48. Daisy
It was almost two a.m by the time we started to pack up. Some of the guests had decided to stay on the compound for the night, either in the rooms of the members who’d invited them or in guest rooms.
I helped the Beasts and Mac load up the big coolers, folding tables, and extra chairs in the truck Jace had bought when he’d first moved into the house. It had come in handy more than once on our runs to the home store, and again tonight when Mac asked Jace if he could bring it to help transport the party stuff from some storage building on the compound to the fire pit area.
I guess we were those people now, those people you called to help you move or pick up a piece of used furniture you’d bought from a neighbor online.
I didn’t mind. I’d ridden over smashed between Wolf and Otis — not exactly a hardship — while Jace had followed on his bike.
“That it?” Jace asked Mac when the fire pit area was cleared.
“That’s it,” Mac said.
I studied him without being obvious, trying to imagine him being tight with my mom. I assumed it had been before my mom married my dad — I couldn’t imagine my dad being okay with my mom hanging at the Blades’ compound when we was trying to establish himself as one of Blackwell’s most upstanding citizens — but I had no way of knowing for sure.
Had my mom and Mac just been friends? Or had there been more to it than that?
Even in his early fifties, Mac was good-looking, with blond hair not yet touched with gray and blue eyes that were darker than Wolf’s, but it was still hard to picture my mom having a fling with him. He was the polar opposite of my buttoned-up dad.
“Why don’t you ride home with Jace?”
Wolf’s question pulled me from my thoughts, but it still took me a second to realize he’d directed it at me.
“Why?”
“It’s late, and it’s going to take us a while to unload all this stuff,” Wolf said.
I wanted to suggest Jace stay and unload while one of the other Beasts drove me home — I was tired and ready for bed — but that didn’t make sense since the only other vehicle we had at the compound was Jace’s bike.
“I can stay and help,” I said. “You guys shouldn’t have to do it alone.”
Jace crossed his arms over his chest. “You afraid of my bike, princess? Or is it me you’re scared of?”
I glared at him, not willing to let him have the upper hand. “Fine. Let’s go.”