spread my arms. “It does the job,” I said. The place was pretty tiny. Cramped, actually, a one bedroom that probably would have been better off being left as a studio. But I had hung up mirrors on the walls to make it seem bigger and otherwise done what I could to make it seem cozy rather than cluttered.

  “I just hate coming over to this side of town,” Marie said.

  “That’s because you’d rather stay in your glass palace,” I said, grinning at her. Marie’s place was definitely nicer than mine, but she also paid nearly twice as much for it. She was slowly burning through her inheritance, even though she picked up extra freelance writing gigs in the evening when she wasn’t working for me. I didn’t know what she was planning to do when she ran out of savings.

  Probably move into this same side of town.

  As for me, I tried to save as much as I could out of my monthly paycheck. But between rent and assorted bills, it just never seemed to amount to much. Still, “One day, I’m going to save up enough money that I can move to Florida,” I said.

  Marie laughed. “Oh yeah? I thought you liked these New England winters. You know, sweaters and mulled wine and all that jazz.”

  I shrugged. “There is that,” I said. “But it would be nice to spend my summers on a warm beach somewhere.”

  “Yeah, for sure.” Marie flopped down on my couch. “You’d better get a two-bedroom place when you move down there, though, because I expect to stay with you through the winter.”

  “Of course,” I said with a grin, as though a two-bedroom place on the beach in Florida was something I could ever hope to afford. Hell, some months, it felt like I would never even be able to afford the gas money it would take to get me to Florida.

  “Or maybe I’ll just move down there with you,” Marie said.

  “But then who would run the Greenboro location of my fruit stand franchise?” I joked.

  Marie snorted. “We both know that you would never want me to be the one in charge of that place,” she pointed out good-naturedly. “Better that you find someone else to take it over, and you and I could both move down to Florida together to start up the new place.”

  I laughed. “Fair enough,” I said. “I couldn’t imagine not seeing your smiley face in the shop every day anyway.”

  Of course, I didn’t think we would ever get the chance to move down to Florida, let alone franchise the fruit stand. It had been difficult enough to start things up here in Greenboro. The only reason I’d been able to at all was because of some connections I’d made in Boston who had helped me out a little. Otherwise, I never could have afforded a place for myself, let alone rent money for the shop.

  It had taken forever to actually turn a profit, but we were finally seeing green every month. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to start all over again, though.

  “And then once you’re in Florida, you’ll probably find some hot surfer dude to shack up with,” Marie continued, still dreaming about the fantasy life that we would never have. “He’ll be tanned and muscular. Sexy as fuck. Maybe foreign. With an accent.”

  I laughed. “I don’t think so,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Why not?” Marie asked. “You don’t want someone exotic? I think that could be hot.”

  “Sure,” I said, shrugging. “But I think I’d be lucky to get a guy with any one of those characteristics. Tanned. Or muscular. Or foreign.”

  “You don’t know what the guys are like in Florida,” Marie said.

  I laughed. “Neither do you,” I reminded her.

  “Well, no. But there’s got to be some real hotties out there.”

  “Just like there have to be hotties here in Greenboro?” I asked her, raising an eyebrow.

  Marie laughed. “There are some hotties here,” she said. “Or at least, there are some guys here I’ve been willing to sleep with.”

  I snickered. “Sure,” I said.

  “All the more reason why we have to get out of here.” Marie looked over at me. “So come on, tell me. What kind of guy are you looking for when we get to Florida? Who’s your perfect man?”

  I rolled my eyes. “For starters, he isn’t perfect,” I said.

  “Too intimidating?” Marie asked.

  “No, it’s just that the perfect man doesn’t exist,” I said, shrugging. “They’ve all got their flaws in some way or another. And besides, if we’re working on franchising and everything else, then I have to figure that we’re going to be too busy with work and getting set up down there. We won’t have time to waste on men. Not if we want to be rich and spend our weekends on the beach.”

  Marie laughed. “All right, all right,” she said. “But I’m telling you, when the right guy comes along, you’ll find a way to work your schedule around him.”

  I shook my head. “The right guy?” I scoffed. “There’s no such thing as the right guy.”

  “Sure there is,” Marie said. “There’s someone out there for everyone. Even someone as cynical as you.”

  “I’m not going to hold my breath,” I told her. “Relationships only work if you’re willing to compromise everything you want in life. And I’m not willing to give up on my dreams just for some guy.”

  “Nuh-uh,” Marie said, shaking her head. “If you meet the right guy, it doesn’t feel like you’re giving up your dreams for his. And maybe things just work out a little better than you expect.”

  I didn’t know what to say in response to that. I didn’t want to say that Marie was being naïve, but I knew that things would never work out as smoothly as she seemed to think they would. She was looking for the other piece of her puzzle, a perfect complement to the life she already had. But there was no such thing. In real life, relationships were all jagged edges and the hard work required to smooth them out.

  I didn’t see the point of putting in all that effort if, at the end of the day, you didn’t get what you wanted. Better to be every man and woman for themselves and get what you wanted out of life.

  Would a little companionship be nice on these chilly winter nights? Sure. But then I could get a cat or something—there when you needed it and self-sufficient when you were busy. Seemed like the perfect kind of relationship to me.

  5

  Nate

  I looked Otis over one more time, trying to decide if I had missed something about him, some clue that this wasn’t going to be the worst place ever to be posted. His hand, when I shook it, was rough with callouses, and that brought him up a few notches in my esteem. One of the things that drove me crazy about Dirk was the fact that he was never willing to do any of the dirty work on his own.

  Of course, he had other things he needed to do as president of the club, and he had to delegate sometimes. But the amount that he delegated bothered me. I admired a guy who did work for himself.

