I just couldn’t get enough of her.
Andi Wagner had started to invade all my thoughts. When I wasn’t with her, I sometimes still thought I could smell the fresh, citrusy scent of her shampoo lingering in the air. Sometimes, I would turn around suddenly, thinking I could hear the husky, sensual sound of her laughter. I looked at other women and instead of my eyes running over their curves, I’d find myself thinking about how their bodies were different from Andi’s. How their legs weren’t as long, or their hips weren’t as sexy, or their tits weren’t as good. It was all I could do to walk, talk, and dress myself when Andi wasn’t around, my head was so full of her. At the end of every day, I would count down the hours, then the minutes, until I was going to see her again.
So, yeah. I was staying with Andi because I wanted to protect her. Because the idea of anything happening to her made a sickening ball of dread start to form in the pit of my stomach. Because I knew that if she was ever hurt — or worse — and I hadn’t been there to stop it, I’d never be able to forgive myself. Shit, more than once since she’d told me about being followed, I’d driven past the parking lot of Hammie’s while she was working and stopped to check her car, just to make sure it was okay for her to drive. I didn’t tell her that either.
I didn’t tell her a lot of things. I didn’t want to put any pressure on her. But even more, I didn’t want her to have any reason to think things were getting too serious between us and kick me out. I knew from Seton that Andi wasn’t much for relationships, and after the things that Andi had told me about her childhood, I thought I had a pretty good idea why. But whatever the reason, I knew she felt safe with me now, and I didn’t want to do anything to fuck that up.
Even if it meant I had to push all the weird shit I was feeling for Andi down deep enough that she wouldn’t be able to see it when she looked into my eyes.
A few days later, the club was in church again. Grey and Trig and a few other brothers were reporting on how the surveillance was going on the kid dealing smack at the high school. We were moving slow for now, wanting to make sure that whoever was supplying it to the kid, whose name was Dylan, didn’t realize anyone was on their tail. If they got even a whiff that we were following the kid’s moves, what we knew already about the organization told us they’d disappear without a trace before we’d get anything actionable.
So far, it looked like the boys I’d talked to hadn’t spilled the beans about our conversation. The club had managed to locate where this Dylan kid lived, took down the make, model, and plate numbers of all the cars his family drove, and got a pretty solid bead on his movements throughout the day and where he tended to hang out. So far, he hadn’t done anything or gone anywhere unusual.
“So,” Moose asked, frowning. “At this point, we just wait, keep watching the kid, and be ready to act if and when we can manage to grab someone at a drop?”
We had decided to leave the kid completely alone for now. If we did this right, all he would ever know was that one day, the people supplying him just stopped contacting him, for good. The question was whether to nab the first person we saw meeting up with him. Once we had a member of the org in our hands, we had ways of making people talk that had worked pretty well for us in the past. But if that person didn’t know anything? Then we’d have tipped off the kingpin, and we were screwed.
“Yeah,” Trig agreed. “If we go that route, this whole thing may end up coming down to whoever the brothers are that are watching at the time. It’s gonna be their judgment whether to nab the dealer supplying to the kid or try to follow them.”
“Realistically,” I said, “if this org is big enough, we might have to settle with sending a message up the chain. Grab the dealer, make an example of him of what happens when people bring drugs into our territory. Make sure the message is clear enough that they won’t want to bother with Lupine in the future.”
Grey nodded. “Agreed. We get close enough to whoever’s meeting with that kid, we nab him. Get as much information out of him as we can squeeze out of him, then send him out into the world as an example of what happens to people who come into our territory without our consent.”
Church ended a few minutes later, and I wandered out to the bar to shoot the shit with Trig.
“Haven’t seen that much of you around lately,” he remarked to me, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah, I’ve had some shit going on,” I replied. “No big deal.”
