Red Eyes MC: Books 1 - 3

by Grey, Blair

  The truth was I wanted to define things with Marcus. I wanted to sit down and have all of those long talks. But he seemed determined to keep me at arm’s length. I couldn’t help feeling like we were just having fun together and that was it. He seemed to like me, but he also seemed distracted every time we were out in public together. Like his mind was always on other things.

  So I supposed that part of why I didn’t want to sit down and talk to him about the serious, long-term things that might be happening to me was… I didn’t believe he was actually going to be there for any of them. Why stir things up? Why not just enjoy what I had right now? By the time I started to show, he probably wouldn’t be around anymore.

  That wouldn’t be fair to him, though. Even if I didn’t think he was going to stick around, I owed it to him to at least have that conversation. If nothing else than so that he wouldn’t assume that the baby was his if he ever found out about it. The last thing I needed was for him to suddenly decide he wanted to have kids and try to sue me for custody. It would just be embarrassing to have to explain in a courtroom that I had been artificially inseminated while I was dating someone else.

  “You really don’t think things are going to last with him, do you?” Rachel asked.

  “No, honestly,” I sighed. “I mean, what are the odds anyway? Not everyone can find their soul mate. And besides, I always pictured my soul mate to be, I don’t know, different. Less like my father.”

  “Look, I don’t know the guy very well, but I knew your father, remember?” Rachel said. “Marcus doesn’t really remind me of him. And he definitely didn’t treat Gavin the way your father used to treat you.”

  I wished I could laugh, but instead, I just shook my head. “He has a motorcycle, though,” I reminded Rachel. “I know that’s a stupid thing to say, but he showed up here at the hospital with a knife cut to the arm, and he drives a motorcycle. What conclusions do you want me to draw?”

  Rachel didn’t have an answer for that. “Do you need someone to go with you?” she asked. “When you go back to the clinic for your, you know. Insemination.” She said the word in a low voice like she was afraid of who might overhear.

  I grinned at her. “Thanks, but I think I can handle it,” I told her. “And I know you don’t like hospitals anyway. Speaking of which…”

  “Yeah, I should probably go,” Rachel sighed. “Let you get back to work. I guess I’ll do some grocery shopping or something. We don’t really need anything, but maybe I’ll make something nice for dinner. Do you want to come over?”

  “I’ll let you have a few more days of private family time,” I said, giving her a hug since I could tell she was still feeling a little down. “But I’ll see you soon, okay? We’ll have another girls’ day if the guys are going to do ‘manly things’ for whole days.”

  Rachel snorted. “That sounds like a plan,” she said.

  As I was walking her out, who should walk in those doors but Marcus himself. Rachel grinned and waved at him, then gave me a look. “What was that about?” Marcus asked, watching as Rachel disappeared.

  I sighed. As much as I loved Rachel, sometimes I wished she didn’t have to be quite so pushy. I’d meant what I had said before. I didn’t want Marcus to talk me out of this. This wasn’t his decision to make. I had been trying to put this off until I was absolutely sure, which I supposed I was, but I still just wasn’t ready to talk to him about it.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, hoping I could distract him. “Not another knife fight, I hope.”

  “No, no knife fights and no injuries,” Marcus said, grinning at me and displaying both arms like he was trying to show me the proof of his statement. “I just came by to check up on you. You’ve been pretty quiet for the last few days, and I wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Don’t you think I would tell you if things weren’t okay?” I asked. “I’m not exactly subtle.”

  Marcus laughed. “I know,” he said. “And I like that about you.” He glanced toward the doors, clearly still thinking of that look from Rachel. “Is there something you wanted to talk to me about, though?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “But I don’t know if this is the place for it.”

  I didn’t really know where would be the place, on the other hand. Where was an appropriate place to tell your sort-of-boyfriend that you were getting artificially inseminated?

  “I saw the pamphlets,” Marcus said suddenly.

