14. Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen
Jordan
I had no business asking him that.
Thinking that.
Wondering that.
The organized mayhem of Aria’s shop has calmed, but not considerably.
It has made it easier to step back, watch from afar as Mac hands off the twins to his brother and is swept away by Aria.
He’s safe with her, I know he is.
Yet I still find his absence palpable. Like I’ve left my favorite hoodie behind or lost my lucky coin. Except, I’ve never believed in that shit. There was never anything in my life that I could attest to being a beckon of some kind of fortune or blessing. Mostly, I’ve been more prone to find the things that were unlucky, which is probably why I opened my big mouth.
I shouldn’t have asked him.
He’s single and has been for as long as I have known him. That wasn’t fair of me to bring it up, and yet … I can’t find it in me to hate his answer.
Mac wants kids … someday.
Just not today. Which only eases the guilt swimming in my chest about looking at him the way that I did. For feeling the things that I am.
For imagining what I did when his mouth dropped open.
Feed me.
I try to shake off the tingling that has taken over my skin by walking around, checking in with Jonathon, even doing another round outside.
The fresh air does nothing to ease the tightness in my chest or the churning in my stomach. But when I step back inside and see the studio has been converted into a photoshoot, my feet root in the spot.
It’s not the backdrop that takes up one whole wall and drapes across the ground like the satin can mimic waves. Nor is it the lights with the umbrellas attached or even the camera taking up Aria’s sister’s face.
No.
It’s Mac.
As always, drawing my attention right to him despite the flurry of others in the room.
With his tight black jeans and painted nails. His Chucks that are probably as old as he is. Those wild curls of his peeking out between his bandana and the hood of a brand-new hoodie.
An unzipped hoodie with the As Above emblem painted in every color of the rainbow on the left side of his chest.
But as much as the bare chest beneath it catches my sight and dares me to hold it, I don’t.
No.
Instead, I flick my sight to the hardline of his jaw that hosts a ghost of a smile and the pride that shines in his lined greenish eyes.
He lifts his chin, defiant and strong, and shoves his hands in the pockets of the hoodie. The move straightens the logo, making it stand out, a stark contrast to the dark material behind it, and my chest fills.
He looks like a warrior readying for battle. A rebellious leader.
A misfit dressed in all black.
My heart thunders in my chest when he spins, the same colorful name across the expanse of his shoulders that lift when he flexes, the hoodie raising enough to flash the skin of his lower back.
But when he tips back the hood and looks over his shoulder right at me with such an intensity in his eyes, I stop breathing.
Holy fuck, he’s beautiful .
His grin spreads when I continue to stare, frozen and tingling from head to toe when he turns my way, and hooks his thumbs in the waistband of his jeans, tugging them lower.
My gaze snaps to the light trail that starts at his navel and disappears into his jeans that are just on the right side of appropriate.
My mouth waters.
The tattoo is right next to it, fresh and stretching from that low waistband clear up to his ribs. It’s a gorgeously rendered eagle diving for its prey, drumsticks in its talons like it just plucked them up.
Forcing myself to look up, our gazes clash and he shoots me a wink before breaking the connection and looking over his shoulder at the camera.
I force a shaking breath. Uncross my arms that I don’t remember moving. Break myself from the trance Mac put me in and spin to find Peach staring at me from behind two black eyes and a cock to his head.
He mouths an oh and bounces his brows but then winces.
I clear my throat and flip him off.
Movement draws my sight back to the photoshoot and my fists clench against the wave of chills that overwhelm me when I see that all of Mac’s brothers have joined him.
And each one of them are wearing the same logo in different Pride color combinations.
Fin’s hoodie has pink, purple, and blue.
Pink, yellow, and blue make up Leo’s tee.
Toby’s chest totes purple, black, grey, and white.
And Rex … his is yellow, white, purple, and black.
Though I don’t know what all of them stand for, I do know that my drummer stands in the middle of them with his rainbow on full display and shining, glassy eyes.
Flashes capture the moment, but there’s not a damn thing that could capture the amount of pride I feel for the man Mac is in this moment. Nothing that could express the chills that rack over me at the acceptance crackling in the air.
The raw power of a moment like this.
“Fuck,” Peach mutters thickly from beside me, then takes off, photobombing the shoot by walking right up to Fin and grabbing at the hoodie the guitarist wears. They laugh and fight over the material until it ends up on Peach’s shoulders, the hood pulled tight around his face.
A face that is blotted in red like he’s fighting back his emotions just as much as I am, the camera catching every bit of it.
“Hey, Jordan,” Aria’s words shake me from the stupor this family has put me in, and I look down at the woman that designed it all. She’s holding out a folded garment, and when I take it from her, unfurling it, my breath catches all over again.
“Ari …” I breathe out, my sight darting over the rainbow print pitched inside bold bands of white and black to the woman with watering eyes.
“I didn’t think I’d be so emotional …” She sputters out a thick snicker and waves a limp hand at the hoodie in my hand. “I just thought you might like to match him.”
I clutch it in both hands and nod. “Thank you.”
She smiles and nods back, and I catch her before she can spin away.
“Which one is … um—” I swallow thickly, “is the demi colors?”
Her smile softens and she holds up a finger before disappearing. She’s only gone a moment, but it’s still long enough for my stomach to flip and regret to build up.
I clear my throat.
“Here, hun.” She places a smaller bundle in my grip, and my brows bunch when I notice the print is different than all the others. The colors are the same as the one Toby wears, but this one has a black triangle feeding into the purple, white, and grey stripes.
She flashes me another warm smile, pats my arm, then joins the rest of them.
My thumb grazes over the raised pattern on the T-shirt, the shine of the black catching my eye.
“Is that fucking glitter? Aria .”