He didn’t do that.
He drove to his condo to change clothes as he’d showered with Angie.
And then like he had since he’d moved to Phoenix two years ago, he took on his day.
* * *
Branch sat in his truck in the parking lot, watched the man walk into the smoke shop, and he wondered not for the first time at the extent of people’s stupidity.
First, how the guy hadn’t spotted Branch’s tail, he didn’t know. He’d been following him in the same vehicle on and off for the last week, doing it less and less cautiously because the man was clueless. Branch could actually tailgate him and the guy was so deep in his own world, he’d have no idea.
But that wasn’t the worst of it.
If he was skimming off the top of a guy like Fred, Branch’s client—and although a good client, he was very much not a good guy—Branch would not be walking in broad daylight into the front door of the business owned by the dude who was assisting him in doing this.
Then again, if he was one of Fred’s boys (not that he’d ever be one of Fred’s boys), he’d never consider skimming off the top. Fred would have his balls. Literally. He collected them from morons who he felt deserved to be liberated from that part of their anatomy and kept them in jars of formaldehyde in his office.
Seeing this the first time he’d been contacted to discuss a job had made Branch think twice about taking said job.
Since Fred not only didn’t blink at his fees and his strict demands for autonomy, he also paid bonuses if the job was done quick and clean (which was the way Branch worked), he’d taken the job and several since.
But now he wasn’t watching the door to the smoke shop thinking of having to go to Fred, sit in an office where there was a lit shelf behind Fred’s desk holding five jars filled with men’s testicles.
He was watching the door to the smoke shop upending his phone in his fingers, and again, and again, wondering if he should make the call he wanted to make, and if he did, which one of the three men he could call that he actually should call.
If he made the call, Aryas was likely out.
He didn’t know if the man was back in town and this conversation should be face-to-face.
However, if he had this conversation with Aryas, other things might be communicated that Branch didn’t want communicated, these things could be interpreted erroneously, and that could cause future problems.
So in town or not, Aryas was still out.
Erroneous things he didn’t want communicated was why he couldn’t call Olly either.
“Shit, fuck, shit,” he muttered. Eyes remaining on the door to the smoke shop, he engaged his phone and muttered in it, “Call Barclay.”
The phone did its work and rang three times before Barclay answered, “Yo, bro. You been MIA so long, thought you’d dropped off the face of the earth.”
“I haven’t,” Branch replied.
“Seeing as I’m talking to you, I got that,” Barclay said, laughter shaking his words.
Listening to it, it wasn’t the first time Branch wished he’d had even a little bit of the life that Barclay led.
Life was just good for Barclay and he let that show. The guy was honest but cool about it, even if what he had to share could be prickly. He had a great sense of humor. He liked what he did. He had good friends and a goodly number of them (not surprising with how he was). And he laughed a lot. His business partners could often drive him up the wall, but other than that, life was good and he didn’t take it for granted. He was appreciative and he had no problem putting in the work to keep life just that way.
Branch hadn’t thought about having a good life, not since Tara’s had been taken.
Since then, he hadn’t looked into the future. He hadn’t considered the idea he should be content with his present. He hadn’t hoped or wished for anything.
He’d just been breathing.
Branch stopped thinking about that shit and asked, “You got time to have a beer tonight?”
“You and Olly meeting up?” Clay asked back.
“No.”
Another sucking void of silence.
Although Barclay reached out to him every once in a while, usually to include him in a beer he was having with Ol, Barclay and Branch had never had a beer together, sharing time on their own.
And clearly, Branch suggesting this surprised Clay.
“So you got time?” Branch pushed. “There’s somethin’…” Fuck, how did he say it? “Got a question about something and thinking you’re the go-to guy on it.”
“Well, yeah,” Barclay replied tentatively. “I’m free. Sure. I’m cool. You got a question and I can answer it, I will. You wanna hit PV Tavern?”
That was their usual place, a bar in Paradise Valley that wasn’t trendy or up its own ass. It also wasn’t a dive, it wasn’t all about sports and it wasn’t all about bikers. It was quiet. And it wasn’t a firefighter bar so Olly could get a break from his brothers who were brothers but that didn’t mean he wanted to spend every waking minute with them.
“Not PV,” Branch answered.
He gave no alternative because he knew no alternatives. He met the guys irregularly, not habitually, to throw back a few and watch the game. He didn’t unwind sitting at a bar, sharing the shit of his life with a bartender. He didn’t go on the prowl, positioning himself someplace for the sole purpose of evaluating the women in his sights to decide who he wanted to take home and fuck.
He worked.
He slept.
He sometimes met Olly for a beer at PVT and sometimes Barclay joined them.
And now, for as long as it took for her not to get totally torn up when he took off on her, he spent time with Evangeline.
“Uh…,” Barclay mumbled before he suggested, “The club?”
No way was he going to the Bolt.
Unless he was on a job, Branch didn’t get near Clay’s club, the Bolt. Too many assholes who went to Pounds hit the Bolt and Branch didn’t need that hassle.
He also didn’t need anyone overhearing what they were talking about, no matter where they were.
“My place,” he said.
Barclay’s voice was higher when he asked, “Your place?”
His reaction was not a surprise. Barclay had never been to his place. Olly had never been to his place. Aryas either. Except for Whitney and a few other Dommes he’d let work him, no one had ever been invited to his place.
He wondered briefly what Evangeline would think of his place.
This was brief because he knew she wouldn’t think much of it, not because she was that type of woman but because there wasn’t much to think about.
“My place,” he answered. “I’ll text you the address.”
“Uh, have I pissed someone off and you’re asking me for a beer at this unknown locale so you can put a bullet in my brain and then cut me into little pieces, fit me in a suitcase and carry me out to your truck in order to dump my body somewhere?”
“Fuck no,” Branch answered.
Hack up a body and put it in suitcases. Christ.
There were much better ways to make a body disappear.
“I’ll get the beer in. Five?” he continued.
“I can be there at five, Branch. Text me the address.”
“Right. Later.”
“Yeah, later, bro.”
Branch hung up.
Then Branch followed a moron for another hour, even though he had all the evidence he needed to present to Fred that one of his boys had gone dirty. Or, he was already filthy, working for Fred. So dirtier.
He was delaying. Fred was a slimeball of the variety that Branch didn’t feel the need to shower after he’d met with him, but instead be sandblasted.
But he wanted to get paid and he wanted off this job.
So he met with Fred, reported his findings, got paid and didn’t think for a second about the fact that the next time Fred called, there would be six jars on that shelf behind his desk.
He went to buy beer.
* * *
Barclay let out a low whistle as he looked around Branch’s condo.
“Brother, you gotta give me the number of your decorator. Extreme minimalism. Inspired,” he joked.
“Fuck off,” Branch muttered, opening the fridge, taking out a couple of beers and turning to Clay, who he saw leaning to the side, looking into Branch’s refrigerator and not hiding his curiosity.