Blood & Bones - Dodge (Blood Fury MC 10)

While she didn’t know who Rev was, it didn’t matter since he had a point to make. She seemed smart enough to pick up what he was putting down. If she allowed herself to do so. She seemed to prefer to remain closed up and closed off. His words only needed the tiniest crack to wiggle their way in. If she let them.

“But even before Rev claimed her, Lee was family.” He put his coffee cup down on the counter behind him and straightened. “So, here’s the thing… On the outside it might not look like it, but these people mean every-damn-thing to me. Also got a good reason to stay out of the joint now. Besides family, got more than I’ve ever had. Ain’t a bad gig. Unlike your situation right now.”

Dutch’s “I said what I said” landed once more in his brain. Dodge had laid out some truth. It was up to Syn to take his words and either learn from them or discard them.

If she did the second, that was her loss, not his.

“What were you in prison for?”

That wasn’t the part he expected her to focus on. “Which time?”

“My brother has lived his whole life in and out of prison, we lost track of—”

Dutch suddenly appeared in the doorway, shaking his head and grumbling, and making her swallow the rest of her words. Of course the old man would interrupt when he was just about to learn something about her.

“Can’t fix that fuckin’ thing. It’s a diesel heater. They need to buy some electric space heaters or somethin’ ’til they can find someone to replace that piece of shit with a new, more efficient propane heater.”

“We don’t have enough propane.”

“Sucks to be you.” His gaze took a slow stroll down Syn’s body again. “But I could get you—”

“No,” Dodge said sharply. Both sets of eyes turned his direction. The older pair holding some annoyance at his interference. “Ain’t gonna work like that.”

“You—”

He cut of the old man again. “No.”

Syn frowned and her gaze bounced back and forth between him and Dutch. He could see it in her face, she knew exactly what Dutch was proposing.

An exchange of sex for services from a man old enough to be her grandfather.

That was never going to happen.

He expected Syn to cut Dutch down at the knees for that suggestion, or more like his attempt at that suggestion. So, Dodge was surprised when she simply said, “We also have nowhere to plug in to be able to use electric heaters, even if we had them.”

What she wasn’t saying was they had no money to buy them, either.

Jesus Christ. He remembered being so down on his luck that every direction you turned cost fucking scratch.

He still wasn’t flush, but at least he had the basics. He wasn’t freezing his ass off or going to bed with an empty stomach. He drank as much as he wanted. He smoked as much as he wanted, too.

He had more pussy climb those steps to his apartment than he could count. If he wasn’t in the mood for randoms, he could get a sweet butt to land in his bed in a pinch. It only took a text.

One thing was for sure, between the club, the bar and the women, he was never fucking lonely. When he needed some alone time, he took his sled out for a long run.

However, the deeper they went into winter, the opportunities to ride were dwindling. He wasn’t as die-hard as some of the rest of his Fury brothers. He preferred to keep all of his digits—and, more importantly, his balls—from freezing and cracking off.

Dodge swiped his coffee from the counter, downed the rest of it and tossed the empty cup into a trash can in the corner. “All right, thanks for checkin’ it for me. We’ll figure somethin’ out.”

Dutch stroked his beard as he turned his attention from Syn to him. “Will ya?”

Cocky fucker. “Yeah.”

“Would let them plug in here, but it ain’t gonna be for free and I really don’t need that skoolie takin’ up all that space in my lot.”

“Understood,” Dodge grumbled. He couldn’t let them plug in at the bar, either, since there wasn’t space for them to park. Also, Stella might have a fit about it since commercial electric rates were higher than residential. He could only imagine how much electricity that monster would use.

But he did have another fucking idea.

If his idea panned out, he could grab a couple of heaters down at Walmart and dock the cost from their gig fee.

Or he could be a nice guy and just outright buy them.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted to be that generous yet. Or that nice. He had plenty of time to decide.

“Gotta make a call.” He wanted privacy to do so, but there was no way he was leaving Syn alone with Dutch. “Head out to the bus. Meet you out there.”