by Eve R. Hart
I let out a loud laugh that caused a few eyes to turn in my direction. I mumbled an apology as I ducked behind the machines to hide my embarrassment.
“Boy. It’s a boy.” I sighed like a silly teenage girl. “But I don’t think I want to talk about it.”
Because I didn’t even know what to say about it.
“Cool,” he said with a shrug. “But by the way you’ve been today, seems like you’ve got some stuff to work out.”
Yep, did I ever.
The day was taking too long. The minutes ticked by at a turtle’s pace. Before I’d darted out the door this morning, on the verge of being late, mind you, Knight pulled me in for a slow, lazy kiss and asked if I wanted to watch a movie with him tonight? Just him. Meaning only the two of us. He said we could even talk and by the way his eyes had danced back and forth between mine, I could tell that was what he wanted more than the silence of watching a movie. I may not have been ready to talk, but the idea of spending time with him alone made the butterflies swarm in my belly.
So, no, I didn’t want to finish the little time that I had left on my shift. I didn’t want to sit down and read over line after line of information I knew I wasn’t going to absorb. And I didn’t want to go to class and listen to the professor drone on and on. But that was life and I knew I’d have to suffer through it to get to the good stuff. My reward for it all, I would have said.
And as I thought about him the bell on the front door chimed and I looked over to find Knight walking through the door, a smile playing on his lips as he looked at me. I couldn’t hide my joy if I wanted to. My face split with the widest smile that my lips would allow. But as Mouse and Ky walked in behind him, I did my best to tone it down.
That was one thing we hadn’t talked about but I had an idea on. The brothers. I was sure Knight wanted to keep this quiet until he talked to my dad. Whatever this was. He wouldn’t want to take the chance that word would somehow get back to my dad before he was able to sit down with him.
So, I tried really hard to hide my excitement.
And lucky for me, Mouse and Ky diverted and walked over to Tara, who I noticed was talking to Dale. Her head tilted back as she laughed at something he was saying. I shrugged, thinking that it was good for her. I kept my eyes pinned on the scene long enough to see the brothers moving in and give a friendly hello to Tara. I watched as Dale’s body stiffened slightly, but then Mouse extended his hand and Dale relaxed as he shook it.
I moved past the cold cases that held the pastries and rounded the side to meet Knight.
“Hi,” Knight whispered, ducking the slightest bit like his massive body would somehow be hidden behind the much shorter case. The thing didn’t even come up to my shoulder, so there was no way we were hidden even the littlest bit.
“Hi,” I whispered in a daze as his clean scent filled my nose. “What are you doing here?” I asked with a quick shake of my head.
“I, um.” Was he being sheepish? No way. Oh, God, it was so cute. “I wanted some coffee?” His voice went up a tinge like it was more of a question than a statement.
“Yeah, okay.” I gave him a small eye roll. “You could just say that you were thinking of me and maybe even missed me.” I raised a brow to cover the fact that I felt a little insecure on the inside at the moment.
“I needed to see you,” he said bluntly, his blue eyes boring into mine. Swoon much? Yes, I did. “I want to kiss you.”
My breath hitched and I blinked at him almost lost at the one-eighty he’d done in the matter of a night. This was like the old Knight, my Knight. The one that didn’t hold back anything. The one that told me every single thing he was thinking, no matter how silly it seemed.
“Can’t stay long. Just wanted to see you,” he said with a smile and then he was backing away from me.
With a jerk of his head, Mouse and Ky walked up to the front to meet him, both of them stopping long enough to pull me in for a quick side hug. Then they were gone, almost like they hadn’t even been there to begin with.
“I didn’t know you, um…” Dale said from behind me catching me off guard. Because my mind was still a million miles away, staring at the door while I wondered if the whole exchange had even happened.
“Know the Steel Paragons?” I finished for him. I knew whatever was going to come next was either going to be very good or very bad. I hated to see him spout out some stereotypical bullshit, but it wouldn’t have been the first time I’d heard it.
“Yeah.” He gave a nod but I couldn’t read his expression.
“Born and raised in that club. Back in Tennessee. My dad’s the president of the chapter in Gray Fort.” I gave him an honest answer because there was no way I could hide my pride for where and how I’d grown up. For the group of people that had been there for me no matter what.
“My cousin works at the hospital,” he said and I looked at him with confusion, wondering where he was going with all of this. “He says that a bunch of them come in every couple of months. Trade their leather vests for capes and crowns and spend hours talking and playing with all the sick kids.”
I couldn’t hide my shock. I knew the club often did things for charities. They were the first to step in when someone needed a hand. I had seen, and been there, for many of those occasions. But I didn’t know that this chapter did that. I imagined it wasn’t an easy thing to do and the pride I felt for my club grew to the point of bursting.
“Seem like great guys.”
“They are,” I said with zero hesitation.
“I see the reason for the distraction,” he said, humor thick in his tone.
I let out a sharp laugh and swatted at him playfully.
“You saw nothing,” I called over my shoulder in a cheerful tone as I moved to clock out.
“Want me to make you something?”
