A Lot of Weight [Booker]

[Drew Roscoe] Before leaving Eli to his own devices after a few beers and a good catching up, Drew left him with an address and general directions up to a residence on the north side of town. He’s probably towed for some impounded vehicles in the area before, the kind that you had to be cautious about weapons and drugs hidden away under the seats. It was precisely as rough an area as his own, just a northern reflection was all.

A narrow street lined with trees was the one she’d told him she lived on, half the houses were foreclosed, there were at least two For Rent signs visible in the snow-crusted yards along the way. Her house was recognizable by her truck, it was more noticeable than the home itself. As she’d said, it was blue. What she didn’t bother to point out was the obvious—how the blue was faded and old, almost more gray than anything else. The shutters were crooked with white paint that was chipping away. There were cracks in the driveway, the sidewalk dividing her unfenced front yard in half was uneven.

Like she’d said, it was as forgettable and easy to overlook as anything else in the neighborhood. This was a fine example of hiding in plain sight. The curtains were drawn back, blinds turned open even though they were left down. The neighborhood was quiet, save for the distant bass of some lowriding vehicle that coasted idle past a cross street.

She’d said he could swing by anytime he felt like it. One could suppose that now was one of those times.

[Booker] There were things to see too. Things to be done. It was almost noon and Eli had only managed to drag his ass out of bed, get dressed and make it as far as Drew's faded blue (tired looking) house. It's considerably warmer today than it has been, with temperatures threatening to reach the mid-40's. He's wearing creased blue Dickie's and a navy blue t-shirt beneath the leather vest that is as much a part of him as his skin.

The rumbling of his Harley is the first sign for Drew that today was as good a day as any to stop by anytime. Parking in front of her home he drops the kick stand and hops off. The helmet is removed but the skin tight (nearly) leather gloves remain on as do the sunglasses.

Closing the distance between his bike, the sidewalk and her door ...he knocks.

[Drew Roscoe] Eli might have only just gotten up, but Drew had been in the habit since college to roll out of bed early on and get a move on the day. She was accustomed to having early morning classes and then working to maintain income for rent after that. There was a time when her primary concern with being a Kinfolk was not being shot at, kidnapped, or sliced open with claws and knives, but rather where in the world she was going to fit making time for her People.

Sure, it was her day off today. Her idea of sleeping in was laying in bed and letting the sunshine from her window cut across the room until she was actually working to keep her eyes closed. Funny thing is, that was just before nine in the morning. So she’d kept about the house, straightening up, doing laundry, making herself an omelet for breakfast.

When she heard the rumble of a Harley roll up and cut quiet in front of her house, she didn’t need to look out the window to know who it was. Nobody else would be rejoicing the brief preview of what spring would bring to them by getting their bike out in February and riding it through the streets.

So when he knocks on the door, Drew’s there to answer. She’s dressed in a pair of simple jeans, stocking feet, and a black T-shirt that inquires in white lettering across the chest: Violence may not be the answer, but who asked? She’s smiling up at him, holding the door open to let him in.

“You know, on a pretty day like this, I couldn’t imagine you not coming out to run the streets.”

[Booker] He laughs, more chuckles, and shakes his head. Eli is 5'11 or so in his boots and he has to look down at Drew to give her a flash of a grin and a peek at dark brown eyes as the sunglasses are raised to sit atop his head. "Fuck yeah." He says, dragging his wrist across his chin. "I'm workin' on some shit and I had to run out and get parts."

"What are you doin' cupcake?" He asks, allowing his eyes to adjust to the lighting inside her home. "You busy?" Eli doesn't stay still at the threshold of her doorway. He takes liberties and wanders a few more feet into her living room, his eyes roaming over whatever personal belongings might be out for him to see.

[Drew Roscoe] Inside her home, it's a straight shot sight-wise to the back of the house. She's standing on a small section of tile that makes up the entry way, but the room is open to the living room, which is filled with her brown leather furniture, stuffed comfortably rather than contemporary, with a television on an entertainment center against the wall. The hardwood floor meets linoleum in the kitchen, where there’s a small island with two bar stools on the outside. Beyond that, the dining room, complete with a big family-sized table. To the right has to be the bedrooms, judging by where the wall was and the hallway that appeared between living room and kitchen.

The place was warm and cozy looking, comfortable, with decorations on the wall that had nothing to do with family or memory, just something to look nice and break apart the blank white spaces on the walls. She’s got her hair tied back and she smells like lavender-scented cleaner. He must have caught her at the end of her cleaning spree or otherwise interrupted it.

