“Why, exactly, am I here?” I ask.
Preppy and Bear stop the bickering and look to me. A slow smile spreads across Preppy’s face.
Bear raises his eyebrows. “Because we’re having a goddamn meetin’ that’s why.” He says, like it should be obvious to me.
I lean forward and take the joint from King, taking a long drag and keeping it held in for as long as I can before exhaling because there’s no way I’m going to be able to get through the next few minutes without being high, especially if Preppy doesn’t get to the fuckin’ point.
I stand to pass the joint to Bear. “Okay, but like I asked before—” I sit back down. “Why am I here?”
King stands and moves to the wall where he removes one of Ray’s framed drawings, revealing a safe. He turns it left and right a few times before it pops open.
Preppy rubs his hands together eagerly.
Bear’s face is expressionless, except for a knowing glint in his eyes.
King retrieves something and shuts the safe. He sits back down and holds up a key, the end in the same symbol as the neon logo hanging above his head. He tosses the key to me and sits back. “What’s this for?” I inspect the key and quickly notice that although it’s the same logo as the sign, it’s also a little different.
This one has the number nine in the center of the bow tie.
I look up and meet three pairs of approving eyes.
“Those,” King says, “are the keys to the motherfuckin’ kingdom.”
“Welcome aboard, kid,” Bear chimes in.
“My baby boy. All fuckin’ grown up,” Preppy says in a high-pitched voice, fanning his fake tears.
King leans forward. His elbows on his knees. “That key unlocks this room, all three of our houses, the arsenal on the island, several safe houses, and a few stashes of shit here and there around town.”
“And for some reason, it also opens the vending machine at the bus stop,” Preppy says with a shrug. “Free Fritos for fucking dayyyysss.”
“You showed us that you’re willing to take a bullet for us. To die for us,” Bear says.
King finishes, “This is us showing you that we’re willing to do the same. We need some younger blood in Logan’s Beach. Someone willing to take charge when we can’t. Someone else to watch our backs. We all got our own shit going on, but this here in this room? This shit comes first.”
Bear nods in agreement. “I’ve got The Lawless, my MC, my brotherhood.” He looks around the room. “But these two are my actual brothers. And now, so are you.”
The key feels heavy with the trust it comes with. “I won’t let you down.”
Preppy pulls out a long sharp knife. There’s a glint in his eye as he holds it up in the air. “Now, it’s time for the blood oath.”
A few moments of silence pass before all three of them start laughing.
“I’m just kidding. The blood oath was a no-go the first time I brought it up.”
“Yet you kept fucking asking,” King says, slapping Preppy playfully on the back.
I’ve gone without having any sort of family in my life, and now, these men are taking me in as one of their own. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to say.”
“You ain’t supposed to say anything,” Bear says. He stands and makes his way over to a cabinet, but it’s just a door front that opens to a mini fridge and liquor cabinet. He pulls out a bottle of whiskey. “You’re supposed to fucking drink.”
“Oh, I’ll get my shit,” Preppy takes off to the adjoining apartment and comes back with an armful of baggies, filled to the brim with all sorts of powders and pills. “Sorry, guys. This is all I could get on such short notice.”
King laughs as Preppy spreads his shit out on the coffee table.
“I thought this was a meeting?” I ask as Bear snorts a line off his wrist.
He looks up at me, wiping at his nose, and licks the rest of the blow from his skin. “What the fuck is it you think we do in meetings?”
Preppy passes me the bottle. He sits down on the floor in front of the leather couch and tugs on my leg until I do the same. Bear and King join us on the floor across the low table. “I’m proud of you, brother.”
Not wanting the surge of emotions I’m feeling to spill into my words, I take a deep pull from the bottle.
“Now, stop being a pussy, and shove some blow up your nose, brother. You ain’t gonna morph those two nostrils into one if you’re a pussy about it,” Preppy says, dumping out a huge bag of blow into a bowl.
“Nobody wants one nostril,” King tells Preppy.
“Yes, they do. Everyone knows that one nostril is halfway to unicorn.” He uses a small straw to snort a line and hands it to me, locking eyes with mine. “Be a unicorn.”