  Then again, Otis’s callouses might not come from work related to the club. Maybe he was, like, an avid gardener or something like that. I grimaced at the very thought of it.

  But those scars crisscrossing up and down his arms, and especially the ones on his weathered face, had probably come from club business. Otis might be old, but he was old like a bear. Still not the kind of guy you wanted to mess with. Not the kind of guy to be trifled with.

  Still, just because he had once been a fearsome guy, it didn’t mean he still commanded the same amount of respect as he once had. I couldn’t believe the guys in this chapter of the Outcasts were still willing to put up with having him as their president. Didn’t they realize what a target he was? Any other MC could see he was a weak leader.

  But then again, who the hell would want to take over territory in Greenboro? That was probably the reason they had survived here for as long as they had. This wasn’t the choicest territory in the world. If I were a rival MC, I’d much rather try for Boston or New York, or hell, even Portland, Maine. Greenboro was barely a spot on the map.

  If this was the only way to get back to San Diego at the start of the new year, though, then I was going to show this Otis guy what we were made of.

  Devon and I sat across from him. I leaned forward, grateful that Devon was leaving the talking to me. “Look, as I’m sure you know, we didn’t have a lot of choice in coming here. But it’s not because we screwed up a job or anything. We’re collectors. And we get the money. And then some.”

  Otis held up a hand to silence me. “I’m aware of your history,” he said, and I could tell he wasn’t impressed with whatever Dirk had said to him. I started to interrupt, but Otis was speaking again before I could. “I want to make sure you realize that you’re on a short leash with me. I don’t know how you did things over in San Diego, but around here, I’m the boss, and I don’t tolerate stupid stunts that could reflect badly on this club.”

  “I don’t know what the hell Dirk told you, but—”

  Again, Otis held up his hand to silence me. I was tempted to keep talking, but Devon shot me a worried look, and I remembered that our status in the club hung in the balance at the moment. If we pissed off Otis as well as Dirk, we might be out of the club for good.

  For a moment, I considered that. So what if they kicked us out of the club? There were other MCs out there. Maybe it would be better to join one of them rather than stick around here with the Outcasts in Greenboro.

  The irony of the name struck me. The Outcasts. In this tiny-ass town that no one wanted to live in. They probably were all the Outcasts of the real clubs.

  But then again, the ultimate goal would always be to go back to life as normal in San Diego, and I knew that if we jumped ship now, there was no way that Dirk was ever going to let us come back. Not only that, but no other MC would want to take in someone form a different MC.

  It would be too risky; they would have to assume that we were spies of some sort. Trying to move in on their territory or whatever. We could try lying and saying we had never been affiliated with another club, but I didn’t want to go back to doing all the grunt work. And anyway, it was likely to become abundantly clear that we weren’t new to this show.

  So that meant we stuck it out here in Hicksville, USA, or else we called it quits with the MC life and figured out something else to do. Whatever the hell that might be.

  I hadn’t joined this life because I had a ton of other options.

  Otis narrowed his eyes at us. “While you’re here, you will do what I ask you—whatever I ask you. I know that you’ve done collection runs for the Outcasts in the past, but don’t think you’re above any of the other work that this club does. I’m the boss here, and I’m not playing any games. If I want you out of here, if I can’t trust you with our clients or with the other guys in the club? You’re out for good, no second chances.”

  I bristled with anger, but for now, I managed to hold my tongue. Let this Otis guy think that he was in charge. The first time he tried to get me to do something that had nothing to do with my job with this MC, we’d see what shook out.

  Devon gave me an uneasy look, like he thought I was going to say something, but then he nodded at Otis. “Understood, sir,” he said, speaking for the both of us.

  Otis nodded at him. Then, he picked up a set of keys off the desk, tossing them to me. “That’s for the place you’ll be staying. One-eighteen Washington Street, apartment two-A.” He got to his feet, and we did as well, following him toward the door.

  “There’s a meeting tomorrow morning,” Otis said as he ushered us out into the hallway. “Here at the clubhouse, at nine sharp. If either of you are even a minute late, I’ll have you booted from this club in no time. Do I make myself understood?”

  “Yes,” I muttered under my breath, while Devon gave a more graceful noise of acceptance. Tardiness wasn’t something we had ever had a problem with back in San Diego. Yet again, I wondered just what kinds of terrible things Dirk had told Otis about the two of us.

  Probably fabricated all sorts of lies about us. He wouldn’t want to admit he couldn’t handle the two of us. And he wouldn’t want to admit it just came down to the fact that we had shoved a guy around a little. That would make the San Diego chapter and Dirk, by extension, seem so incredibly weak.

  I also wondered just what it was that had made Dirk send us here of all places. There were chapters of the MC all over the country, many a lot closer than this. But then again, Dirk had probably looked at a map and found the chapter that was situated in the smallest little bit of Podunk imaginable. I couldn’t even believe Greenboro was big enough to warrant apartment buildings, to be honest. Were there enough businesses in town to employ all of them?

  Then again, Boston was only a couple of hours away. Maybe some of these people commuted all the way to the city for work or something. I didn’t plan on sticking around long enough to get to know what the state of the economy was in the town, to be honest. Let’s see if we could nail a couple jobs, stick to Otis’s orders, and make him wonder just what the hell Dirk’s problem was.

  That might be the best way to handle this.

  I glanced over at Devon as we swung onto our bikes out front. I programmed the GPS for our new place (not home—nowhere outside of San Diego would ever be home).

  I was the reason that Devon had gotten into this life. He’d always been smarter than me and more driven. He could have done anything with his life, but he had followed me into a life with the Outcasts. I couldn’t screw this up for him.

 

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