Red Eyes MC: Books 1 - 3

by Grey, Blair

  “You heard her, bug,” I said to Gavin, hoisting him into my arms and marching him off to the bathroom while he giggled and twisted in an attempt to get away from me. We got all washed up and then went back to the other room for dinner.

  “Looks and smells amazing, as always,” I told Rachel.

  She snorted. “You only say that because if I left you to your own devices at home, you’d be having a TV dinner on the couch,” she said. Speaking of which, she led Gavin over to his special seat near the TV and got him settled in with a small plate of food. Sometimes he joined us at the table for dinner, but he got pretty bored of listening to Rachel and I chitchat, so this was a way for us to have a little girl time while he still was entertained.

  “Not true!” I said and grinned. “Only because I still have some of that frozen lasagna that you sent home with me a couple weeks ago.”

  She rolled her eyes, but I could tell she was amused. “So what’s new anyway?” she asked as she dished out salad, mashed potatoes, and salmon. “How was your week?”

  “It was good,” I told her. “Work was good. Busy enough to keep me on my toes.”

  “Meaning you’re exhausted, and you’re going to spend your next day off hermitted away in your apartment?”

  I laughed. “Probably. Although I don’t feel too bad at the moment.” The truth was, I was too keyed up to be exhausted.

  “Anything new going on?” Rachel asked.

  “Yeah, actually.” I paused. “I’ve really been thinking about having a child.”

  “That’s not new,” Rachel said, sounding exasperated. “You’ve been thinking about having a child since before I had Gavin.”

  “And you having him just cemented my desire to have one,” I joked.

  “Like I said, this is nothing new. Unless you’re telling me that you have a man in your life that I don’t know about and that the two of you are getting serious.”

  I laughed. “Nah, I just finally did some real research into artificial insemination,” I told her. “I have an appointment for a consultation and everything.”

  Rachel gaped at me. “You’re not serious, are you?”

  “Uh yeah, I am,” I said, frowning at her. “Why?”

  “I just think it’s a horrible idea,” Rachel said, shaking her head. “I read a couple stories.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said, shaking my head. Sometimes, I thought Rachel had a little too much time on her hands, even though she spent so much of her time being a mom. She read some of the most sensationalist bullshit that was out there. Absolute garbage clickbait. And she believed a lot of it.

  “Look, I’m not saying that everything you read on the internet is true, but just think for a minute,” she said impatiently. “What kind of person goes in to donate sperm at those clinics? What if you get the daddy DNA of a murderer or something like that?”

  “I doubt they let murderers go into sperm banks, jizz into a cup, and then bring them back to the state penitentiary,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  “What if he hasn’t committed the crime yet, but he does later?” Rachel pressed. “I mean, there’s something to be said about a guy who wants to leave a legacy that badly that he’s willing to go whack off into a cup, isn’t there?”

  “Maybe he just wants to help women who can’t get pregnant any other way,” I suggested.

  “Or maybe he’s a fucking weirdo,” Rachel said. Then, she glanced over at Gavin, covering up her mouth. It was a mark of how against this she was that she had dropped the f-bomb in front of her kid.

  I shook my head, though. “Look, I’m just going in to talk about my options. It’s not like anything’s going to happen just yet. And sometimes it takes women years to conceive babies. Even if I decide that this is something that I want to do, it’s not like I’m going to pop out the kid tomorrow.”

  “I know,” Rachel sighed. “And I’m sorry to be so against it. I just don’t want you to have a little monster on your hands.”

  “Then I’ll just have to raise him to be just like Gavin,” I said, winking at her in an attempt to lighten the mood.

  But she shook her head. “I guess I also just want to keep believing that one day you’re going to find the right man and fall in love and that’s when you’re going to have those babies of yours. Hopefully that’ll happen soon enough anyway.”

  I didn’t want to tell her that I had pretty much given up on the idea of that ever happening. Let her keep her fantasy. It was harmless enough, anyway. She’d come around to the idea of artificial insemination if that was really what I wanted to do. She’d probably want to help me choose which sperm donor to go with.

