I wove my way between a few rickety chairs and ducked into the bathroom. I took a quick piss, then turned to the sink. As I flipped on the faucet and started washing my hands, something in the mirror caught my eye. I leaned in and squinted to look close. When I realized what it was, a huge grin split my face in two. I’d thought those boots looked familiar.
“Skull, you dirty fuck, what the hell you doin’ in there?” I roared with a laugh, turning around and kicking open the stall door behind me. I heard a panicked yelp and a slurp as it swung open to reveal a skinny, bald man in a leather jacket, seated on the toilet with his pants around his ankles and his eyes closed.
At first glance, I might’ve thought he was focusing real hard on shitting, if it weren’t for the petite blond girl on her knees in front of him. Her hands were wrapped around the shaft of his cock. She was the one who’d done the yelping. She looked up at me in horror, but I only laughed harder when I saw the spit dangling from her lips like a string of pearls.
Skull opened his eyes and gave me a smooth smile and a wink. “Just meetin’ the townfolk, Croak,” he said in a thick Texan accent. He looked like he didn’t have a care in the world.
“You couldn’t even take this nice girl to a motel or somethin’?” I asked.
“When duty calls, a man’s gotta work with what he’s got,” he said with a shrug. I noticed out of the corner of my eye the chick smoothing down her skirt and tugging her shirt back into place. She had a nice pair of tits for such a teeny little girl.
Chortling, I let the door swing shut so they could have their privacy. I walked out of the bathroom, whistling. Skull was a good guy, a real kindred spirit. He and I saw eye to eye on topics like the fairer sex. When it came to fucking, girls got one night each, no exceptions.
It wasn’t like we were being cruel or nothing; we just didn’t pretend to be anything we weren’t. I wasn’t a nice guy or a knight in shining armor and the ladies in my life damn sure weren’t getting any flowers from me. That was fine with most of them. Lord knows I’d had plenty and I had yet to hear a word of complaint.
Maybe it was because I knew what they wanted: to let their inner slut loose. The world was chock full of people telling women to do this and not to do that. I was the exact opposite. All I had to say was, “Do what you feel,” and they were jumping on my dick like it was the last train out of town. Hey, the way I saw it, I was just providing a service.
No doubt that it helped to look like me. Six foot, five inches tall and two hundred forty pounds of sculpted muscle, with dark brown eyes and a smile that made clouds look off-white in comparison. And that was just the wrapper. When girls got down beneath my jeans, they found something that made their jaw drop another notch farther.
I sauntered back to the table. The local girls gave me sidelong stares as I passed among them. It was easy to walk around here like I owned the place. Hell, I practically did. The Inked Angels had their hands in just about every piece of business in Harris County, so we were treated like royalty pretty much everywhere we went. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d paid for my own drinks. The patch I wore on my jacket was like a lifetime get-out-of-jail-free card. It drew respect from everyone who saw it — cops, townies, and strangers alike.
Walking up to our booth, I slapped my hands down on the table. “We need another round, boys?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. I checked my watch. “Looks like we’re getting close to empty, and they’ll be makin’ last call pretty soon.”
“I could use one more,” Big Tuna boomed as he drained the last of the beer in his hands and thumped it down, completely empty.
“One more it is,” I agreed. I started to straighten back up.
“Hey, Croak,” Steezy said in a quiet voice. I turned to face him. “What do you know about this latest mess with Ricardo?”
I wrinkled my brow. I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. “Who?” I asked.
“Ricardo Suarez, the drug dealer,” he answered. “The one running the warehouse towards the southeast of the city.”
I racked my brains trying to remember. “Oh, yeah, I know that crazy fucker,” I said, a vague memory swimming into place. “What about him?” Crash, Jax, and Big Tuna were all listening closely now.
“Well, I have a buddy who’s done some odd jobs for him every now and then. I just saw him while you were in the can, and he told me Ricardo’s been acting real psycho lately. Said the police know about it, too, and that if he keeps it up, they’re gonna have to go down and investigate.”