Chapter 3
I probably shouldn’t have smirked.
Two months later
Miles
I glare at my phone when it rings. Eli calling. I contemplate ignoring him, but there’s no delaying the inevitable. My brothers won’t let me ignore them. They’ll drag me by my ear if they have to. I’m not exaggerating. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“Hey, Eli.”
“Where are you?”
At home. Where I want to be.
When I don’t answer, he sighs. “Shall I pick you up?”
“If I have to go, you do, too,” Jaxon shouts.
Jaxon hates family occasions. He doesn’t hate the Raider family.
But he finds group outings stressful. He’s a nerd who’s proud to be an introvert.
Being married to Blossom has made him more open to social occasions, but he’s still an introvert.
All of which to say, if he’s with Eli, he’s going to Rumrunner and there’s no way I can bow out gracefully.
“Fine. Pick me up.”
My house is in Smuggler’s Rest. I can easily walk to Rumrunner. Hell, I can – and have – crawled back home from there on occasion.
But I’m happy to hitch a ride since I don’t want to go out tonight. Not when I know Hazel will be at the bar.
If you look up mistake in the dictionary, you’ll find a picture of me. I never should have let Hazel sneak out of my house on New Year’s Day. I wasn’t sleeping. I heard her crawl out of bed and tiptoe out of the room.
Why didn’t I say anything? Why did I lay there and pretend I was sleeping?
And now Hazel scurries the other way every time she sees me. I’m practically banned from the Smuggler’s Cove Restaurant, where she works part-time as the hostess. Whenever I enter, she says ‘nope’ and walks away.
The owner is beyond pissed with me. She asked me not to come around until my ‘issues’ with Hazel are solved. It’s kind of hard to solve an issue when the other person won’t stay in the same room as you.
I hear a honk and drag myself outside. Eli’s SUV is already full but I squeeze in between Blossom and Jaxon.
“Why can’t you sit on the other side of me?” Jaxon asks.
“And miss you complaining?”
“I want to sit next to my wife.”
“It’s okay, nerd boy,” Blossom says. “We’ll get there faster if we don’t have to all change seats.”
Blossom isn’t a nerd or an introvert the way Jaxon is, but she is obsessed with time management. She’s allergic to being late. Seriously, she breaks out in a rash when there’s even a possibility of her not arriving on time.
I throw my arm around her. “And this way, we can become better acquainted.”
Jaxon growls. “Keep your hands off my wife.”
Blossom giggles. “He’s riling you up to get his mind off how Hazel will be at the bar.”
I glare at her. “You’re my least favorite sister-in-law.”
“Technically, I’m your only sister-in-law since none of the other Raider brothers have gotten married yet. Engaged doesn’t count.”
I scowl at the reminder of how we are no longer those shit-stirring Raider brothers having fun, attending Mermaid karaoke, playing pranks on each other, and drinking way too much moonshine. I miss those days. It’s no fun drinking by yourself, and the amount of pranks has slowed to a crawl.
We arrive at the bar and everyone piles out. Zane is waiting for us at the end of the alleyway with his baby, Adele. Rhett and Dakota are standing next to him.
“Good,” Zane says. “You’re here.”
“I don’t know why we’re here,” I whine.
He scowls at me. “I need your moral support.”
“Whatever,” I mutter and motion him forward.
We arrive at the entrance to the bar. Rumrunner is a speakeasy. You can’t just walk in. Even if you are a native of Smuggler’s Hideaway.
Zane knocks on the door and the bouncer, Trent, opens the sliding peephole in the middle of the door.
“Uh oh. The Raider brothers have arrived,” he mutters before opening the door for us to enter.
Landlubbers have to solve a riddle to enter the speakeasy, but as locals, we can enter without solving the riddle. Although the riddles aren’t difficult. The answer is usually a mermaid, or a smuggler, or Prohibition. All the things Smuggler’s Hideaway is famous for.
We enter the bar and Zane makes a beeline for the bartender to ask for Sloane, who works here. He totally fucked up with her and she left his ass. I would have left him, too. But he realized he messed up and now he’s here to beg her forgiveness.
Which is why all of us brothers are at the bar with him. Whenever a Raider needs support, we come running. No matter how much we may want to avoid a certain red-headed mistake.
We gather in a corner of the bar to watch the reunion. And to heckle if the chance arises. I help my brothers shove tables together until there’s enough room for all of the Raider family.
“I need a drink.” I take everyone’s orders before making my way to the bar.
On the way there, my gaze snags on red hair. Hazel must be a siren because my feet automatically change directions until I’m standing in front of her.
“What do you want?”
Her anger does nothing to detract from her beauty.
On the contrary, her green eyes are entrancing as they blaze with fury.
And wrinkling her nose only makes it more adorable.
I love the freckles that spread across her nose and cheeks.
I’ve kissed every one of them as well as those not visible when she’s dressed.
And then there are those pouty, pink lips. Her frown can’t diminish how sexy her mouth is. I love tracing those lips with my tongue before melding my mouth to hers.
“Hello?” She snaps her fingers in my face before I have the chance to drop my gaze to her body, which is curvy in all my favorite places. “I asked you a question. What do you want?”
What do I want? I want to throw her over my shoulder and drag her out of this speakeasy. But based on how she’s fisting her hands at her hips, she’d probably punch me in the face if I tried.
“Can we talk?” I ask instead.
“Talk?” She snorts. “You don’t want to talk. You never want to talk. You want to get into my pants and then forget all about it the next day.”
“Not true.” I can never forget about Hazel. I’ve spent the past weeks laying in bed imagining how it felt to have her in my arms again on New Year’s Eve. How good she smelled. How crazy she goes for me when I kiss her lips.
My cock twitches. It remembers how it feels to be buried inside her.
“Not true? You’re a liar. You’re only interested in me when you’re drunk. The rest of the time, you ignore me.”
Wrong. When I’m drunk is the only time I dare to approach her. When I’m sober, I know better than to court her wrath. Usually.
“I’m not drunk now.”
She scans the room until her gaze falls on the Raider table, which is empty of drinks since I was supposed to order them. They can get their own drinks. I’m busy here.
“Fine.” She crosses her arms over her chest and I can’t avoid dropping my gaze to her cleavage. It’s magnificent. She’s magnificent.
I reach for her and she scoots backwards. “I didn’t give you permission to touch me.”
I smirk. “You always do in the end.”
Her green eyes flare with ire before she shouts, “Get away from me, Miles Raider!”
She doesn’t wait for me to move. She runs away. And I give chase.
She plows through the crowd to the back hallway. She hurries past the ladies’ room to the storage room. Shit. She’s going for the secret exit.
“Wait!”
She glances over her shoulder. Her hair flies behind her and her cheeks are flushed from the effort. Damn. She’s beautiful. She steals my breath away.
She enters the storage room and I nearly crash into the door when she slams it shut. I try to push it open, but it doesn’t move more than an inch. She must have blocked it with crates of beer.
I pound my fist on the door. “Hazel! Let me in!”
She doesn’t answer. I hear the telltale whirling sound of the secret exit opening up. She’s getting away. I press my shoulder against the door and shove until the opening is big enough for me to slip through.
But I’m too late. The secret exit is wide open but there’s no sign of Hazel.
That went well.