“Not in the least,” is her answer as to whether she’s busy or not, and she steps back, holding the door open to invite the other Kinfolk in. Her smile is as easy and comfortable as it always is (unless given reason to be anything but), and she’s bright-eyed enough to suggest that she’s been up and at ‘em for some time now.

There’s nothing night people hate more than a chipper morning person.

“You want to come in or stand on my step?”

[Booker] He walks in and begins a precursory look around her home. She smells like lavender cleaning products and he smells like Irish Spring, Budweiser, cigarette smoke and auto grease. They're opposites today.

"Yeah..." It's said once he's fully inside her living room, standing next to her comfortably stuffed leather furniture.

"What're you doing? Cleaning?" He asks, turning to face her so that she no longer has to look at the broadness of his back. "You aren't cleaning on one of the nicest days in Chicago are you?" It's asked with one eyebrow askance.

[Drew Roscoe] He comes in and glances about, giving the place a look over. It was a little different from having a Garou look through the place, when Erek or Remy had come through they were hunting for ways that the Wyrm could get in, where burglars would have access through windows or weak locks. Eli, though, was just seeing where she lived and smelling the cleaning products that permeated the air.

He looked back at her, all skepticism for staying inside and cleaning on the most beautiful day of the year thus far. Drew’s answer is to tip a smirk in his direction and gesture toward the back of the house with a distant, vague wave of her hand. “I’ve got the windows opened up to let sunshine and air in.”

She leaves him to worry about taking off boots (or not, she didn’t seem particular, probably couldn’t afford to be what with being Kin to the most martial tribe in the Nation—that would probably explain why she opted for a home with hardwood floors rather than carpet) and moves back into the kitchen, goes about putting away cleaning materials and the roll of paper towels she had out, showing that she really had been cleaning when he rolled up on his hog.

“Didn’t have anywhere to go or anything to do today, really. Thought about reconnecting with the old crew, but ‘eh…” Her shrug is dismissive, to the cupboard under the sink she was putting her cleaning supplies away in. Her voice had lifted so he could still hear her easily, so she wouldn’t be muffled or mumbling. “I could be convinced to leave the house, though, if you’ve got a thought?”

[Booker] "Let's go to the park." He says, following along behind her as she moves to the kitchen to put away her cleaning supplies. She can tell by his footfalls that his boots are still on his feet. Like with his vest, he'd probably fuck in them. Only in the summer time are they replaced by nice, all white shell toe Adidas.

But, it's winter now and the weather dictates the boots so he keeps them on, oblivious to manners. "I saw your pals over there at the church." It's said with a grin that borders on crooked as he watches her move here and there, comfortable in her own home.

[Drew Roscoe] “I could go to the park…” Their voices were exchanged easily enough, the television in the living room wasn’t turned on. She didn’t have time to keep up with television shows, didn’t like to watch the news because sometimes she found herself to be that person that people were supposed to be keeping an eye out for (though no one ever suspected her, she was too sweet, to small, too feminine for that kind of dredgery). She was more the kind of person to turn on a science channel to zone out to, or put in a movie for an evening in, and that was about all the use she got out of the television set anymore. A small radio was set up in a corner on the kitchen counter, quietly humming music at an almost indiscernable level of volume some easy-to-forget mix of 80’s 90’s and Now.

When she straightened up from where she’d crouched down to put away cleaning things, she nudged the cupboard closed with her knee and leaned over the counter to switch the radio off, then turned to face Booker where he stood, boots and vest and all, across the small kitchen from her. She leaned back against the counter, scrubbing her hands on the thighs of her jeans and grinning at him a little, eyebrows lifting curiously.

“My friends, huh? So you met Kora and Linus and Roman?” There’s a pause, brief, a rethinking of what she just said, then she shrugs one shoulder and smiles, a little bit sheepishly. “Well, Roman’s alright really. He’s a sweet kid if nothing else at all.” She pushes away from the counter and moves back to the dining room. To the immediate right, hidden from view from the living room and kitchen, is a door that opens up to a staircase that goes upstairs. She leaves the door open, ascends the stairs to a large bedroom that was built more like a loft than anything else. Her conduct suggests he’s free to follow if he wishes, but she doesn’t indicate that should. She’s content to call down the stairs to him while she grabs a hoodie from her closet for the park.

“What’d they have to say?”

