“Yeah, off sixteenth, toward Roxbury. Above the ice cream shop…Excelsior…Yeah. How long, bro? K.”
I went into the kitchen and put the dented kettle on the tiny, ancient, half-sized stove, straining to hear what was being said as I twisted the knob to start it heating.
“No, bro… she saved my ass.” I peeked around the kitchen doorway and through my bedroom’s door into my bedroom. Mace was lying on one side of my bed, which was really just a queen-sized mattress on the floor decked in mismatched sheets from the second-hand store. Probably the nicest bed I’d ever owned if I was being honest.
“That skinny thing?” Glassjaw asked. “How’d she do that?”
“I don’t know, man, I was blackout drunk and beat to shit… gonna have to ask her.”
“Not really worried about it, more worried about you and getting you checked out by a real professional.”
Mace grunted in agreement and I sighed to myself. Okay, so I wasn’t like an EMT or certified or anything, but I was a volunteer medic down at Burning Man every year. I’d taken every CPR and First Aid course and taught myself everything I needed to know about triage and first aid. While I hadn’t treated worse than some of the injuries Mace had sustained, I was confident in my ability that I certainly hadn’t made anything worse. He was as stable as an ambulance crew or hospital could make him. I was certain of that fact.
Maverick made some noises of agreement into his phone and finally said, “Yeah, that’d be great. We’ll see you in a couple three hours.” He paused as he listened to someone on the other end of the line. “Thanks, bro. We’ll owe you one.”
He hung up and sighed, lifting his head and meeting my eyes where I was watching from around my little galley kitchen’s doorway. His gaze was calculating and decidedly uncomfortable. I ducked back around the corner and away from it, standing in front of the stove waiting for the water in my kettle to come to a boil and hating myself a little bit for it.
I mean, I had all these burly ass bikers in my tiny-ass apartment and for lack of anything better to do I had relegated myself to literally boiling water.
Don’t panic, Raven. Don’t panic, I told myself over and over again, silently in my head. No one knows they’re here, and no one’s going to drag you across the city line.
It was frustrating.
I never used to be like this, but then…
“We owe you one.”
I jumped and Maverick chuckled from my kitchen doorway. He wasn’t a big man, not really. Slender, and not overly tall. Average, really, except for the devastatingly good looks and those deep, dark blue eyes. He peered at me from under his dark hair which was getting in need of a cut and I honestly felt nothing by way of heat or anything else. I mean, he was pretty to look at… so? I’d learned good looks meant nothing in the long run. Most guys that had them just exploited them anyway.
“Sorry,” he said with a slight smirk that was surprisingly not off-putting, but actually rather charming. Or it would be if I didn’t have my guard up as high as I did.
“It’s fine,” I said tonelessly, and he looked me over again, curiously this time.
“We’ll be out of here as soon as possible,” he said. “Got some brothers coming up from the Portland area with medical know-how to check our boy and declare one way or the other what to do.”
I nodded and said, “You shouldn’t move him. Give him a few days to chill and then he can move. Those ribs need stability and rest.”
“You got medical training?” he asked.
“Some,” I said. “No super shiny and professional certifications, I don’t have an MD after my name, but I know what I’m doing.”
He nodded thoughtfully and said, “We don’t trust easy.”
“Me either,” I said quietly. And I didn’t. Not anymore.
“We’ll be out of here as soon as we can.” He pushed off the doorway and turned.
“You said that already, and you know, it’s no trouble, honestly,” I said at his retreating back. He stopped and turned, coming back to lean in the doorway again. My anxiety spiked a bit at that. There were no windows in this kitchen, only a single doorway in and out of the narrow space.
He seemed to get that I was uncomfortable because he shifted so there was a way to edge around him if I needed to. The water started making noises, ticking and grumbling as it started to heat. It still had a way to go.
“Why do you say that?” he asked. “Everything about you seems to indicate otherwise.”
“Some people helped me once,” I said, rubbing my lips together thoughtfully. I didn’t want to give anything about myself away, but it was true. It was also true that… “Consider this me paying it forward. He just needs a few days of rest and to heal up. I’ll take the couch. I mean, I still have to work, but he can just chill. Have him checked out or whatever and we’ll go from there.”
“That’s mighty generous of you…” he trailed off and raised his eyebrows, expecting me to fill in the blank.
“My friends call me Raven,” I said and rubbed my sweating palms against my leggings.
He nodded slowly.
“Nice to meet you, Raven. I’m Mav, and the guy over there sitting with Mace is Glassjaw.”
I nodded. “Anybody else headed this way?” I asked after his firm handshake.
“A few more of my guys are apt to show up,” he said.
I nodded.
“Okay.”
“You know where Mace’s bike is at?”
“Oh, uh, I hadn’t thought about that, but if I had to guess, it’s probably still parked outside the bar.” I jerked my head in the direction of Shoreman’s a block over and two up.
“Which bar would that be?” he asked,