  For now, I’d throw her a little bone.

  “Speaking of falling in love, I actually have a date tomorrow night,” I told her. I regretted the words the moment they were out of my mouth. God, what awkward phrasing. “I mean, not that I’m falling in love with him. I barely even know the guy. And he’s attractive, but that doesn’t mean I’m planning on falling in love with him, either.”

  Rachel looked excited. “Who is he?” she asked. “How did you meet? Oh, that’s such good news!”

  I rolled my eyes, but I was grinning as well. “His name is Marcus. I met him at the hospital.”

  “He’s a doctor?” Rachel asked, looking like she might swoon.

  “Nope,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Or a nurse,” she said hurriedly. “I know there aren’t really those gender barriers anymore. Or a lab tech? Who is he?”

  “He was a patient, actually. Twice.” Although at the time I’d been absolutely exasperated with the way he was wasting my time and hospital resources, I couldn’t deny that I was happy Marcus had come in to see me with those “chest pains” of his. He was bold; I had to give him that.

  But Rachel looked concerned. “He’s not dying, is he?”

  “No, he’s not dying,” I said, rolling my eyes. “He came in on Friday night because he got cut.” I wasn’t about to tell her with what or how severely. The last thing I needed was for her to worry about me. If she knew that he had been in a position to be cut that badly with a knife, she would swear up and down that he must be involved in some sort of gang or something. Or that he was a drug dealer.

  Even though I knew getting involved with Marcus was a terrible idea, I just wanted to have this one date with him without having to worry about all of that. I wanted to have a little fun. There was something flattering about being desired by someone who was so damned sexy.

  “And the second time he came in, he wasn’t actually injured or sick, he just wanted to get my number,” I said before Rachel could ask any questions.

  She giggled. “That’s awesome!” she said. She shook her head. “I’m so happy for you. Where’s he taking you?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I told her. “He texted me to tell me that he’s still debating where to take me. But he hinted that it’s going to be somewhere nice and that I should put on a nice dress for it.”

  “I told you, you should have bought those heels you were looking at,” Rachel chided. “What are you going to wear?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t even know how to date anymore. It feels like it’s been forever.”

  “That’s because it has been,” Rachel said, rolling her eyes. “We’ll go through my closet after dinner. Maybe I have something that’ll work.”

  “When was the last time you wore anything fancy?” I asked her, raising an eyebrow.

  “You know I go to a lot of receptions and things with Victor.”

  “True,” I said. “But I’m not looking for something businesslike.”

  “I know,” Rachel said. She paused and then blushed. “Actually, I still have a ton of old stuff, hot stuff, from when we were in college. I just couldn’t bring myself to get rid of some of it. It’s got memories, you know?”

  I laughed and shook my head. “You pack rat,” I chided. But inwardly, I was relieved that she might have something for me. I had gotten rid of most
of my impractical clothing ages ago. If I couldn’t wear it to work and I couldn’t wear it around the house and it wasn’t comfortable enough for day-to-day outings like getting coffee or going to the park with Rachel, then it wasn’t worth taking up space in my closet with.

  Now, I kind of regretted that I’d had that mentality. I wasn’t sure that I had anything fancy left, not even a simple black dress.

  “We’ll sort you out,” Rachel promised me. Then, she grinned wickedly at me. “We’ll get you in the kind of outfit where he just has to agree to be your sperm donor.”

  “Not going to happen,” I said cheerfully.

  “Uh-oh, isn’t he attractive?” Rachel asked. “This isn’t just one of those pity dates, is it?”

  “I would never do that!” I protested.

  “I don’t know… You have that whole thing about helping people and making them feel better. I don’t know where you draw the line.”

  I shook my head. “He’s super attractive,” I admitted. “He’s got an incredible body. When he took his shirt off, it was—”

  “When he took his shirt off?” Rachel interrupted. “Why did he take his shirt off? Have the two of you already, you know, done it?”

