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Big fucking fires

“You see that?” Gage whispered, and I nodded against his arm “Fuckin’ unreal”

Indeed

“Randi—,” I told him “I’ve never seen it this bad before”

“It’s all still up in the hills,” he re way from town We should be okay”

“I hope so”

• • •

“Next ti sunscreen,” I said, shifting uncoe had taken er and fries, because if he couldn’t handle wo for real in front of him, then we’d have a problem

“Why’s that?” he asked

“Think I burnedI had a nice buzz going and was feeling way more relaxed than I probably should’vebut really, as he going to do toout for a proposal

Gage snorted, then started coughing because I’d caught hilare at ed to keep a straight face

“So, I wanted to ask you so,” he said

“What’s that?” I asked

“You wanna ride out to the clubhouse after this, meet some of my brothers?”

I frowned, unsure of what to say “We’ve had a fun night, but I think—”

“You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve!” a woman shouted across the bar, and I looked up to see Talia Jackson powering toward us, and she looked pissed

“Fuck,” Gage muttered “Let me handle this, okay? Don’t listen to her”

I watched as Talia pushed her way through the bar, bearing down on us like an enraged harpy I had aout of her eyes, setting off a very inappropriate round of giggles In that instant, Talia’s eyes les dissolved—she wanted me dead, that was clear It ritten all over her face Re knife, I sed as my buzz disappeared

It’s all fun and games until someone hacks you with a machete

“You’re a fucking whore,” Talia hissed as she reached the table and lunged forher up and over his shoulder,“He’s a liar! He’ll use you and throw you away, but not before he’s pimped you out to all his friends, Tinker Garrett! That’s what they do! He’ll use your business as a front for running drugs, and when you get caught he’ll laugh while you go to jail! The Reapers are a bunch of fucking cowards and—”

Gage pushed through the door, and while I could still hear her screeching, the words were garbled Blinking slowly, I looked around the bar to find half the town staring at me Then Daisy Wasser over to catchit a squeeze

“You okay, Tinker?” she asked, her face worried I frowned, trying to decide if I was or not