The Devil’s Pair (The Road Devils MC #4)

Chapter Twenty

Ten weeks later

Jo came down from her office at The Garage, both hands full of papers. Silver looked up from the motorcycle that he was working on, and saw that she wasn’t holding on to the stairs railing. Right away, he shot to his feet, shot over to her.

“Hey,” he admonished her, watching her feet in those sexy-as-fuck high heels approach carefully. “What did I tell you about coming down those stairs without one hand free, baby? You want to go crashing down on that cute little ass?”

Jo gave him a dazzling smile and accepted his outstretched hand. “Well, maybe I can dig out some of the shoes that I used to wear, back when I first started working here. What do you think, querido ? Are those better for these death-trap iron steps?”

Silver grinned as he remembered those horrible cheap flats, those baggy long skirts, those shapeless beige blouses, then he looked at Jolene. She was in one of her heart-attack-inducing tight suits that hugged every curve, and strappy heels that showed off those trim calves. The woman was a smoldering little knock-out, and he’d never stop wanting her. She was the sweetest addiction he’d ever known, and she was one that he’d never want to kick.

“Nah, baby,” he said, swinging her off her feet completely and kissing her on her those amazing lips. “Carry on with the current wardrobe – and I’ll stand by for stair duty.”

She laughed as he gently set her back on her feet. “Got it, handsome. And I promise that I’ll hold the railing in a death grip, and make more trips up and down.”

“Excellent,” Silver growled. “That way I get to watch you coming and going more than once.”

They smiled at each other, lost in their own little world, when they heard exaggerated coughing. They looked over to see Dux and Drake grinning at them, but their eyes looked oddly downcast.

“Maybe you two need to find a room?” Drake said, with nothing like his usual joking energy; it was like he was on automatic pilot and just dutifully snarking. “Do some coming and going in a different way?”

Utterly unoffended, Jo rolled her eyes, even as Silver cocked his silver-blond head at his brothers.

“So,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

The twins started, stared at him.

“What do you mean, man?” Dux asked. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Yeah, no.” Silver shook his head. “I’ve known you boys a long time, and your hearts haven’t been in anything for weeks, not even sexy teasing. I’ve seen you at Satan’s, with all your regular fuck buddies hitting on you left and right, and you haven’t so much as looked at any of them twice, let alone gone to the crash rooms with them or brought them home. So I’ll ask again: what’s going on with you?”

The other men exchanged glances, then sighed in unison.

“Is it Briley?” Jo asked quietly. “Are you guys worried about her and the babies?”

“No,” Dux said. “I mean, yes, it is Briley and the twins, but no, we aren’t worried. We’re – actually I’m not sure what we are.” He turned to his brother. “What are we?”

Drake sighed again. “I think we’re – we’re sad.”

“Because you’re away from them?” Jo said.

“Yeah,” Drake said. “I mean, partly. But mostly, we’re – well, look. We didn’t have a Dad growing up, like not at all, and even though we’re not going to be totally MIA from our babies’ lives, we’re going to be mostly absent. And that’s… well. That’s not sitting great with us.”

“It never did,” Dux added. “But it’s been especially eating away at us for the past month.”

“Why this past month?” Silver asked, immediately worried. “Did something happen with the pregnancy?”

“Yeah, something did.” Drake fished into his jeans pocket, pulled out a folded piece of paper. “But nothing bad.”

He held out the ultrasound image, and Jo and Silver looked at it in utter cluelessness.

“Is it – are they OK?” Jo asked in a hesitant voice. “Everything is developing as it should?”

“Oh, yeah. Totally.” Dux took the image from his brother, stared down at it. “What this shows is that Briley is carrying a healthy little boy and girl.”

“But that’s great!” Silver exclaimed, then paused. “I mean – isn’t it?”

“It is,” Dux said heavily. “But this ultrasound kind of… I don’t know… it really slammed home that we’re going to be long-distance Dads who visit every weekend, maybe less if something’s going on over here. And we’ve come to realize that we just can't do it.”

“Well, we can ,” Drake interjected. “But we don’t want to. We want to be there for every minute of their lives, and we mean from before they’re even born.”

“Yeah.” Dux shrugged, put the ultrasound image in his pocket now. “We’re missing so much already, like feeling them kick, or helping Briley get up from a chair, or cooking for her. And all that’s going to happen is we’re going to miss so much more once they’re actually here… like, what are the chances that we’re there for their first smiles? First words? First steps?”

“And not just the good stuff, the milestone stuff,” Drake said morosely. “Briley will be doing everything by herself, all the night feeds and diaper changes. She’s already doing all the furniture shopping online and we’ve begged her to not assemble anything without us – but it means she has to wait. If we were right there, we’d be the ones going to the store in person, bringing everything home, getting it set up on the spot. It just feels like – like everything is in a holding pattern, all the time. And we fucking hate it. She’s almost seven months pregnant with twins, for God’s sake, and she’s doing it all alone. She’s a fucking rock star about it, she’s kicking ass, but still… she’s on her own, and that’s also not sitting super well with us.”

“Is this just about the babies?” Jo asked them. “Or is it also about her ? Briley?”

“Uhhh.” Drake blinked at her. “How did you know that it’s not just about our son and daughter?”

She smiled. “Because, you idiots, I have eyes … we all do, and we all see how much you miss her.”

“Yeah. Well.” Dux looked at his brother again. “We – we have feelings for her, that’s for sure. And I don’t mean just as the mother of our babies… like, we want to be with her. The truth is that we’d want to be with her even if she wasn’t pregnant.”

“We wanted to before,” Drake said. “The night that she showed up out of the blue, we were being mercilessly teased by Cole and –”

He broke off.

“By Rebel,” Silver finished for him. “I know, man. Cole told me.”

“Yeah.” Dux gave himself a shake. “So… me and Drake realized that night that we’d fallen for Briley, fallen hard. Then she just appeared , you know, and it felt like a fucking sign. Like… like it was meant to be. And despite all that’s happened, we still feel that way about her.”

“So,” Silver said quietly, already knowing what his brothers were driving at; the twins’ eyes told him exactly what they were really saying. “When are you going to talk to Wolf about leaving us?”

Jo jumped, stared at Silver. “ What ? I thought that nobody could leave the MC once they were patched in? Like, not without severe punishment and having the club tattoo ripped off their skin, or whatever?”

“People can’t usually leave, that’s true,” Silver said, his moonlight gaze nailed on the twins’ faces, knowing that he was right about their plans. “But if Wolf says it’s OK, that’s his prerogative.”

“Ohhhh,” Jo breathed. “Is that – do you guys want that?”

“Hell, yeah,” they said together, and Dux added, “It’s all we want, honey.”

“ So ,” Silver repeated, this time with a grin. “When are you guys talking to Wolf?”

They exchanged glances again, then looked at their friends.

“Now,” Drake said. “We’re going right now.”