“That so?” Trig pulled out a smoke and lit it. “By the way, I was out at Maisie’s this morning having breakfast. She mentioned you’d been in a couple weeks ago, with a chick. Said the two of you seemed pretty cozy.”
“Oh yeah?” I pretended to think. “Huh. Yeah, maybe I was.”
Trig grinned at me. “Don’t give me that horseshit. You’re a shit liar, at least with me.”
I shrugged. “The fuck, Trig? Can’t a guy have breakfast without it being a federal case?”
“A guy? Sure. You, on the other hand?” He snorted. “I’m not sure you’ve ever even remembered a chick’s name after you’ve fucked her, much less taken her to goddamn breakfast. You’re holding out on me, you fucker!”
Shit. This was getting tricky. “It’s nothing like that.” I shook my head. “I’m just not sure she would want me talking about this.”
His eyes widened. “This is intriguing,” he said with a leer. “Who’re you fuckin’, Greenlee? Come on now, tell brother Trig.”
“Jesus Christ,” I snapped. “What the hell is this, middle school? Leave it alone, brother.”
“Okay, okay. Fuck.” He shook his head and frowned. “Forget I asked.”
I was relieved as hell when he finally dropped it. As far as the club was concerned, of course, there wasn’t anything wrong with what was going on with me and Andi. But I didn’t want Grey to find out about it, because I knew he’d feel obligated to tell Seton. And I sure as shit didn’t want Seton finding something like that out from Grey. I resolved to be more careful about my comings and goings in the future.
That didn’t stop me from pulling out my phone and sending a text:
Hey. What’s going on with u?
Nothing much. You coming over tonight?
Im free right now
Come on over
I got to Andi’s place about ten minutes later.
And fucked her like it was our last day on earth.
I woke up a couple hours later alone in Andi’s bed, to the soft sounds of an acoustic guitar. Pushing myself up off the mattress, I got up and wandered over to the open window where the sound was coming from.
“Hey,” she said softly. “I didn’t mean to wake you.” Andi was sitting on a small ledge just outside the window.
I grabbed my jeans from the chair where I’d thrown them and pulled them on, then climbed out to join her.
“You didn’t wake me,” I replied. “Or maybe you did. But I don’t mind.” I nodded toward the guitar. “What’s that song?”
“It’s one of mine.” She strummed a few chords.
“What’s it about?”
“Saying goodbye,” she said softly. “Knowing you shouldn’t look back, but doing it anyway.”
Softly, she began to sing:
Why was Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt?
She looked back, to find a past that wasn’t there
I can’t find another way out, no way to turn back time
Without my future disappearing into the air…
Her fingers slowed, then stopped.
“Nice,” I remarked. “Sad.”
“You’re the only person I’ve played it for. This one I keep for myself.”
I drew her to me and kissed the top of her head. “Thank you. I feel honored.”
She laughed softly. “You don’t need to say that.”
“No, I mean it.” And I did. I knew enough about Andi’s life to know the deeper meaning of the lyrics she’d just sung to me. And it made me feel proud that she’d share it knowing that I’d understa
nd.
“Our first gig at the Oasis is this weekend,” she murmured.
“Yeah?” I pulled her closer. “You mind if I come?”
“Do you really want to?” she asked, turning to gaze at me. Her eyes were questioning.
“I really do.”
“Then… Yeah. Cool. You can come.” Andi strummed a couple more chords on the guitar, then shivered. “Let’s go in. I’m starting to get cold.”
I climbed back through the window and took her guitar for her, then held out my hand to help her through.
“You know,” I said with a smirk, “If you’re cold, I bet I can think of a few ways to warm you up.”
She frowned at me in mock judgment. “You’re such a perv,” she tossed back, but her eyes were twinkling.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I murmured, reaching for her.
That Saturday, I rode up to Denver on the bike to see Andi and her band play their first regular concert at the Oasis.
