by Jamie Begley
“He’s happy to be back with his daddy.”
Stump turned at the feminine voice that was coming from behind him. “Huh?”
His puzzlement had Zoey’s musical laughter filling the foyer.
“I meant you,” she explained. “You look like you have a problem.”
“Not a problem I can’t deal with. I need to call one of the brothers to bring me a car.”
“I can see your predicament. I don’t see Hannibal as a back warmer, and he’s definitely too heavy to carry under your arm.”
His brow rose at the term she used. “You know what a back warmer is?”
“Yes, one of my clients used to belong to a motorcycle club.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know. He never told me, and I didn’t ask.”
“You should have asked. Some clubs can have some mean bastards.”
“He wasn’t. He was very sweet.”
“Then he didn’t belong to one I would know,” he said contemptuously.
Stump watched as she raised a delicate hand to sweep her hair behind her ear. Every move Zoey made was dainty and graceful, which was a contrast to her size. She wasn’t large, but she wasn’t small either. Most women her size would shy away from wearing such brightly colored or patterned clothes.
People would call her chunky, but he would call her sexy as fuck. He hated fucking women who were so thin their hipbones poked you when they fucked you back. Zoey was soft enough he would sink down on her—
He cut off his raging hormones by reminding himself of the trouble she stirred between him and Grace. Plus, he had no intention of getting involved with a fruitcake, even if it were only for a few months that he usually took up with a woman. The only other brother who went through women as fast as he did was Max, and that brother was tied down with so many kids he was never going to be able to come up for air. He had held onto the hope that Jackal would get fed up with Penni with the hell she was constantly giving him, but the brother let him down by marrying her, using the excuse that he’d done it because he didn’t want to be target practice for her brother Shade.
“My client texted me that she needed to reschedule. I could follow you with Hannibal,” she offered.
Stump felt like shit that he had been rude to her.
Grace was right; he had been trying to offset Grace’s anger at Ice and himself for trying to sneak one by her.
“I have someone I can call. There’s no need to put yourself out.”
“I don’t mind. I’ll enjoy the ride and spending the extra time with Hannibal. I must confess I have an ulterior motive. If you ever need me to dog-sit, it will be easier to drive there if I know the way. I tend to get lost when I drive through the city.”
“It’s a ten-minute drive.”
“I don’t have another appointment until twelve.”
The woman wanted to be helpful; why should he complain? It made life easier for him, and he was all about making life easier for himself.
“Suit yourself.” He shrugged, handing her the leash. “But don’t get high hopes about the dog-sitting.” Hannibal was his little shadow, and he liked things just the way they were.
“The offer is there if you ever need it. I’m just putting the suggestion out there in case you ever do.”
The woman wasn’t getting his message. Hannibal was his, and he wasn’t sharing.
“Where’s your car?” he asked shortly, done trying to get his point across.
“In the parking garage. Where’s your bike?”
The woman looked as if they were best friends about to go on a joyride. Stump wondered if Zoey had the same fascination with pot as Penni did. Only someone as high as a kite would mistake him for a friend.
“In front of the building. I’ll meet you at the garage’s exit.”
“Okay.” The woman looked so happy for the mundane task that Stump figured Zoey had fired one up when she went back to her office.
As he watched Hannibal walk off with Zoey without looking back, jealousy had his jaw clenching.
From the second that he had seen Hannibal’s head poking out of the box that Ice carried into the clubhouse, he had claimed him by snatching him out of the box as soon as Ice set it down. Grace hadn’t wanted to part with the dog when he called her. It had taken Ice and him another month before she agreed, and he’d had to make numerous promises, which he kept until Tilda opened the door to a clusterfuck that he could tell he was going to have to deal with until hell froze over.
Ice’s and Jackal’s bikes were still parked next to his. He was dreading the brothers’ return to the club. They were going to take his failure to pacify Grace’s and Penni’s anger out on him.
Getting on his bike, he rode to the exit, and after several cars came out, he was mentally kicking his ass that he hadn’t asked what car she drove. When he saw a tiny neon blue, convertible electric car coming down the ramp, though, he didn’t have to peer closer to see that it was her.
Zoey had a big pair of sunglasses on, and Hannibal was sitting in the front seat next to her with the windows down. His dog looked ridiculous with the seatbelt around him. The damn thing looked ecstatic to be back with her. The bitch was ruining his dog.
Next time he went to the dog store, he was getting a cheaper bag of food for Hannibal’s traitorous behavior.
Zoey stopped the car to let him go ahead, and then he had to tighten his hands on the handlebars when she honked, letting him know she was following him, as if he couldn’t see that bright matchbox car in his rearview mirror. It was so small that he and Max could pick it up and carry it if she didn’t have enough charge to make it back from the clubhouse.
As they drove, several passing cars honked at Zoey. At first, he thought the blaring horns were because she was going too slow—he also had to slow down when she wasn’t able to keep up. But when he looked in his mirror, he saw that it was men trying to get her attention. She waved at them as if they were long-lost relatives of hers.
A red light had him braking. If she hadn’t been following him, he would have blown through when the light was still yellow.