  “No!” I said, shocked she would even ask that.

  “Just checking,” Rachel said. “I’ve seen those Hollywood movies. The ones with the sexy nurse and the hot patient.”

  “Are you sure those weren’t pornos?” I quipped.

  “Hey, not in front of the kid!” Rachel said, even though Gavin was clearly still involved in watching his show. She laughed and shook her head. “Just, why have you seen him shirtless already? Was it one of those weird guy things, to get you to agree to go out with him?”

  I giggled. “No, of course not. I wouldn’t have gone out with him if so. But the second time he came in, he was complaining of chest pains, so I had to hook him up to all the machines.”

  “Of course you did,” Rachel said, sounding amused. “So tell me again why you’re not interested in having sex with him?”

  Where to even begin with that one.

  The truth was, I didn’t know what was holding me back. Part of it was, it had been so long. I didn’t think I had forgotten how to do it; I wasn’t that stupid. But maybe there was a part of me that was worried I might start getting attached to him if we had sex. And that was the last thing I wanted.

  I couldn’t go getting attached to him. I was busy, and I didn’t believe in the idea of finding my one true love. I was too jaded at this point. I realized that I was probably never going to have what Rachel and Victor had, and I had come to terms with that. It probably had something to do with the way I’d been raised. Why open myself up to hurt for no reason?

  And besides, even if I were looking for my soul mate, Marcus was far from it. Sexy though he might be, I wasn’t about to end up with some tattooed hunk of muscle. If the hulking biker look wasn’t enough to convince me he was trouble, that knife cut along his forearm definitely was. I didn’t need to get caught up in something like that.

  But I wanted to enjoy tomorrow night, and I didn’t want Rachel to talk me out of going out with him. I shrugged. “I don’t put out on a first date,” I said.

  Rachel rolled her eyes and groaned. “God, you’re such a prude,” she said. “How are you ever going to get pregnant?”

  “Artificial insemination,” I told her, sticking out my tongue.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Rachel said. A motherly look of concern came into her eyes. “Just make sure you’re careful, okay? Do you want me to tag along with you? Sounds like you don’t really know this guy very well, and I don’t want you to get into a situation you can’t handle.”

  I was almost tempted by the offer, even though I knew Rachel would be hauling me out of there as soon as she got a look at Marcus. I shook my head. “Nah, I’ll be fine,” I told her. “I’ll text you if things are going terribly.”

  “Sounds good,” Rachel said, smiling at me. “Who knows, maybe you’ll decide to put out after all. He could be Mr. Right.”

  I snorted. “If he is, then he won’t mind waiting a couple dates before having sex with me.”

  Rachel rolled her eyes but didn’t comment.

  13

  Marcus

  Saturday

  I finally decided on a place to take Leila to, thanks to a recommendation from Will. He said it was a place that Belle loved, so I had to believe it was the kind of place that any chick would dig. Even if I felt pretty out of place in my button-down shirt and slacks.

  I always had this weird bit of dysphoria when I came to places like this. The tattoos covering my arms and chest told everyone I didn’t belong here. The fact that I was in a biker gang would tell them more of the same if they only knew that. I could picture myself as they saw me, and I knew I didn’t fit in, no matter what I wore or how much time I spent trimming my beard so that it wasn’t even slightly scruffy.

  But hell, I was an educated man. I had a master’s degree, which was probably more than a lot of these people could say. What right did they have to judge me? If I wanted to take my lady out somewhere nice, then I was going to do that. They couldn’t stop me.

  Not that Leila was my lady. She was definitely her own person. I was still mildly surprised that she had agreed to go out on a date with me at all. Even though I could tell that she was as attracted to me as I was to her, I had expected her to protest, to remind me that she was too busy and that she couldn’t do this. I thought I was going to have to work a lot harder to break down those walls.

  For a moment, I wondered if maybe she was planning on standing me up. Maybe that was why she had wanted to meet at the restaurant rather than at her place. But when I got to the restaurant, I was surprised to see that Leila was already there.