[Booker] The way she looks at him makes his smile grow even wider. His arms had been stretched out above his head, gloved fingers clasping loosely to the top of the door frame. He leans there, lazes really, and watches her move. She steps past him and heads up a set of stairs and Eli doesn't follow. He leaves Drew to whatever it is she's doing up there and waits patiently downstairs. She'll find him in the same position when she returns.

"They said, " And he gives his best imitation of a girls voice, "....that Drew Roscoe, she's such a fucking bitch. Don't go around her, she's no good and she'll give you Drew cooties." Dark eyes peer out of his periphery to watch Drew as she takes the last few stairs toward him.

[Drew Roscoe] She doesn’t take long upstairs, Drew wasn’t the sort of girl to stare at a large selection of clothing options, meticulously plan how she was going to do her make-up and coordinate it with the color scheme she’d gone with for today. The shirt she’d thrown on in the morning was black, snarky, something she thought funny because of her Tribe and the people she kept company with. The hoodie she was pulling on, not bothering yet to zip up as she came down the stairs to return to the man in her kitchen, was pale yellow and a size too large. There was a big red firefighting emblem on the back—she was probably given it for volunteering at some event, no doubt with her Fire Captain friend she’d mentioned the other day.

“That was Linus, huh?” Her grin split wide on her face when she answered his bad, squawking imitation of a woman’s voice. She shook her head, snapped an elastic off her wrist and tied her hair back into a simple, boring ponytail at the back of her head, no knots or braids just out of the way. She took a moment to close the windows letting the cleaner smell out and the sunshine and cool air in, made sure the back door was locked before she moved into the kitchen, brushing past Booker in the small space between wall and island on her way to the living room to continue closing windows.

“So they left out the part where I’ll sleep with anyone who knocks on my door?”

[Booker] That she brushes off what he said as nothing makes his grin split into a smile. Releasing the top of the door frame, he follows along behind her. When she stops to close a window his arms wrap around her smaller frame, hand locking onto his opposite wrist lightly somewhere near her stomach. The way his body folds into her own it brings his mouth near her ear. His breath is warm and just glances against her neck now that her hair is pulled up into a simple, boring ponytail.

"I'm fucking with you kid..." He says quietly. "They didn't mention you. Told me not to fuck any of their young kin and to be good. Never mentioned you." And with that he releases her and steps back. His hands slide his glasses back over his eyes.

" 'sides, I knocked on your door and you ain't fucked me yet."

[Drew Roscoe] She’s got her arms up to drop the stubborn window at the front window in her living room, the one that she’d watched the blizzard out of, the lightning in the sky. It took some upward jamming to loosen it, but as it relented and she was lowering the window down to lock it, Booker slipped up behind her, wrapped his arms about her middle, under her raised arms, and brought his head to rest next to hers. With his hands over her stomach, he breathes what laws Kora had set down, confirms what she was sure—that he was just pulling her leg. She didn’t figure they’d find her worth mentioning to a new Kin.

She’d finished locking up the window with his arms about her, smiled and pressed her temple to his cheek, one hand lifting to touch the opposite side of his face in an affectionate return of some intimate manifestation of a hug. He steps back and pushes his sunglasses back down over his eyes, she takes her keys off the hook behind the front door and zips up her hoodie with a grin.

“Takes more than a knock on the door, Booker.” Door opened, she stepped out, waited for Eli to come out to the front yard as well, then locked up the door and pocketed the keys afterward. “Why on earth would they be worried about you with Kin? They’ve got more than enough eligible bachelors to be concerned about ahead of your ass.”

[Booker] She opens the door, steps out and he walks - struts, really - out as well, a full belly laugh rolling from his lips. He even places a gloved hand on his stomach before turning to face Drew, arms held straight at each side.

"I'm fuckin' prime rib - no, I'm goddamned kobe steak. They know all the ladies are gonna want a piece of the Bookah once they see me." He's grinning ear to ear at this point, and even turns in a full circle to show off his 'wares' to Drew. He moves toward his Harley, hand already reaching for his helmet.

"See ... I knew it wasn't that easy. I knew a knock on the door wasn't gonna be enough...you little liar." He hands the helmet to her, head cocked to one side.

"We get to the park I want to have a sit down, okay?" Both brows lift above his sunglasses as he watches the other kin.

[Drew Roscoe] Drew’s pockets jangle merrily in her pocket, and she just grins quietly while Booker boasts about how women can’t keep their hands off of him and even goes so far as to spin in a circle for her. She just snickers and shakes her head, zipping her hoodie up to her chest and walking along with him to the Harley parked on the curb.

