Page 11 of Necessary Evil

“Sentinel and I used to come down here and play hooky from school,” he said, grinning like a little boy.

Lucy could picture it. “Juvenile delinquents.” She smiled despite her mood. “What is this place?”

“Janitor’s office. He’s not here, though. He’s in Florida visiting his kids.”

“You know him?” she asked, walking around the room. It was cozy, more like a family room than an office.

“Mr. Pendleman didn’t care that we skipped school. He taught us how to play cards. Later when we brought Ryder and Warden to meet him, he taught them too.”

Ryder was a tough-looking woman who hung around with Evan’s crew, but she wasn’t a do-a-body-shot chick. It was like she was one of the boys.

“How long have you known them?” Lucy had moved around a lot when she was younger, so she didn’t have a lot of close friends.

“Since we were kids. When we were young, we had a secret club. This was our clubhouse.” He spread his arms. “Now our clubhouse is the bar.”

“A secret club,” Lucy said, trying to picture them as children. “Did you guys ride bikes and terrorize the neighborhood?”

“Not like we do now,” he said, brushing his hand over his beard with a sheepish smile. “Our bikes didn’t have motors back then. But we had club jackets and called each other the ‘Sentinels of Babylon.’ ”

“Cool name. How did you come up with it?”

“Well,” he said with a shrug, “we lived in Babylon and we wanted to sound badass. But more importantly, the letters spelled out SOB.”

“Sob? Like crying?” Lucy’s forehead crinkled in confusion.

“More like ‘son of a bitch.’ ” His grin was infectious.

“So were you sons of bitches?” She was kidding, but Evan seemed to take her seriously.

“And bastards. None of our parents gave a damn about us.”

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. Awkwardness, thy name is Lucy.

“It’s okay. We had each other. And we had places like this that we could go to when the shit really hit the fan.”

“I like it here.” Lucy sank down on the couch and sipped her root beer. It felt like she was part of the club, being allowed into his inner sanctum. This wasn’t so bad. She got points for coming to the event where the cops hated her and got to spend time with Evan without throwing herself at him.

Again.

“I want to talk to you about the law.” Evan paced around the table.

Of course he did. That was all anyone ever wanted from her. Well, it wasn’t as if she was expecting him to put the moves on her. Not after what had happened last time. Lucy’s eyes lowered for a second to check out his ass as he walked past. Still fine. Maybe that’s all she was good for, free legal advice.

“You in trouble with the law, Evan?” Lucy said in her lawyer voice.

He looked up at her in shock. “No.”

“So what’s on your mind?” She crossed her legs and saw a flash of heat in his eyes.

Not going there.

“You know that I don’t think the laws are tough enough in certain areas,” he began.

Here we go again.She was not getting into a law debate. Not with a root beer in her hand, anyway. “So change them.”

“How?” he countered.

“Call your state representative. Lobby your state senator.” The sooner they got this over with, the better. She had season two of Sons of Anarchy to binge-watch. She had put off watching the show because the hot bikers reminded her of Evan, but then she’d gotten hooked on the show. “Which laws are we talking about?”