“Hey, are you Zoey?”
A loud male voice had him shifting on his seat to see a car twice the size of hers stopped next to Zoey’s instead of edging forward.
“Yes!” She gave a blinding smile at the car that was getting angry honks for him to move further ahead.
“I recognized your license plate. I love your blogs. You saved my marriage. Is that the asshole who splashed you yesterday?”
“Uh… no.” Zoey’s smile faltered. “It was someone else.”
“It looks like the same helmet and bike. Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of that asshole!”
“Wait!” Zoey called out, but the car beside her moved inched further onwards.
The Beamer edged next to Stump’s motorcycle “Yo, asshole!”
Stump looked over at the man who looked to be the size of a linebacker.
“You fuck with that little girl again, and I’m going to fuck you up!”
Stump was about to get off his bike and tell him to bring it when the light turned green. Then honking horns had him going despite wanting to jerk the linebacker out of his vehicle.
Zoey giving a jaunty wave to the wannabe vigilante had Stump wanting to pull over so that he could paddle her ass. He wasn’t a violent man where women were concerned, but she could make a saint lose his temper, and he was no fucking saint.
After waiting for two cars to drive by in the opposite lane, he drove into the clubhouse’s parking lot. What should have taken ten minutes on his bike took twenty at the speed he was having to go. Her car was moving so slow that a turtle could overtake her.
Screeching tires had him nearly plowing into the brothers’ bikes that were parked in front when Zoey dodged between a car and an oncoming semi. Stump nearly shit his drawers at watching her barely escape becoming roadkill.
Parking his bike, he jerked his helmet off as he strode to where sh
e pulled up beside him.
“Have you lost your fucking mind? Didn’t you see the semi?” he yelled.
Unfazed, she pushed her sunglasses onto the top of her head. “Of course I saw him. I thought when you went across the lane that you were telling me I had enough time to make it too.”
His jaw dropped at the asinine excuse. “Did I motion for you to go?”
“No.”
“Then why would you think that?”
“I don’t know.”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose to keep from jerking her out of the car as he counted to thirty before dropping his hand and going to the passenger side to get his dog.
Opening it, he had to fiddle for several minutes before figuring how to get the dog harness off the seatbelt.
“Where did you get this contraption?” he snarled, finally figuring out how to unbuckle the metal clasp.
“At the pet store.”
He ignored her wobbly voice, too intent on getting rid of the aggravating female.
“Come, Hannibal.”
The traitor refused to budge.
“Come, Hannibal.”
“Show him the dog bone I gave you, and he’ll come.”
“I threw it away.”
“You threw it away?”
“I just said so, didn’t I?” Stump refused to tug on the leash when his dog didn’t obey. Instead, he scooped the tiny dog up in one large hand, shutting the car door with the other one.
“Why did you throw it away? Hannibal played with that bone all night.”
“If I wanted my dog to have a bone, I’d give him a real one. And I damn sure won’t be giving him a pink dinosaur one.”
“What kind would you give him? A real one that he could choke on?”
He took a step back when she appeared ready to get out of the car and snatch Hannibal out of his grasp.
Striding across to her side of the car, he leaned down, putting his face within an inch of hers. “Lady, how many dogs have you owned?”
Her lips tightened in a firm line. “One.”
“I’ve had three; four including Hannibal. I think I’m more knowledgeable of which bones to pick for my dog, don’t you?”
“Depends on what happened to the first three.”
He tucked Hannibal tighter into his side. “That’s none of your business, any more than Hannibal is.” Straightening, he moved away from the car. “You’re a piece of work, you know that? Get your ass out of here before I lose what little patience I have left, or I’ll get one of the brothers to help me crush this car into a lump of chrome that you’ll have to carry around in your fucking pocket.”
“That is unnecessarily harsh. I was just trying to be helpful—”
“I don’t need your help now or in the future. I’ve had my ass chewed out twice by Penni, Grace is threatening to take my dog, I was fired because of you, and someone the size of a linebacker just threatened to fuck me up. And yesterday, a car almost rear-ended me, which I’m thinking was another one of your crazy followers. If you were older, I would swear you were on the Titanic.”
He felt like a heel when she raised a shaking hand to lower her sunglasses, concealing tear-filled eyes.
He watched as she backed out of the parking spot without saying anything else.
“Fuck me,” Stump muttered out loud when he saw Zoey’s bottom lip tremble as she pulled out onto the road. Looking down at the dog that started growling at him, he warned, “Don’t you start with me, too. You’re lucky you’re a dog. Take it from me, we don’t need that type of crazy in our lives.”
5
Dear Mom,
I wish you and Dad were together again. I miss you.
xoxoxoxoxooxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
LOVE,
Zoey
“Are you sure your husbands are okay with you being out with me tonight?” Zoey looked around the table at the women who had convinced her to go out to the busy nightclub. It was the same question she asked twice before, but none of the married women had yet to answer her.
Penni asked her to go out that evening when she had returned to her office, and she agreed. However, she hadn’t really thought they would have been able to find a table without a reservation.
