"Gus is a weak spot," he pressed, not willing to give up.
"Gus is family. That's different. She needed me there for her."
"Hm."
"Christ, what?" I snapped, reaching for a towel.
"Gus never needed anyone," he insisted, shaking his head. "But you were there. You looked out. You protected. That's what a weak spot is like for a strong man. It doesn't mean softness, necessarily."
"I'm sorry, did I miss something? Did you start taking some fucking philosophy courses while I wasn't looking?"
Che, being Che, didn't rise to the bait. "Just seems to me that Harmon is a woman who could use a man looking out for her. And maybe a part of you responds to that. That's all I'm saying," he said, holding up his hands, done making his point, as asinine as it was.
"Well, you're half right. She does need some looking after. That's why she's here. That's why we are all looking after her. But as soon as it's safe, she is going back to her life. And I doubt we will be seeing much of her again."
There was a strange bottoming out sensation in my stomach right then, something I went ahead and blamed on the fact that I'd missed breakfast then done too punishing of a workout.
"Alright, I'll drop it," Che said, shrugging.
"Have you been in touch with the fence people?" I asked.
We'd been too lax about that kind of shit. Our old place had more security than our new one, and that fucker got blown up still.
We needed to shore up the place better. That included shit like a security fence that could be electrified. It meant ballistic steel inserts in the bottom halves, so that in case of drive-bys in the future, we could drop to the floor under windows and return fire without getting hit ourselves.
The mother chapter of our club up in Jersey had all kinds of fancy shit to ensure their safety, including a DARPA glass room on the roof, a fucking trench so deep that tunneling under the fence was damn near impossible unless you had several weeks or months to get in. And, of course, their numbers were bigger than ours, so there was always someone on the clock.
We would get there. Now that our heads were back in the game. We'd taken out so much competition so quickly that we felt we'd earned a break, some time to party and fuck and just get some damn rest, let our battered bodies recover.
And we had earned that.
But it was time to get back to work, to make sure we were safe so that we could increase our numbers, lessen the burden of security.
Then we could lay back a bit, enjoy the fruit of our labor.
"Yeah. The quote is as bad as you thought," he said, shrugging.
Normally, I might save the ten or so grand, would have had us all out there sweating it out, so we could put that money back into the business until it was working for us a bit more easily, with less effort.
But with Seeley—arguably our hardest worker—down, and the rest of us walking around with targets on our backs, it seemed like it was smarter just to eat the cost, and save our energy for the coming fight.
"Get it set up. We will have our hands full with doing the walls inside," I added. "Gotta delegate somewhere."
"Alright. I will call them back," Che agreed, moving past me to go back into the house while I decided to sit down in the chair he vacated, knowing I had nothing pressing to work on inside, and that if I got bored enough, I would do shit I had no business doing.
Like fucking around with Harmon some more.
Or logging on under a fake name and ripping into the assholes who disrespected her online.
Or watching some of her backlogged videos.
"Oh," Harmon said another hour or so later, coming to a stop, eyes going wide. "I didn't know you were, ah, using the pool," she said, even though I was just sitting there scrolling through my phone.
"I'm not," I said. "All yours."
"No. It's fine. I will come back when..."
"Get in the fucking pool, babe," I said, sighing. "You're not going to be unsupervised out here."
"Oh, right," she said, looking off toward her house.
"Well, partly because of that," I agreed, watching as her gaze went back to me, brows furrowing. "But also because you and that pool don't have a great history."
"That was one time," she said, rolling her eyes.
"One time when you almost drowned," I clarified.
"Because of that stupid music video."
"Still. Not taking the risk. You need a lifeguard."
"I don't want to do laps when you are watching me."
"Tough shit."
"You're an asshole."
"Yeah," I agreed. "But the water is nice and cool. Perfect temperature, really. And you haven't had any exercise in days," I reminded her as she eye-banged the pool.