“Well then that’s just a problem you’re going to have to handle. Put that belly back on or get some hideous facial piercing to drive them all away.” She’s smirking, accepting the helmet and smoothing the loose hairs at the front of her face back, out of her eyes before she puts it on and makes sure it’s secure. She had better, bolder, more glorious ways to die than in an accident.

“Yeah, alright,” she agrees easily enough to his saying he wanted a sit-down. She’ll wait for him to get onto the motorcycle first, then sling a leg across to sit behind him, sliding in close and comfortable to fit, fingers finding the belt loops of his jeans at his hips and hooking her fingers through them so that she wouldn’t fly back when they started driving. “Whatever you like.”

[Booker] "I know..." He heaves a heavy sigh and waits until the helmet is on her head before he swings a leg over the bike and kicks the stand out of the way. "It's my cross to bear..." He says, grinning as the bike roars to life. It's not Grant Park (his old stomping grounds) that he directs the Harley. Instead it's to a small park about five miles from Drew's house. He'd seen it on his way here and it's got swings and a few picnic benches to boot.

Most of all, Eli just wanted to ride. He wanted to be on his bike and feel the cool air smack him in the face. He wanted Drew to feel it too. Staying in your house on a day like today wasn't acceptable to Eli. Not when it came to his friend.

So the bike edges to the curb, and the park is empty (for now) except for them. The stand is dropped and the Fenrir kinsman steadies the bike for Drew's exit.

[Drew Roscoe] Drew wasn’t one of those teenagers that snuck out of the house at any given chance to go play with bad boys. She didn’t drink beers in the back of a truck while her father thought she was at a girlfriend’s house, she didn’t get tattoos without telling him or pierce her belly button and try and hide it. She did well enough at school instead, and did her gymnastics, went to meets and helped to teach the little leotard-wearing toddlers how to do handstands and summersaults. This meant that she missed out on a lot of opportunities to cut through the countryside on the back of some guy’s motorcycle.

Well, here’s to making up for lost time. Go figure, he even had tattoos and a Mohawk.

She’s got her head around his shoulder as well as she can, breathing the cool air as it rushes her. The ride was only five miles distance, it wasn’t long enough for them to be reminded brutally by the fast-moving wind that it was, in fact, still Februrary, and that this forty-degree weather and glimpse of sunny skies was only a teaser, a hint of what was to come. In true Midwestern style, Mother Nature would slap them with at least one more heavy winter storm before Spring would truly be allowed to take hold.

They stopped at a park Booker’d spied on his way out to pick her up from her house. Whether he’d decided they would come here before he showed up and knocked on her door and gotten an affirmative from the other Kin was uncertain, but he’d liked what he’d seen and had it in mind. He holds the bike upright and lets her off first. She waits at the sidewalk for him, taking off the helmet and handing it back, smoothing her hands over her hair and tightening her ponytail before stuffing her hands in her pockets and looking over the park.

She’s nodding, nipping her lower lip for the moment, and grinning. “Used to play fetch with Basil here.”

[Booker] It's a small park, with a large lay of snow covered grass and a concrete playground with slides and swings. Houses border it, fill up the space behind it, rather than apartments. Somewhere - nearby - someone's window is open and Otis Redding crones Coffee and Cigarettes while kids run through melting snow and slush in a yard.

His bike is secure, the helmet is left to hang off one of the handlebars. With a nod, he indicates to Drew that they should walk toward the benches.

"So..." He begins, and props his sunglasses back up on top of his head. "I been thinking, I talked to those guys over there at the church like I said ...Linus and Kora, didn't meet Roman yet." Eli is digging his cigarettes from the inner pocket of his leather vest. He shakes a Marlboro loose and lights it. The wind carries away a puff of grayish smoke easily.

"We gotta make this work kid...between you and them. It's gotta be hashed out. Maybe their way ain't the right way, but we do what we do and usually it's what they want us to do. So they want you to bed up this broad and her kids, "He shrugs as if to say whatthefuckever and looks back at Drew.

"How can we make this work?" He asks, dark brown eyes fixed on hers.

[Drew Roscoe] Ah, she thinks. So this is the sit down.

He’s shaking out a cigarette and moving away from the bike, lighting up the smoke and talking to her about ‘this broad and her kids’. She keeps her hands in her hoodie pockets, keeping them warm against her stomach, and just smiles faintly as she walks after him. She’s one moment studying the tattoo that streaks along his skull, then the next watching kids play at one side of the park, climbing melting snow mounds and claiming one another to be kings of the hill.

