Talkin' Trash (Bear Bottom Guardians MC 2)

“Well…it started like this…” then she went on to tell me exactly what had happened the previous day at work, and how it’d all been a joke.

Except, her coworkers hadn’t realized that it was a joke, and some of them had spread the rumor far and wide. So far and wide, in fact, that word had traveled to just the right ears, and the lie was now spread to the media—and the rest of the entire goddamn world.

This. Was. Perfect!

“Huh,” I tried to hold in my elation. “That’s unfortunate.”

Conleigh gave me a worried look. “What do we do?”

I tried not to smile, which I just barely accomplished by the skin of my teeth.

It wouldn’t do for her to know that I was actually quite entertained by any of this. She also didn’t need to know that I was enjoying that fact she’d made such a large faux pas.

“I guess now I gotta get in touch with my publicist,” I finally said. “But she’s hours ahead of me since she lives in the UK, so she’s probably sleeping now. That’s why I get the emails instead of the phone calls. I’ll have to email her and wait for her to call back.”

“Why do you have a publicist that lives in the UK?” she asked me what everyone asked me.

I shrugged. “Honestly? Because I started asking around with a few of the guys, and they all recommended somebody completely different from the next person. Rome recommended Elouise’s—that’s her name—husband, Bryant. But Bryant wasn’t taking on any new clients, but he said his wife was. She is British, and little did I know that they were in the process of getting divorced at the time that I needed a publicist…anyway, long story short, she lives in the UK. She’s really good though, so I keep her. If it was something huge that she had to deal with, I have her number and I can call her so we could work it out. But this isn’t that big.”

Conleigh blinked at that lengthy explanation. “That’s quite a story…I assume you must really like her. You’re not the type to do anything all willy-nilly.”

I found myself grinning at that. “Willy-nilly? No, I’m not the type of man to go all willy-nilly and do shit without first thinking it through. You’re right.”

I felt a trickle of sweat start down my temple, and I pushed off the counter. “How about you hang out for a minute and let me go get in the shower. Maybe we can order a pizza?”

Her brows rose. “You eat pizza?”

She looked at my body, letting her eyes skim up and down the length of me, before settling her eyes back on mine.

I snorted. “It’s the offseason, Con. I can do a lot of stuff that I wouldn’t normally do. Such as ride my bike without a helmet.”

She frowned. “Why can’t you do that during the season? Not that I want you to or anything. Do you know how many motorcycles are hit every day? A lot. People just don’t pay enough attention. Anyway, I had a young patient last week, all of eighteen, who got hit by a sedan. He was bruised up pretty bad. Had that sedan been a truck or going just a little faster? He’d have been dead.”

I waited for her rant to be over, and then waited a couple seconds more to make sure she was actually through and then explained.

“I signed a seasonal clause on safety. During the season, from the start of pre-season workouts to post-season, I will not, under any circumstances, participate in any extreme sports. That includes riding a motorcycle without a helmet—though riding a motorcycle was part of the clause that my lawyer got thrown out since I was part of a motorcycle club before I’d even signed my contracts with my old team, a contract which the new team also honored.”

“What else does it include?” she pushed.

I shrugged and turned my back on her to wash my hands in the sink behind me.

I turned my head and explained over my shoulder. “I can’t ride without a helmet. I can’t skydive. Play any pick-up games of football with full contact. I can’t play any sports, really, that require more than light physical activity. I can’t get into any fights. I can’t go to concerts and stand in a large crowd…there’s a bunch of shit.”

She snorted. “Didn’t I see that you went to a Garth Brooks concert in Vegas not too long ago?”

I grinned as I shut the tap off, and then reached for a sheet from the paper towel roll. Once my hands were sufficiently dried, I blew my nose into the towel.

Once it was in the trash, I turned to find her frowning at me.

“What?” I asked.

“You just washed your hands, then blew your nose. You’re not planning to wash your hands again, are you?” She curled her lip up at me.