  “What pamphlets?” I asked in surprise, even though I had a feeling I knew exactly which pamphlets he was talking about.

  “It’s okay, you know. That you’re going to be working for the sperm bank as well.” He paused. “I don’t know why you feel like you need to pick up work since it seems like you’re pretty busy here already. But I don’t mind that you’re going to be handling other guys’ spunk. Or are you quitting this job and going over there permanently?”

  Oh god, of course he would think that I was going to be working for them. Because he wouldn’t suspect that I was going to actually try to get pregnant at the clinic, no. That would just be weird, wouldn’t it?

  I sighed and led him into one of the examination rooms, not wanting everyone else in the hospital to overhear us. “I’m not quitting this job,” I said. “I’m not going to work for the clinic.”

  “Oh. Okay,” Marcus said, his brow furrowing.

  I took a deep breath. “I’m trying to get artificially inseminated,” I told him. “I’m going to have a baby. I hope."

  Marcus simply stared at me for a long moment. “That’s ridiculous,” he finally said.

  “How is that ridiculous?” I asked, putting my hands on my hips. Don’t let him talk you out of it, I reminded myself. Rachel hadn’t been able to talk me out of it, and she was my best friend. If she couldn’t talk me out of it, Marcus shouldn’t be able to, either.

  But I knew that even though Rachel was my best friend, there were certain things that she couldn’t promise me. Things that Marcus could. Things that might change my mind, even though I didn’t want them to.

  Sure enough: “Look, I know I said I hadn’t thought about having kids, not yet. But I never said I didn’t want kids,” Marcus said peevishly. “Are you expecting me to propose to you right now or something? Is this some kind of weird leveraging thing?”

  “No!” I said. “I’ve met with the clinic a few times now, and I got the birth control taken out of my arm. I’ve got just a little more bloodwork to go, and then it’s all going to be sorted out.”

  “What the hell is the hurry?” Marcus snapped. “And why do you feel like you need to get artificially inseminated? We can get pregnant when we’re good and ready. There’s no damned hurry.”

  “Marcus,” I said, trying to figure out a way to explain. Jesus, how did I tell him that as much as I liked him, I just didn’t want to get pregnant by him? It had nothing to do with him at all.

  Marcus shook my hand off his arm. “You seemed pretty interested in the sex,” he said, as though that might even somehow be the problem.

  “I am!” I insisted.

  “Then why the hell are you doing this?” Marcus snarled.

  “Because I want to,” I said helplessly, shrugging. I paused. “Look, I’m not asking for your permission. I’m sorry, but I’ve already made my decision.”

  Marcus stared at me for a long moment, and I thought he was going to shout at me some more or else try to persuade me not to do it. And at that moment, I knew that I could be persuaded. If he wanted to have kids with me, if he wanted me to wait, if that was the only way I could keep him in my life? I might just do it. I might just wait.

  But instead, he just gave me a look of disgust and turned around, stalking out of the room and letting the door slam shut behind him.

  I felt my whole body deflate, and I leaned back against the counter as my legs suddenly went weak. I knew I should have just been honest with him from the beginning. Before we had gotten all of our feelings tangled up in thi
s. I had been thinking about artificial insemination since before he came on the scene. It wasn’t my fault that I hadn’t wanted to change my plans just because things were going well between us.

  I never should have gotten so involved with him, though. I had known he wasn’t going to stick around. That he wasn’t going to be there for me forever. But I had let myself hope that maybe I was reading the situation wrong. That maybe he wasn’t just who I thought he was.

  It wasn’t fair to say that this was his fault, though. No, if I never saw him again, I knew exactly where the blame lay. This was my fault for springing that on him. A pregnancy. Who wanted to date someone who was pregnant with someone else’s kid? Even if I hadn’t actually slept with that other guy. It was just weird.

  I swallowed hard, feeling as though I had just lost something. But that was ridiculous. We had never defined our relationship to begin with. I had never had him to begin with. No matter what I might have wanted.

