Camden (The Henchmen MC 18)

I just wasn't usually this low on cash.

I had needed to up and move more quickly than I had anticipated. It left me feeling like I was scrambling. As soon as I had some jobs lined up, I would feel the weight pushing down on my chest ease a bit.

I spent the whole next day printing out flyers and walking around this town that would be my newest temporary home.

There was no joy in that idea for me, homes being temporary, my existence being transitory. In general, I wasn't someone afflicted with wanderlust. The travel bug didn't bite at me the way it did so many other people. In fact, the idea of moving around too much made me feel off-kilter, uncertain, always on my toes. Everything about it felt shallow to me, like I could never put down roots, build foundations. I couldn't find my favorite coffee shops, the pizza place with the best Sicilian pies, the parks where I could take long walks to clear my head.

By the time I figured out where the main roads to and from where I needed to go were, it was time for me to pack up and leave.

There was something about this town flanking the river that was giving me tugs, though. You know, the ones in your soul. The ones that said maybe, just possibly, this could be home.

I knew better. Nowhere could be home, not really. But there was no denying that my heart was aching for this to be a place I could settle in for a while.

Still, I walked around endlessly even after having posted up all of my flyers, taking in the diversity that could be found in this town known as Navesink Bank. The almost city-looking side with the crumbling buildings I had considered getting an apartment in until I did a Google search, learning that the whole general area was known for drug dealing and prostitution. If I had to do it, I would have, despite knowing that, while I likely wouldn't have any issues with the dealers or the pimps, that some even more unsavory people tended to flock around those areas. The fully furnished apartment in a slightly better area of town - just down the street from a little repair shop that boasted a bunch of classic cars in various states of rebuild - was a safer, smarter option for me.

The gym Camden had told me to visit was full of both men and women boxing and grappling and showing the kind of self-confidence I could only dream of. Not rough-and-tough characters, just strong ones, just ones who dripped with self-assurance.

The blonde woman behind the desk had gotten the oddest smile on her lips when I had mentioned that Cam had sent me to her before taking my flyers from my hands to post them up herself, all the while chatting me up, asking my name, how I knew Cam, how long I had been in the area. Normal questions, but I somehow felt she was oddly delighted by my responses. Though I had no idea what that could mean.

Inside the coffee shop, though, there was a whole different dynamic, a different crew of people. There were a lot of teens - hair in various bright colors; some had nose rings and wireless ear buds, others congregated in large, extroverted groups around the central two most beautiful girls or guys. Some things never changed. The music was loud, the decor eccentric, the women behind the counter smiling, happy, completely unconcerned by the length of their line as they put together complicated coffee orders, making microphones out of paper straws, shaking their hips and butts around to the grind of the espresso machine.

Just watching them made my lips curve up, admiring their joy, the way they clearly found their place in the world.

By the time I got to the front, they had somehow switched from hair bands to Britney Spears, the redhead smacking the other one on the butt with a large clipboard as she sang about hitting her one more time.

"I mean, you just have to get your Britney on, y'know?" the redhead - whose name tag in the shape of an apple claimed she was known as Gala - said, a little out of breath. "Oh, you have flyers for us. Are they for anything naughty?" she asked, eyes sparkling.

"I, ah, no. Nothing naughty," I assured her with a firm nod.

"Bummer," she declared, but gave me a smile.

"I, ah, Cam suggested I bring them here to post them up," I told her, feeling a little weird name dropping, but figuring I had lost major points for not advertising a sex toy party or something.

"Cam?" the other woman - whose trumpet-shaped nametag said Jazzy - asked, brows drawing together. "Cam as in the smexy biker who vibes like death?"