She and her bandmates had gone up earlier in the day with their equipment to set up and do a sound check, so I headed up by myself on the bike. Thankfully, Seton wasn’t feeling all that great and decided not to come up for the show. Andi had told her not to bother, that there’d be plenty of other opportunities. I was pretty relieved. It would have been pretty damn awkward to run into her and try to explain why I was there, but I didn’t want to miss their big debut gig.
The Oasis was a bigger bar than Hammie’s, with an actual stage and a permanent sound booth up on the second floor overlooking where the band would be. It was a definite step up, and I was happy to see that the place was already filling up. They had a kid selling merch off to one side, T-shirts and hoodies and shit like that, and it looked like business was pretty good.
I managed to score myself a seat at the bar and told the bartender to keep a beer in front of me until I told him to stop. I sat through a warmup band that didn’t do all that much for me but that Andi had said were a local up-and-coming group. Then, about twenty minutes after they were finished, The stage lights came back on and The Nopes took the stage.
Andi looked like a million fucking bucks. She had on this form-fitting black sheath-type dress I’d never seen her wear before. Every move she made called attention to her gorgeous tits, her flat, taut waist, and the swell of her feminine hips. A pair of high-heeled black boots molded themselves against her calves, and made me want peel off the dress and fuck her senseless in them. Her makeup was dramatic: cherry-red lips that I could see glistening even from where I sat, and coal-smudged eyes and eyebrows that accentuated her deep baby blues.
Jesus fuck. I was gonna have to demand a private replay of this moment in her apartment, when I could actually touch her without being arrested for lewd conduct.
Andi waved to the crowd and stepped up to the mic. “Hey, everyone. Welcome to The Oasis. We’re The Nopes.” Then she glanced back at the drummer, raised the neck of her bass, and a wave of sound erupted forth.
Since this wasn’t my first time hearing the band, I was less surprised by their sound. I sat back and watched Andi work the room as she performed. She really was a natural. Her singing was sincere, unforced, and unmistakably her. As they had in Lupine, the crowd responded instantly to her, moving and nodding their heads to the beat. As I watched, an unfamiliar emotion began to build deep inside me. Eventually, I realized it for what it was.
Pride.
I was proud as fuck of Andi Wagner.
Their first set lasted about forty-five minutes, and during the break, I was a little disappointed that Andi didn’t come out and say hello. Not that she said she was going to, but I didn’t realize I was hoping she would until the band came back on stage and the second set was about to start.
“Jesus, Greenlee,” I muttered to myself. “What are you, twelve? Get a handle on yourself.”
“Hey, we’re back,” Andi said. “I wanna introduce the band members to you.” She went through and introduced the drummer, the keyboard player, the lead and rhythm guitars, and the guy who had been switching back and forth between a violin and a flute. “I want to thank all of you for coming out tonight and supporting live music. I especially want to thank a special friend in the audience tonight, who drove all the way up here from Lupine just to see us.” She looked out into the crowd, her eyes searching, even though I knew she couldn’t see me. “You know who you are,” she said simply.
The second set was more raucous than the first, and even people who had been simply swaying and bobbing their heads earlier were now dancing and yelling out stuff to the band between songs. If tonight was any indication, Andi’s band was in for a long, successful run at The Oasis. Many of the songs they were playing this set were familiar to me from the time I’d seen them play at Hammie’s, so I found myself paying more attention to the crowd and enjoying how enthusiastic they were.
Suddenly, something off in the corner of my peripheral vision caused a warning bell to go off in my brain. Keeping my movements to a minimum, I shifted my head slightly to the left and saw a familiar-looking dude with thin features and messy brown hair, staring expressionless at the stage.
Holy shit. It was the same weird fucker I’d seen at their show in Lupine a few weeks back. I was almost sure of it.
I reached into my pocket and pulled some bills out of my wallet to pay the bartender, then slid off the bar stool and walked around the back of the bar toward the other side, taking care not to attract any attention. The crowd was thick enough that it took me a couple minutes, since I didn’t want to push aggressively through the crush and risk causing a scene.