  29

  Marcus

  Monday

  As I stalked out of the hospital, I couldn’t deny how badly I want to hit something. Put any of the Unknowns in front of me right then, or hell, the sheriff, and I would have beaten that guy to a fucking pulp.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about what Leila had said. Artificial insemination. Was she fucking serious? But she had been—that was the thing. I had seen the pamphlets, and I had assumed it was some sort of work thing. Or maybe something to do with Rachel. Maybe Rachel wanted to have another kid, a sibling for Gavin, and things just weren’t working out. Or something.

  What a shock to find out it wasn’t. What a shock to find out that it was for Leila.

  I still didn’t understand, and that pissed me off. There was no hurry, was there? We were both still relatively young. We had time to figure things out.

  But that wasn’t what really got to me. No, the part that really bothered me was the fact that she hadn’t even talked to me about it. The fact that she had made all these life-changing decisions without even telling me that she was thinking about any of this. Because sure, we might be relatively new to dating, but I was pretty sure we had both made it clear to the other that we wanted to keep doing this. So her pregnancy wouldn’t just affect her; it would affect me as well.

  If I stuck around long enough to let it.

  Did she think that little of me? She didn’t think I was going to keep dating her, so she didn’t think it was going to be an issue? It wasn’t something that she needed to talk to me about?

  That pissed me off. We might not have figured out all the details of our relationship just yet, but I was pretty sure I had made it clear I cared about her.

  Whatever, though. I didn’t have time to think about all of that. I had enough shit on my plate at the moment.

  And that was really what it came down to: I just had too much going on already. I couldn’t possibly think of having a kid right now, not when we were still dealing with the Unknowns and with the sheriff sniffing around Red Eyes business. Fortunately, the sheriff seemed to have finally gotten bored and turned his attention to other matters, so the MC was back to work again. It didn’t mean things were back to normal, but it was at least better than it had been for the past couple of weeks.

  Speaking of which… I glanced at my watch. Almost time for the newly reinstated weekly meeting at the clubhouse. I was a little early, but I decided to head over there anyway. Otherwise, I might actually go seeking out trouble, just in an attempt to cool my rage.

  What the fuck was Leila thinking?

  To be honest, though, I felt kind of bad for yelling at her. It was her life and her body. I should have tried to understand why she was so ready to have a baby right now. Why this was the route that she wanted to take, rather than just shouting about how ridiculous it was and storming out of there. But I couldn’t help feeling pissed, even if it meant I had upset her.

  The news at the weekly meeting didn’t help. It was eerily silent when I went in there, even though Ray wasn’t even there yet. It was as though we were all waiting in terse silence for him to show up. There was none of the usual joking around or hanging out.

  I dropped into a seat on the couch, feeling suddenly exhausted. There was just too much going on already, and now with everything with Leila on top of it, it was starting to get to me. Maybe it was time I pulled a Will. Maybe it was time I drew back from the MC. I didn’t need this shit.

  But as tempted as I was to just take off, I knew that I owed something to these guys. There might not be any joking around right now, but these guys were still the closest to family I would probably ever have. I couldn’t turn my back on them, and I especially couldn’t turn my back on Ray.

  When Ray came in, he looked just as tired as I felt. “Hate to say it, boys, and I’m sure you already all know this, but our numbers aren’t looking very good,” he said, glancing over at Cameron. “Wish I could tell you that we were meeting all of our objectives and that there was a big fat paycheck coming at each of you, but instead, I’ve got some bad news.” He cleared his throat. “It seems that the other MC is really taking over.”

  “Don’t call them an MC,” Braxton said, hot-tempered as ever. “They’re a bunch of fucking pansies, the lot of them.”

  Ray rolled his eyes. “Whatever they are, they’ve taken over a lot of our business while the sheriff was messing with us,” he said. “I hate to say it, but I don’t know what to do.”