“I thought I’d already sorted that out,” she said with her eyes still on the kids. “Left all the paperwork and nonsense with Kora to deliver to this faceless woman. My rent? It ain’t inexpensive. She’s promising that this woman can split expenses, but I’ve found about six apartments and then some that she could afford with that much money to be on her own. Self-sufficient and all that.”

She’s shaking her head and frowning. “I’m still there for Kora and Linus and them whenever they need me. Always a phone call or a knock on the door away. As for this woman? I’ve offered to pay her deposit if money’s the problem. But Booker?” Eyes away from the children now, they lock back onto his. “She isn’t Tribe. I’ve offered more than I ought to her as it is. She can’t stay in my house.”

[Booker] "I know." He says with a sigh. "I know." The cigarette is drawn to his lips and when he slips the cigarettes back into his vest his fingers brush the holstered Beretta out of habit. It was nice to know it was there. Dark eyes find hers, hold them for a beat, and then let the gaze go.

"The way I look at it is...she ain't fuck to us, right? But Kora is. She's the head of fuckin' state far as our Tribe goes in Chicago. You wouldn't be doin' this for the broad and her little kids, you'd be doing it for Kora. And if this chick is a leach and can't find her ass from a whole in the fucking ground and doesn't get her shit together then who's fault is that? Not yours. You just done what you were told..."

His body squares, feet shoulder width apart and he watches the park like a hawk.

"I dunno. Maybe it's nothin'. Maybe the olive branch you offered work. All I'm sayin' is if it don't, we gotta work somethin' out. You're blood Drew. Theirs and mine. It ain't worth the fuckin' fuss to fight over some idiot that can't care for her own."

[Drew Roscoe] “So then why the hell are we bothering with her?”

The question has a rhetorical feel to it, the way she’d lilted up the end of the sentence as more of a point than an honest question. She shakes her head, takes her hands from her pockets to tug the hem of her hoodie down. She didn’t want to keep them still, had a hard time with that still when she got anxious.

“I mean, yeah, it’s her bad if she can’t get her shit together—but isn’t that exactly where she stands now? And who’s to say she can pick herself back up? Do I kick her out, then? Is there a time limit on how long she is supposed to be staying? ‘Cause the way Kora presented it it sounded like something permanent—at least until either one of us finds a nice strapping mate that we can manage to keep.”

She’s scowling, picking up momentum and not knowing what to do with it. “Where’s her Kin to take care of her? Why’s Kora gotta be a humanitarian?”

[Booker] "That..I don't know." is his replied. By the look on Eli's face he's just as flustered with the situation as Drew is. He doesn't have the answers and the one thing the kinswoman can pick up from his expression is concern.

"I don't know. But there must be a reason they asked you. Maybe to test your strength or ability to follow directions? Who the fuck knows? Coulda just been you were the first name that sprang into Kora's mind. I have no fucking clue." The last of his cigarette is smoked and flicked away. His eyes still wander around the park, watching for any signs of trouble that might be headed their way.

"All I know is....if what you offered don't work, we gotta figure something else out." He makes sure to say we, because Drew wouldn't have to do much of anything alone as long as Eli was in Chicago and alive.

[Drew Roscoe] He’s precisely as frustrated as her, it shows in his frown, his posture, the way he shakes his head when he essentially repeats that they just needed to work things out. To say that the fight goes out of her is incorrect, it’s hard to imagine it ever leaving the Kin completely. It’d be more accurate to say that guilt sets in and she realizes she’s doing nothing but directing her ire on somebody who’s trying to help.

So she frowns, that guilt spasming momentarily across her face before fleeing again, and she shakes her head and sighs, voice lower and calmer once more.

“Sorry, Eli. I’m unloading on you.” First step was honesty, right? Admitting what you were doing wrong. From there things can mend.

“I’ll… I don’t know, go talk to Kora I guess. You don’t have to come with, I appreciate the ‘we’ but if things go the way I expect I don’t need dragging your name through the dirt along with mine. I’ll go take care of this myself.” The tone was thankful, but resolute. That much still held true.

[Booker] There are a few things that Drew has likely noted about Eli. He always wears his leather club vest. Beneath that, he tends to typically wear a bullet proof vest. He always carries a gun (holstered) and wears his steel toe boots in the winter. And, more often than not, Eli's hands are covered in a pair of tight synthetic leather mechanics gloves. It isn't often he leaves his fingerprints on anything. Or anyone.

She apologies and he shakes his head. There wasn't any need to apologize, she'd done nothing wrong.