“Nah, I can do it,” I answered.
“I’m bored. Please, let me make it for you.”
So, I did. I didn’t even need to tell him what to make me, he’d known my drink of choice for a while now.
“I thought you were going to let the Knight thing go,” Tara said the second my ass hit the chair beside her. I was so taken back I didn’t know what to say. “I mean,” she corrected, making her tone lighter. “It’s just that you seemed really unhappy. You were walking around on eggshells and didn’t even want to live in that apartment with him anymore.”
“Yeah,” I said a bit short. “We…talked.”
I mean we did sort of talk. Or rather he talked and I tried my best to distract myself from all the things that were going on in my head. Thinking about what had happened between us in his room made my cheeks heat and I ducked my head to try and hide my reaction. I didn’t want to talk about it with her. I wasn’t sure why, but I knew I wanted to keep it to myself for the time being.
“You guys, like, together then?”
Her question caught me off guard. Even if I had an answer to it I wasn’t even sure where to begin how to explain the whole thing.
“No,” I said with a little sigh that I hoped she didn’t catch. “We are working on the friends part.” Which, to be fair, was mostly the truth. You couldn’t be…lovers? In a relationship? Ugh, whatever it was, you couldn’t do it without being friends.
Thankfully she took the hint and didn’t press anymore. At the end of my study hour, she offered to drive me to the campus since she needed to go to the library.
My phone vibrated right in the middle of my class and I tried my hardest to ignore the urge to look at it. By the end, I couldn’t remember a thing the professor had said and I prayed that there wasn’t anything he had added that wasn’t in the reading.
I pulled out my phone as I walked out of the door. To my disappointment, it was a text from Knight saying that something had come up and he had to head to the clubhouse.
I knew what that meant and I tried my hardest to push the sadness down. Club business always came first, and while I knew that and didn’t expect it to be any other way, I also
knew there was no way to know how long it could take.
“Hey!” Tara called the moment I walked out of the building. I looked up with surprise to see her jumping off the bench she’d been sitting on and dashing my way. “I didn’t want to leave you stranded here and all.”
“Oh, crap. Yeah, thanks. I hadn’t even thought about that.” I let out a silly giggle.
She’d given me a ride and while I was sure if I looked hard enough, I would find a prospect lurking nearby, I wasn’t going to just get on the back of some guys bike. While it was an unsaid rule, it was still widely thought that putting a ‘bitch on the back of your bike’ meant something more than giving someone a ride. It was sacred, if you will.
“Home?” she asked once we were safely tucked into her car.
I paused for a long moment contemplating what I should do. Or what I wanted to do, rather, and if maybe it was the best thing. But then I decided I didn’t give a crap and told her to head to the compound instead. Even if Knight was busy, I could at least hang out with the guys and I was curious about the place. I hadn’t been there yet and I really needed to change that. I knew I was welcome, so it wouldn’t be an issue.
My plan was to have her drop me off and go, but when she pulled up and put the car in park, I knew she had other plans. It wasn’t that I didn’t want her to see the place because I really had no reason to keep it from her. I didn’t think she was a threat and I was one hundred percent sure she wouldn’t do anything to disrespect the club.
I wasn’t really sure why I was hesitant, to be honest. However, since I couldn’t come up with a legitimate reason to send her away, I nodded when she pulled her keys out of the ignition and opened her door to get out.
As the music filtered through the closed door and into the late afternoon air, I knew it wasn’t going to be a quiet night in the clubhouse. I smiled, feeling a warm since a familiarity washing over me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Knight
The last thing I wanted to do was send that damn text. I had let her down enough in this lifetime and the fact that shit had to come up tonight, pissed me the fuck off. Sure, she understood that the club came first but that didn’t mean I wanted to disappoint her even a little. I just had to hope that this wouldn’t take long.
But as I stepped into the meeting room entrance, I got the heavy feeling that this wasn’t simply to catch up on everything.
“We got tension,” Iron said. “The Italians and the Irish.”
Fuck! That was the last thing we needed right now.
I wondered if this was what was weighing on Connor’s mind that day he came to the old shipping container yard. I wanted to ask how much of this was on us, but I already knew the answer. As well as an idea of what might be going on. There was just no way that we would have been able to come in here, carve out our corner of the underground world, and somehow not manage to rock the foundation of what had already been set up. It was a fool’s dream to think it would have gone smoothly.
The crime syndicates in the area had a very strange way of working together. The Italians provided protection to people and businesses but didn’t actually handle the grunt work if needed. No, they hired the Irish to pull the punches for them. That wasn’t to say the Italians didn’t know how to get their hands dirty or were afraid to. They just kept their energy for anything that was a threat or disrespect to the family.
The Italians didn’t deal in guns, so we didn’t work closely with them. With that said, we’d tried to be as friendly as possible. We’d agreed to stay out of each other’s business and kept it at that.
While we imported just about every type of firearm imaginable, we split the loads between us, the Irish, and the Russians. We mostly dealt with small firearms. The Irish handled the high powered automatics, while the Russians moved the heavy artillery like grenade launchers and sniper rifles.
