Not a Role Model (Battle Crows MC 4)

“What can I say?” Tide asked. “Elvis brings out the worst in me.”

I elbowed him. “Shut up.”

“You do,” he countered.

I did.

But that didn’t mean he had to tell anyone about it.

Luckily, the waitress and the seater came back with about twelve baskets of rolls for the table, and I chose to eat instead of saying anything more.

I pulled the basket close to me, then started to eat every single one that was in my basket.

A hand snuck over, but I slapped it away with my butter-covered knife.

“No,” I ordered. “I need this.”

There was a chuckle from a few of the men at the table, but I was being serious.

“You can’t eat all of those,” Tide said, licking the honey butter from his fingers that I’d just put there.

I rolled my eyes. “I am not a Roadhouse fledgling. I’m a professional. I can eat this basket, and that basket, and probably a third if I really wanted to.”

“I’ll bet you ten bucks that you can’t eat as much as me,” Tide said.

Worst bet ever.

• • •

TIDE

I felt bad.

But she had to feel worse.

As we walked outside side by side, it was with the uncomfortable feeling that I could throw up at any second.

I’d beat her in the roll consumption department, but only just barely.

I’d had four and a half baskets of rolls to her four.

We’d done nothing but eat rolls, followed by dinner, followed by more rolls.

Needless to say, I’d have to go run fifteen miles in the morning to make up for the thirty-two thousand calories of rolls that I’d just consumed.

But it was worth it having beat her.

“Since when did you get a moped?” I grumbled as I rubbed my distended belly.

She was walking slowly as she started to unbutton her pants.

She popped the top two buttons of six before saying, “Since I lived in Austin and it was hard as fuck to find parking.”

That was true.

Especially around the university campus.

“You don’t strike me as a moped kind of girl,” I admitted.

She struck me as a big, lifted truck that would run over anyone in her path kind of girl.

“It’s cheap.” She shrugged. “And I don’t use it often. It’s too much of a pain in the ass.”

I would’ve asked her more, but before I could, she got on said moped and sped off without another word.

It was the most anticlimactic departure I’d ever seen.

“I like her,” I heard Iris say.

I looked over at my brother’s girl.

“Why?” I wondered.

Everyone liked my little Elvis, though. Everyone but me.

Iris smiled a secretive smile. “I think you know why. You’re just not willing to admit you agree.”

With that, she mounted the bike behind Shine and took off with him.

Eventually, the only one left in the entire parking lot was me and Jeremiah.

“That girl is going to be the death of you,” he said as he too got on his bike and rode away himself.

I didn’t like the feeling that his words evoked.

Mostly because I had a feeling he was right.

CHAPTER 7

I’m just here to establish an alibi.

-Coreline to Tide

CORELINE

“I need this done, ASAP.”

I looked up at the man that was walking his bike off the trailer, then over at the empty shop that had nobody left in it that could drop everything and do this man’s bidding.

There was only me.

And I’d already had a really shitty day.

I didn’t need this man’s demanding attitude directed at me.

“I’m sorry, but it’s five o’clock on a Friday. I’m the last one here, and I already have to finish this shit up.” I directed my hand in a wave toward the trailer that I was fixing. “I don’t have time to do yours today. But you could leave it, and I could get to it Monday.”

Maybe. If I was lucky.

“That’s not acceptable, sweet cheeks,” the man drawled.

The man was about six feet tall, muscled, and dressed like every other biker in the history of bikers.

The only thing different about anything I could see was his vest.

The name on it said ‘Chad’ but that was the only thing I could make out, because the words used to monogram onto the black leather were done in black as well. And with the setting sun, it made it tricky to see.

But his face was pretty.

All perfectly styled beard, square jaw, and flashy blond hair that covered the guy’s blue eyes.

Chad might be condescending, but at least he was pretty while he did it.

At least he didn’t say ‘you can weld?’

That was the only way this situation could get worse.

At least, that’s what I told myself.

In reality, I knew that a large man like the biker that was rolling his bike up toward me as if I hadn’t said what I’d just said, could do a lot of damage if he chose.

And apparently, he chose.

“Listen,” he urged, flicking his stand down before leaning the bike and letting it go. “I need it done today. By tonight. No option to tell me no.”