Finally, I managed to get through the mass of people and emerged on the other side of the bar. Slowly and carefully, I made my way forward, approaching from the rear toward where Andi’s stalker had been.
He was gone.
16
Andi
ANDI
Of all the baby gifts Seton got during the shower, the biggest hits were the twin pacifiers emblazoned with the words “Mute button.”
Seton laughed so hard that tears started streaming down her cheeks. “Oh, my gosh, I don’t know why that’s so funny, but it is!” she cried, wiping her eyes with a pink napkin. “That’s right up there with the ‘I only cry when ugly people hold me’ onesies!”
I grinned. The onesies had been a gift from me.
Eighteen women from various parts of Seton’s life had gathered at her house this afternoon, to help her celebrate this upcoming life event. Just as Seton had predicted, her mom called at the last moment to back out. I didn’t think Seton was that disappointed about it. In fact, she’d seemed sort of relieved. As she sat there opening presents and laughing, I realized I’d ever seen her look so radiant and beautiful. In the five years I’d known Seton, I’d seen her push through a lot of tough changes and difficult decisions, and it was amazing to see her finally in a place where I knew she was truly happy.
I took a sip of my wine as Carly spoke up. “So, Seton, spill the beans. Have you and Grey decided on names for the twins yet?”
“Not completely,” she said with a sweet little smile. “Grey says any of the boy names we have picked out would be fine with him. But for some reason, he’s really fixating on the girl’s name. He says he thinks we need to wait until we meet her to decide. Until we see what her personality is.” She laughed. “I don’t really think we’re going to know much about her personality on day one, though.”
“You’d be surprised,” Monica replied. “With Trenton, I knew right away he was going to be a hellion. He came out kicking and swinging. Hasn’t stopped since. But Brady was calm as could be.”
A discussion started among the mothers in the group of how quickly they saw personalities developing in their newborns. The consensus among them seemed to be that babies showed their cards pretty quickly most of the time. I sat back and listened with detached curiosity. Having babies was something I’d always been kind of on the fence about. Being a mother seemed almost impossible for m
e to envision. Maybe because I couldn’t imagine doing it alone, but being in a committed relationship wasn’t something that seemed to be in my future, either.
I wonder what kind of father Cal would be.
The thought came unbidden to me, and I pushed it away impatiently. Whatever was going on between Cal and me, it was ridiculous to even let myself think a thought like that. We were not a couple, by any stretch of the imagination. And Cal was sure as hell not daddy material.
But even as I dismissed the idea of Cal as a father as ridiculous, one half of my brain began to argue with the other half. Sure, he could be kind of irresponsible. Most guys in their twenties were. Sure, he was wild and impulsive, too. For God’s sake, he was a member of a motorcycle club.
Still. In the past weeks I’d seen a side of him I’d never imagined existed. That side was protective, strong, and loyal. He had surprised the hell out of me, but it was true. That Cal, the one I had seen lately, seemed like someone who could be a good father someday. The kind of father any child would be lucky to have.
The kind of man any woman would be lucky to have.
I shook my head once, hard, to force myself out of my reverie. I looked across the room to see Seton staring at me, a curious expression on her face. I gave her a quick flash of a smile, my cheeks flushing.
“So, you were saying maybe Wyatt for the boy?” Julie was asking. “And the girl?”
“Well, at this point, the name that I keep coming back to is Kendall,” Seton said. “Grey wants to keep Madeleine in the running as well. He likes the nickname Maddi.”
“I like Kendall Madeleine,” said Eva. She had recently gotten involved with Trig, the VP of the Stone Kings. I didn’t know her very well, but what I had seen so far I really liked. She was smart, engaging, witty, and tough enough to give Trig a run for his money. She was also flat-out gorgeous, with long, thick blond hair that cascaded down her shoulders with an effortless style.
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