  There was silence in the room. I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Well, if you would just quit jerking off over the whole Lex situation, maybe we wouldn’t have this problem,” I snarled. “I don’t know; maybe if you just stood up to Lex, things would be better. Handle that shit.”

  Ray fixed me with a cool stare. “And as soon as I go after Lex, what do you think our friend the sheriff does?” he asked. He looked around at each of us. “I know it sucks,” he said. “I know everyone wants to get a piece of those suckers. But I don’t think I have to remind you that the second we swing a fist at the Unknowns, our asses are going to be hauled off to jail. Even if they have to trump up some stupid charges to get the sentence to stick.”

  “So, what, we’re just going to continue to sit around with our thumbs up our asses?” I snapped. “That’s a great fucking plan.”

  Again, Ray looked like he wanted to box me around the ears. But he held his temper. “Eventually, and I would say sooner rather than later, this all has to blow over,” he said. “Right now, we’re already seeing the sheriff start to focus on other matters. I think he’ll start looking into the Unknowns pretty soon as well. A lot of the local businesses, even though they’ve paid their dues to the Unknowns, aren’t exactly happy about the changeover. We just need to wait for now. Be patient. Don’t get caught out.”

  I made a noise of disgust, but when I looked around the room, everyone else was nodding like they understood. Like they agreed. How the hell was I the only person who saw that this plan wasn’t working? Sitting around waiting to see what the Unknowns would do next, that was a recipe for disaster. That was how people got hurt. Innocent people like Leila, who weren’t even involved in the MC.

  It was no wonder she wanted nothing to do with me. She must sense that I couldn’t protect her. Apparently Red Eyes couldn’t protect anything anymore, not even the territory we’d held for years now, not even our goddamned clubhouse.

  I got up in disgust and walked out. If that was Ray’s plan, to do nothing, then I didn’t need to hear anything else. And the longer I sat there, the more likely it was that I was going to choose to turn all my earlier anger at him. I just couldn’t seem to hold it back.

  Cameron caught me when I was halfway down the block. He wasn’t a strong guy, but his grip on my wrist was nearly bruising. “Hey,” he said sharply.

  “What?” I snarled. “Does Ray have some stupid message for me about how my behavior is uncalled for? Because if so, you can tell him where to shove it.”

  Cameron stared at me for a long moment
and then took a step back, holding his hands out to either side. “Dude, are you okay?” he asked. “Should we go for a drink?”

  I could see the concern on his face, and that just made me even angrier, irrationally. We were all like a family, and I knew that my outburst back in the clubhouse had been uncalled for. As pissed as I was about this whole situation with the Unknowns, about the lack of action, I didn’t really want to challenge Ray.

  He wasn’t really the one that I was mad at. I was just so sick of feeling helpless, like I couldn’t do anything right, and like everything was just piling on.

  But I didn’t want to talk to Cameron about it, even though I definitely did need that drink. “I have to go,” I said, turning away from him and walking quickly down the street.

  30

  Leila

  Tuesday

  I headed over to the clinic on Tuesday morning for that last round of bloodwork. “Good news,” the consultant said when she came back into the room. “Everything looks like it’s perfect for you. All that’s left is to schedule the insemination appointment. If you’re sure that you want to do this.”

  “I’m sure,” I said, smiling at her in an attempt to cover up how nervous I really was.

  I hadn’t slept well the previous night. I couldn’t seem to quit thinking about Marcus’s reaction to my news. I didn’t know what I had expected. But I guess in part of my mind, I’d hoped that he would find it in himself to be excited for me. I wanted to share this big news with him. I wanted someone to be as excited about this as I was.

  That wasn’t fair to him, and I knew it. I should never have expected that. It was just that Rachel—although she had mostly come around to the idea of it—still wasn’t excited for me. She wanted me to do exactly what she’d done: find a man, get married, have kids. Have that normal sort of life. She didn’t understand why I didn’t want that for myself. Or rather, she understood why, but she didn’t necessarily support it. She still kept reminding me that not everyone was going to be like my father was.