From time-to-time, rumors about Cash and Stretch circulated in the club. Cash laughed it off—as he laughed most things off. He had Outlaw’s support, but Prez couldn’t be with him at all times.
“You got a beer I can sip on while I wait?”
“Yeah. Go look in the refrigerator. Give me five minutes to get my keys and ID.” He paused at his short hallway. “Slipper?”
“Yeah?”
“Next time you walk the fuck in my house uninvited, you might fucking end up with a bullet between the eyes.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, brother,” Slipper said around a chuckle.
Returning to his bedroom, Cash slammed the door shut and turned the lock on the knob.
Stretch sat up, the sheet falling around his waist. “Is he—?”
Glaring, Cash shook his head and finished dressing. “Don’t leave immediately,” he advised in a low voice. “Slipper might have someone watching my place to verify my story.”
Stretch glanced toward the door, his hands trembling. His face clouded over, but Cash ignored the urge to comfort him.
Stealing a quick kiss from Stretch, Cash grabbed his keys and wallet, then headed for his bedroom door, half expecting to find Slipper loitering just beyond. Instead, the man was leaning against his kitchen counter, finishing off a beer.
“Let’s ride, motherfucker.” Cash forced a lightness into his voice that he didn’t feel. Ophelia’s injuries would call for solemnity, but if Cash gave in, he wouldn’t be able to reel it in.
Therefore, he did what he was best at by pretending to handle whatever he faced by rolling with the flow.
Stretch remained in Cash’s bed for the next half hour, listening for sounds and waiting for Slipper to return. As time ticked away and nothing happened, Stretch’s fear eased.
He glanced at his damaged leg. If he hadn’t been in such an upheaval over Fee, he would’ve been as self-conscious as always. There was no time for recriminations, blame, or dread. Fee needed him, as much as he’d needed her during his father’s funeral, when she’d turned into his warrior princess.
Standing, he limped to where he’d thrown his clothes aside and picked up his T-shirt, the white recolored with Fee’s blood. Seeing the dried crimson sent tears to Stretch’s eyes. Clutching it to his chest, he bowed his head, images of Fee and Hanson blurring in his mind. Instead of losing himself, he needed to school his emotions and get to the hospital.
A sound reached his ears. Footsteps.
Too late, he spotted his gun. The bedroom door pushed open. Shit! He had absolutely no excuse for being in Cash’s bedroom, buck ass naked, crying like a girl. He was fucking done for.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he reconciled his fate in his brain.
“Fuck, son, I thought you’d be fucking dressed by now.”
At Mort’s grumble, Stretch opened his eyes, in time to see the enforcer’s dreads swinging as he turned around.
“He still here?” Val peeped into the room and scowled at Stretch’s nudity.
He cleared his throat, his heart settling. “You’ve seen me naked before. At parties. Before you all married.”
“This shit different,” Mort pointed out. “Don’t have nothing against what you do, brother. It’s just knowing why you in Cash’s bedroom with your dick swinging.”
“Yeah,” Val agreed. “Images and all.”
“Why are you here?” The slight wobble in his voice indicated Stretch wasn’t as collected as he’d believed at hearing Mort and Val.
“Cash,” Mort said. “He wanted you to use us if the need arose, so get dressed and let’s blaze out.”
“Okay,” Stretch agreed, hurrying to Cash’s closet and picking out a white T-shirt and a pair of jeans, something generic and unidentifiable as a piece of clothing Cash wore.
“You can turn around,” Stretch said, once he dressed.
Facing Stretch, Mort stepped aside and allowed Val entry.
“We checked the neighborhood,” Val told him. “CSU still at the scene at the house where Fee was messed up.”
“Is she…?”
“She clinging to life,” Mort said. “Prez fucking furious. If Meggie wasn’t with him, he’d probably end up in jail.”
Val nodded. “Seeing Zoann so broken up not helping Outlaw.”
“Nor the fact that three of his sisters were murdered,” Mort added.
Shrugging into his cut and doing his best to ignore the crusted blood on it, Stretch busied himself with finding his keys and wallet, in an effort to keep his expression neutral. “I’m needed at the hospital? Or can I start searching for the motherfucker who hurt Prez’s sister?”