"Hey now." His covered hands lift and rest one on each side of her face. They're standing less than three feet apart. It wouldn't take even a full stride for Eli to close the distance between them. "Don't apologize to me, you've did shit to have to utter that word." Sorry carried a lot of weight with Booker and was a word not to be used lightly.

"Look...you gotta do this on your own, I get that. But I'm here. I'm gonna be here. Whatever happens I got your back kid. Regardless. Ok?" Both brows arch high over his brown eyes as he holds her face in strong hands gently.

[Drew Roscoe] Sorry carried more weight than she’d expected with a lot of people. When she was owed an apology either that five-letter word was ground out with a grimace or was avoided all together, talked around instead, made up for it with promises of favors owed. Like Linus. He owed her an apology and instead he set up spiritual sentries and alarms to her home, gave her all the protection of having the wiry, sleep-deprived Godi at her back if she ever needed him there (regardless of if she wanted him there or not).

So she apologizes for unloading, and it’s easy and thoughtless for her. Booker shakes his head, takes her face in hands covered with snug working gloves and insists that she has nothing to be sorry for, that he’s got her back if she needs it.

Her answer is a smile that wobbles and doesn’t quite bloom into that full-faced look that lights up a room. “I appreciate it,” she said, and let her head rest more dominantly in his left hand, inhaled the smell of oil and grease on his gloves. They smelled like engines, shops, and good honest work, a refreshing change from old blood and carnage.

“You know that goes back on you. Anything you need, Eli, I mean it.” He was turning into a rock for her already, and he’d only been back for, what, a week now? She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed him until he came back.

[Booker] "Yeah, yeah." He says and wraps an arm around her neck just to tug her into him. It's a hug he offers, and those like apologies, are rare for Booker. He didn't offer then to many people, Drew just happens to be one.

His chin rests on top of her head lazily as he watches a handful of gang bangers stroll through a gang way less than 200 feet from where they stand.

"It's all good kiddo. I got you." Is his reply. She says it goes back on him, she's got his back, and he nods casually with eyes trailing the group as it walks.

"C'mon...I'll drive you back to your place. I just...I worry you know? I gotta make sure my homie's all good." She can feel him smiling, the muscles in his face tugging back near his mouth.

[Drew Roscoe] A hand moved from her face, reached behind her neck and pulled her in under his arm, against his chest for a hug. It was apparently a rare gesture, but she seemed to be getting her own fair share since he’d returned to the city that neither of them could escape. Height allowed for a comfortable fit, his chin rested easy on top of her head, which she turned so her cheek was at the cool leather of his vest.

Arms made a loose circle around his waist in return to his wrapping about her, and he tells her he has her even while watching a group of people who likely carried as much heat as either of them on any given day strolled by. Without gaining distance or pulling away, he offers her a ride home, and she just grins into the smell of leather, motor oil and cigarettes.

“Sure. We ought to take a long way back, though. You’re the only guy I know with a bike.”

[Booker] His arms had been around Drew more times than they had anyone since...well since a long time. She rests against him easily, he keeps his arms around her casually.The group continues on, and it's only then that he breaks away from the casual embrace.

"Oooooooh..." He begins, dancing a few steps back from her. "You usin' me for my bike? I'll have you outta that cage you drive in a coupla months..." He grins walking a few steps backward until she's caught up with him and he can turn around and lazily throw an arm over her slender shoulders.

The helmet is once more handed to her and before she can get on he's already there, sitting on the leather seat with the stand kicked back and the bike steady.

"We can go for a ride." He says, the bike roaring to life with a ferocious growl.

[Drew Roscoe] His dark eyes track the small group of people as they walk by, arms remaining about her shoulders and back until they’re out of sight. At that point it seems safe to let her go, interest of the gangbangers gone, not wanting to pick a fight with a possible rival faction, not wanting to harass the small woman if she was under someone else’s claim. It’d been done with Garou, she’d been slapped into Remy’s side when a Fianna had rolled by and watched her too closely, and the Fianna had let her be. It was proving a common and effective tactic in multiple situations.

Once they’re gone, he lets her go and sways a few steps back, calling her out on using him for his motorcycle and in the same breath dissing on her truck. This had her laughing, shaking her head and bumping him with her hip when he joins her side, slings an arm about her shoulders, and walks her back over to the Harley.

“You can talk all you want, but when we need to move bodies or passengers and you can’t figure out how to strap a War Beast to the back of your bike? That’s when you’ll be glad I drive that ‘cage’ around.”

He promises a ride, and she beams at him happily and climbs on behind him.