I’d suspected that with the lack in security for incoming we now provided on the port, the Irish and Russians now had more of a flow for distribution. I could see how that could lead to the Irish wanting to move out on their own, untangle themselves from the Italians. It made sense for their organization but that didn’t mean that it made things easy for the rest of us. I had no doubt that if there was a rift, we would somehow get thrown in the middle. I was under no illusion that we would end up taking some of the blame for it, too.
“Right now, I just want to make everyone aware of it,” Iron continued on. “I know I called this meeting out of the blue, but I didn’t want any of you to be out of the loop for even a second. I haven’t heard anything about either one of them targeting us, but that doesn’t mean that might not change in the blink of an eye.”
After a long look around the table, he shook his head and changed gears.
“I think it’s time to patch up some prospects. I want everyone to take the next few days and decide who they want to put their votes behind. Got a few people that have come to me with interest in joining, so we may have a new batch of prospects to run through. I want numbers but I don’t want to sacrifice our trust in each other. If something doesn’t feel right, I want to know.”
We spent the next two hours going over everything. Security on the compound and the shipyard. The bar. The tattoo shop and all it’s little problems. The garage and how to make it better. We talked about the prospects, though we didn’t linger on that too much. Mostly, we spoke up on positive and negative things we had noticed or witnessed.
I would have liked to have said that I put my full focus into the meeting, but that wasn’t the case. While I was present and heard most of what was said, my mind kept drifting back to Gwen. No surprise there, right?
While there wasn’t immediate danger to the club there was still the possibility of a threat. I should have been thinking and planning for that. I should have been worrying about my brothers and the safety of everyone around me. But all I could think about was her and how my life had turned upside down in the last twenty-four hours.
Not to mention the fact that I felt like I still had to hide my feelings about her. At least until I talked to Brass. After that, well I honestly had no idea because I didn’t know how he was going to react. I figured it could go one of two ways. He would either beat the shit out of me for even thinking that I was good enough for his little girl, for wanting to keep her in this life knowing the danger, or he would welcome the idea with a man-hug and back slap.
I currently had three days and a handful of hours until I found out the outcome. Three fucking days was all I had to get my shit together and think of all the ways I could prove to him that I was the best man for her. The best one to look out for her and take care of her for the rest of our lives. Because, I had to face it, she was fucking it for me. There would be no one else if I couldn’t be with her. I knew for sure, because I tried like hell but that woman had a hold on my mind and heart like nothing else. And if I was being truly honest with myself, she always had.
The meeting broke and my head was a mess. I made my way downstairs with everyone else. My plan was to text Gwen and see if she was still up for hanging out.
Hanging out?
I wasn’t sure what to call it. I mean I wanted some alone time with her, but I also knew that alone time wouldn’t go any further than talking. Okay, if I was being honest, maybe some kissing, but that was all I would let happen. I didn’t even know how the night would end up. While I loved having her in my arms, I also knew it wasn’t a smart idea.
And then it hit me.
I suddenly was thinking like a fucking chick.
Was this what it was like for them? Obsessing over every little fucking thing? I mean, I tended to think deeply about shit, I wasn’t the surface level kind of guy, but I never freaked out about every little thing. I was always prepared for every possible outcome but I didn’t ever obsess at to what each one would mean. And that was exactly what I was doing right then.
Brand caught up with me as I hit the last step and pulled out my phone at the sam
e time.
“I’ve got a new route mapped out and I wanted to go over it with you before the next run,” Brand said, falling in step with me.
“Shit,” I murmured. “There’s a run coming up soon, right?” Though it came out as a question, it really wasn’t. I knew there was.
We were transporting a pretty large shipment across the state to the head chapter. From there they would take care of splitting it up and selling it off. As road captain, Brand got the fun part of mapping out the path we would take. The fact that he wanted to go over it made me think that he had something different planned. Which was smart. If we took the same route every time it would leave us open for attacks. It was the same reason I never took the same way home two days in a row, even if I had to drive around my ass just to get there. Maybe it was me being overcautious, but it was also really fucking safe and when it came to my brothers’ lives, the safe plan was always the one I went with.
“Sounds good, just not tonight,” I said because I clearly had other things I wanted to do. It wasn’t that it didn’t matter, we had about a week before the run, as long as we went over it before we headed out that was all that mattered.
My body froze as I hit the opening to the common area. Her laughter hit my ears first, then like a magnet, my eyes locked with hers. What the hell was she doing here?
“You should be a little less obvious,” Brand murmured beside me as the back of his hand made contact with my chest.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I bit back under my breath.
With a sigh, he shook his head. I didn’t turn to look at him full on, but out of the corner of my eye, I could see the disappointed and almost broken look on his face.
“I’ve seen what can happen when two people love each other and do their best to push the other away,” he said in a low tone. I turned to him as I studied his face. His gaze was set on something over my shoulder, but I had a feeling like he wasn’t really focused on anything specific. “I’ve seen the way it can hurt and ruin the other person. Not to mention the casualties that get caught in between.”