With the exception of Gunner’s derisive snort, the table was quiet. Dex turned to Maverick, who was staring at him.
He understood what happened now. If either one of them refused, they’d expose a weakness and suggest that the trouble between them was a problem for the club. They’d already been reamed—and fined—for the way their fight went down in the ring. So now it came down to who would be the bigger man first.
“Not a problem,” Dex said as soon as he’d worked that out.
Maverick, clearly not far behind him, squinted in irritation. “Yeah, I’m good.”
“Excellent,” Eight said, sarcasm dripping. “Teamwork. Just what I like to see.”
~oOo~
A few hours later, Maverick and Dex sat in Maverick’s Suburban, on a weary-looking street in Westside Tulsa, just east of the Okmulgee Expressway. It was one of those Fifties-era neighborhoods of bland ranchers that had gone up fast everywhere during the boomtown days and then sagged into neglect after the bust. Not all that different from Dex’s neighborhood, but people here didn’t seem to try as hard. Sections of fencing were broken on a few houses. Paint peeled off siding in strips. Few houses had even a strand of Christmas lights around a front window. Holiday spirit skipped right over a neighborhood like this. Probably Santa, too.
They were parked a few doors down from their target address, shielded from view by a small grove of old, ailing elms that dominated one front yard. Both Dex and Mav were slumped low in their seats. Mav had a set of binoculars, though they were plenty close to see who was coming and going from that house.
“Is that their clubhouse or just the house of one of the guys?” Dex asked.
“How the fuck should I know? This is the address Apollo gave me. We’re here to figure them out. So that’s one thing to figure out.”
“If it’s their clubhouse, you’d think there’d be more cars around. Or bikes. There should be bikes.”
Maverick sighed and lowered the binocs. “Do you understand what ‘recon’ means?”
Dex leveled a look at him. “Who do you think, of the assholes sitting in this truck, knows better what the fuck a recon mission is?” Maverick had not served. Dex, on the other hand, had spent most of a fucking decade in desert camo.
“Then why are you asking stupid questions?”
“Because it’srecon. That’s what we’re supposed to do—gather information, understand what it means. I’m thinking out loud.”
Maverick made a face that might have been a snarl if not for the swelling and faced front, lifting the binocs to his eyes again.
Dex crossed his arms, stared out the window, and stewed.
Nothing was happening at this ugly, rundown house, but a lot was going on in his head.
“Kelsey said she convinced you to back off. Why are you still so pissed off, then?”
“I don’t want to talk about my daughter with you.” Mav didn’t look away from his view through the binocs.
“I’m not talking about her. I’m talking about you and me. If you changed your mind—”
Mav set the binocs down and turned to Dex. The snarl was clear now despite his swollen face. “I didn’t change my fucking mind. You’re a fucking psycho who doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as that perfect girl. But she doesn’t see that. She thinks you’re good. What she convinced me was things between her and me were gonna get rocky if I didn’t back off. I can’t have that, so I backed off. But if you hurt her, motherfucker, if you even hurt herfeelings, I will turn you into soup.”
“You need to stop calling me a psycho. None of the shit I’ve done has been forfun. Not one time have I done something like that that wasn’t in the service of my country or my club.”
“No, you just take an order and get real inventive with how you carry it out.”
“Effective. I get effective.”
Mav scoffed and returned to his surveillance.
They sat in quiet for fifteen minutes, Mav focused through the binocs, Dex sitting beside him, checking mirrors, side views, and digging deeper and deeper into the shit mountain that was his mind.
“We’re not together.”
That got Mav’s attention. “So when she went to your house last night, you justbonedher and sent her on her way?”
Dex could see him planning to turn him into soup. “No. I would never do that. She fixed my face and then I told her I wasn’t a good guy and sent her on her way. I agree with you, Mav. I’m not anywhere near her league. I know that. I just can’t convinceher. She should have somebody who has a normal job, who doesn’t even know how to shoot a gun. Somebody who drives a Volvo and golfs and knows wine.”