  I looked at my watch. I was a couple of minutes early. I grinned at the thought that she had gotten there even earlier. She must have been pretty excited to see me.

  I didn’t comment on that, though. Instead, I just took the seat opposite her. “You look amazing,” I told her.

  She blushed and ducked her head. “Thanks,” she said. “You clean up pretty nicely, too.”

  We perused our menus in silence for a moment. Once the waiter had come to take our orders, though, there was no more distraction. I smiled easily at her. “How was your week?” I asked. “All good around the hospital?”

  “Yeah, it was pretty long. But it was good,” Leila said, smiling back at me.

  “You seem to be in there every time I am,” I mused. “You must work a lot of shifts.”

  “I do,” Leila agreed.

  “Trying to pay back those med school loans?” I guessed.

  Leila laughed and shook her head. “No, actually. My dad set up a trust fund for me when I was a kid, and I was able to use that to pay for school. Between that and the work I did while I was in school, plus the scholarships that I got, I was able to graduate debt-free.”

  “Impressive,” I said. “Especially for a trust fund kid. Aren’t you supposed to take that money and go explore the world, drinking and partying until you’re broke and you have to come crawling back to Daddy for more money?”

  Leila grimaced. “It wasn’t really like that,” she said. “My dad had a lot of money when I was a kid, but he made some bad investments. And I wouldn’t come crawling back to him now anyway.” She paused. “He and I don’t have a relationship anymore.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, assuming that meant either that her father wasn’t around anymore, like he had moved away, or else he was dead.

  She shrugged and changed the subject. “What about you—do you have any family?”

  “The guys I work with are kind of like family,” I said cautiously. I still didn’t want her to know about Red Eyes. Not yet. Not that I was involved in too much illegal stuff. The club was pretty tame as far as those things went. But still.

  I wasn’t sure why her opinion of me mattered so much to me, but I couldn’t deny it did.
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br />   “You’re lucky,” Leila said, making a face. “The people I work with definitely aren’t like family to me. Which you’d think they would be, given the number of hours we spend together and the number of grisly experiences we’ve shared.”

  I laughed. “Don’t get along with any of them?”

  “Not really,” she admitted. “I mean, I get along with them, they’re just not friends.”

  “You wouldn’t go out for drinks with them after work?” I suggested.

  “Exactly.” Leila frowned. “I don’t know, most of them just seem like they went into nursing because they knew they could get a job at it. Not because they actually want to help people. And there are a couple of them that really cut corners, too. It drives me crazy.”

  “I can imagine,” I said, smiling at her.

  “What?” she asked suspiciously.

  “What do you mean, what?” I asked.

  “That smile,” she said, pointing at my face. “I know you mean something by it.”

  I laughed and shook my head. “I just could tell that you were one of those stick-up-the-ass professionals. In a good way. I like a woman who gets the job done tidily.”

  Leila still looked like she didn’t know whether to take that as a compliment or not. But finally, she shrugged, giving me a rueful smile. “I guess I am,” she admitted. “I just like to have things done the right way. Efficiently.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. The waiter brought over our wine, and after I did the pretentious taste test, he poured us each a glass. I swirled mine around for a moment, trying to think of something to talk about that might set her a little at ease, since I could tell she was nervous. “So what’s the best thing you’ve ever seen, working at the hospital?”

  Leila raised an eyebrow at me. “Usually people ask the opposite,” she said. “They want to know the worst thing I’ve ever seen, or the weirdest thing.”

  I didn’t want to tell her that I wasn’t interested in the worst thing she’d ever seen because I’d seen some of that stuff myself. It had been a long time since anyone had threatened Red Eyes, and I’d been too young to really understand what was going on back when I was a teenager. But I’d seen some pretty grisly nights. Some nights when Dad came home looking like shit and covered in blood, things like that. I knew the kinds of things that happened in the shadows. I didn’t want to talk about those things with Leila.