“What can I get you ladies to drink?”
“I’ll take a lime daiquiri.” Grace hadn’t found her voice to answer Zoey’s question, yet she had no problem being the first to order her drink.
“A strawberry margarita for me,” Casey requested next.
“Cranberry juice,” Zoey added when the waitress looked at her.
“Vida and I will both have amaretto sours,” Sawyer spoke for her and her best friend.
“How about you, Ginny?” Penni prompted.
“I’ll take a diet soda,” she ordered before looking at Penni. “The only reason I’m here and not in bed is because you said I needed to be the designated driver.”
“I told you that to get you out. Girl, that’s what Lyft is for,” Gianna told her before turning to the waitress. “I’ll take a rum and coke, and bring my girl one, too.”
“I’m not drinking. Ginny, if you want it, go ahead,” Zoey offered, bopping her head to the music.
“Exactly how do you think you can give us rides home on that skateboard?” Penni joked, slapping her hand on the table and drawing the eyes of the customers at nearby tables. “Don’t worry about rides home. I’ve got it covered.”
“I’m with you with the rum, Gianna, except I’ll take mine in a mojito,” Penni gave her order to the waitress who was impatiently waiting. “And bring us a platter of the nachos. I’m starving.”
“We ate before we came here,” Zoey reminded her. “And should you be drinking with your heart condition?”
Penni shrugged. “The burger and fries didn’t fill me up, and if one drink will kill me, I don’t want to live,” she joked. “Besides, the damage to my heart was only short-term. I’ve had annual checkups since I had Wylie. I was lucky. Not only did I survive an amniotic fluid embolism when almost seventy percent of women don’t, but I don’t have any damage, other than memory loss, and Jackal swears I had that problem before.”
Once the waitress left, Zoey found another way to get the answer to the question she wanted to know.
“Who’s babysitting your kids tonight? Usually when you all go out, one or two of you will stay behind to babysit.”
Penni snickered. “The men are.”
“So, you are taking it out on the men that I didn’t leave Hannibal at the vet?” She had been hoping that the spur of the moment get-together wasn’t in retaliation. “I told you it was my fault.”
“Our husbands are in trouble because they lied to Grace, and because Stump was a dick to you, and they let him be when I made it pretty damn clear that you were our friend. I’m polite to Jackal’s friends, even though they’re all dicks. They put the club first instead of their wives.”
“Ice is one of those friends.” Grace stiffened at the insult to her husband.
“Ice is the exception,” Penni nonchalantly clarified, taking a chip out of her nachos.
“Max is, too.”
Casey’s attempt to exempt her husband from Penni’s dick list met with failure.
“He’s a dick, too. I’m not saying that Ice isn’t, too—maybe the biggest of all the Predators—but he’s the president; he’s supposed to be.”
Zoey stared down at the tabletop morosely. “I feel terrible that I caused this friction between you and your husbands.”
“Get over it.” Penni leaned back to allow the waitress to serve their drinks. “Order something stronger than cranberry juice. It’ll help.”
Grace helped herself to the nachos. “Look on the bright side. We’re having a girls’ night out and we’re all here. It’s been a long time since that’s happened.”
Zoey brightened. “That’s true.” She gave Ginny a warm smile. “I haven’t been able to get better acquainted with you since you moved
to town and moved in with Gianna.”
Ginny smiled back at her. “I’m looking forward to it, too. I’ve been on the road so much with the band that I’m still trying to get used to sleeping on a bed that doesn’t move. It’s going to be hard until I can find another job, but I can understand the band wanting to take a year break.”
“It was either take a break or the kids and I were going on the tour with Kaden.” Sawyer shook her head when Vida moved the nacho platter toward her.
“I could help. I could put it out to my followers that you’re looking for a job.”
“That’s okay. I prefer to do it the old-fashioned way and search the job sites.”
“You could apply for Stump’s job at the furniture store. I hear his boss is hiring,” Penni suggested, motioning to the waitress for a refill.
“Not anymore. I talked to his boss. I stopped there before going back to the office this morning. He’s going to hire Stump back.”
“Do you ever not be nice?” Grace gave her a searching look.
“It’s good Karma.”
The table of women stared at her like she was an alien from outer space as the waitress brought each of the women a fresh drink.
“The karaoke is getting started. I get busy when it does, so I didn’t want to keep you waiting.”
Gianna gave the waitress an extra ten when she paid for the round of drinks. “I like a woman that is industrious.”
After the waitress left, she moved her empty glass away and moved the fresh drink closer. “I told you there is an opening at the bank. One of the perks of being the president is hiring.”
“I don’t have any banking experience. The only thing I’ve ever done is cook. I’ll find something. Until then, I can use the vacation.”
“The bank would train you….”
“I suck at numbers, and I really like cooking and cleaning.”
“I’m glad that Max didn’t meet you until after he married me,” Casey quipped with a roll of her eyes.
The women stopped talking when a long-haired man jumped onto the small stage and raised a microphone.
“Let’s get this party rolling! Who wants to go first?”
Several people in the bar yelled out to get his attention.