I let out a low whistle. “Where’d they bury him?”
“Nash said they let him go.”
“What did Folk say?”
Decoy shrugged. “I spoke to him three times today and he never mentioned it.”
“Maybe he didn’t want to spill the tea on the phone.”
“Nash did.”
“And that’s bothering you enough to wreck your lungs all over again?”
“Maybe.”
Decoy huffed out a sigh full of smoke and melancholy. And he didn’t elaborate, which was fucking inconvenient. I had to get back; I’d learned the hard way that leaving Ranger unattended was a terrible idea. Unless Viktor had distracted him, which honestly I deserved for my first good deed of the day.
I used my second good deed to snatch Decoy’s cig and toss it away, and I felt like shit that I couldn’t do more for him. That I couldn’t get him home any quicker. I knew Folk was having a hard time with him gone. Nash had told me. Embry. And then late last night, while Ranger had driven the graveyard shift and I’d been on watch, Cam had told me too.
“Decoy needs to stay home for a while. Any overnights, I’ll do them. And pull more agency drivers in. I don’t care what it fucking costs.”
Course he didn’t.Hewasn’t the one who had to balance books with Alexei lurking over his shoulder, but I got it. The Folkster had been off recently, and if it was getting to Deeky half as much as it was getting to the rest of us?
Fuck.
Right.
We needed to get back on the road and guilt slithered down my spine. If we hadn’t pissed around at the service station, we might’ve avoided this pile up, but thanks to me we were gonna be hours behind schedule by the time we got moving again and factored in mandatory tachograph fuckery.
I opened my mouth to apologise, but the sound of a thousand engines restarting stole my thunder.
Time to go.
I left Decoy and Mateo and dashed back to the Bone Rattler.
Ranger greeted me with a slow scowl.
Suspiciouslyslow.
“Did you raid the edibles?”
“What if I did?”
“Then I’ll be fucking annoyed. Save some for me.”
“You’re driving.”
“Only for another two hours. Then we have to spend the night in Carlisle.”
I waited for Ranger to hurl something at me. He didn’t, thanks to the edibles I’d brought along to helpmefucking sleep. He shifted just enough to let me take my seat, then flopped onto his back and used my thigh as a footrest for the next eighty miles, and it wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened between us.
Hell, it was almost relaxing, save that he wasn’t my River.
9
RUBI
Ranger reanimated about twenty minutes out from our rest stop. Sat up, rubbing his face all cute and shit. “Those gummies bang.”