Chapter Eleven
“Hey, can I borrow you for a bit?” Tara asks.
I look over at Claire.
“Yeah. I can totally spare you. I still have quite a while before this bun comes out of the oven,” she says, patting her belly.
I laugh. “I’ll be right next door if you need help.”
“Go on now.” She shoos me away.
I wasn’t sure about helping out at the club businesses at first, but when Midnight explained his receptionist was pregnant and would need to take time off later in the year, I felt like maybe it was meant to be.
Sure, I didn’t need to train right now, but I felt like less of a burden and more of a helper.
Then Tara popped up and said that she could use some help, too. She has only hired one other employee, and the shop gets to be too much sometimes for her. That’s how I found myself bouncing between the tattoo shop and the bookstore that share a wall.
“Thank you. I just got a shipment of books in that I wasn’t expecting, and it is going to take days if I try to do it myself.
Usually, I make Wrath come help me when they come in, but he’s got club shit today.
I appreciate you being willing to help,” she says, opening the front door of her shop for me.
“No problem. Where do you need me?”
For the next several hours, we break open every box, cataloging those that need to be sent back due to damage or misprints. Once that’s done, I take a box of the new stock out to the main area and start to set it out.
I don’t know what I want to do with my life yet, but I like this. Having something to do. Maybe that was one of my main problems the last two years. I didn’t have enough to occupy myself with.
The doorbell rings, so I turn to greet the person.
“Hello. Welcome to Tara’s Book Nook. Is there anything I can help you find?” I ask the young woman.
She smiles. “I’m just browsing. I’m new to the area, and I’m looking for a place that I vibe with.”
I laugh. “You found the right place. This place has a little bit of everything. What do you normally like to read?”
“Smut.” Her cheeks turn red. “I mean romance.”
“Hey. It’s okay. We all need a little smut in our lives. Let me show you where the best ones are.” I stand from the non-fiction section and lead her to the back wall.
“They are all sorted by sub-genres rather than author name. So this whole section is MC romances. This one is reverse harem. Tara also personally reads every book that she puts on the shelf, so she has made trope cards to go with each book. Her little extra touch.”
“Wow. This is amazing. I have never seen anything like this,” the woman tells me.
“It’s something, isn’t it? This is Tara’s passion.”
The doorbell rings again, so I excuse myself. “I’m going to go greet them. Come find me if you need anything.”
“Will do.”
I walk back toward the front and see Bullet. I smile at him, happy he is here, until he looks at me like he is panicked. That’s when I realize he isn’t wearing his cut, nor did I hear his motorcycle.
Something is up.
“What are you doing here?” I ask him.
Before he can respond, Tara is calling me.
“Harlee, can you come help? It’s urgent.”
I frown at Bullet, but take off toward the back. She sounded a little worried, and I would rather her not get hurt.
When I round the corner, I find her standing there with her cell phone in her hand. She looks nervous.
“What’s wrong?”
She grimaces. “They didn’t know she would come here. They’ve been following her, and this is the best shot they’ve had. You need to stay back here.”
“You are talking in riddles. Please, just tell me the truth.”
“It’s club business. Bullet isn’t here as himself. He is a normal guy chatting up a normal girl. You need to stay out of it.”
Jealousy flares in my chest. How dare she say that?
Then again, Bullet is just my friend. He hasn’t acted like he even thinks about me other than as a friend.
I take a deep breath and nod. “Okay.”
She gives me a sad look as she passes me to head out to the register.
I shouldn’t look. I know I shouldn’t, but I do anyway. I can see the woman where I left her looking at the romance books. In her hand is an MC romance. Of course it is. I bet if she knew he was a biker, she’d already be on the way to his place.
My hands clench into fists. I want to rip her hair out, and it’s not even her fault. She doesn’t know what he means to me. Hell, she doesn’t even know who I am.
I try to calm myself, but the more I see them together, the more I don’t like it. He is flirting with her.
I can’t hear their words, but I know he is flirting with her.
Tears prick my eyes as I think about that. I have loved this man since I was fifteen years old. The first time I saw him, I told my dad I would marry him one day. That blew up in my face when my father made it clear to the new guy that I was off-limits.
I still remember that day. Bullet told my father that I was a child, and he doesn’t look at children that way.
It eased my father’s mind, but it didn’t stop me from trying. I had hoped that he was starting to see me as the young woman I have become. I am no longer underage. If he wanted to date me, he could.
Well, besides the whole club rules thing, but I feel like we could find a way around that.
Yet instead, he is here flirting with another woman.
I am a fool.
One who isn’t going to freak out about this. I can be an adult. Even if I want to rip every one of her eyelashes out every time she bats them.
Nope.
I’m a totally sane adult.
She isn’t supposed to be here. I was told she was working at the tattoo shop today, so when my mark pulled into the plaza, I was relieved that she went into the bookstore instead.
That is, until I walked in and saw the look on Harlee’s face.
She was happy to see me. That is, until she realized something was up.
I don’t know what Tara told her, but she hasn’t come out from the back. My heart is pounding in my chest. I agreed to do my part, but I won’t do it at her expense.
Still, my legs find their way to the back where the woman stands.
“Shit,” I mutter to myself, hoping she takes the bait.
“Are you okay?”
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I was looking for the sci-fi section. I thought it was back here because I saw that.” I point at the alien porn, “But I don’t think that’s what I’m looking for.”
I act a little bashful. She eats it right up.
“Oh, come on. You don’t want some alien dick?” The words are out of her mouth before she slaps a hand over it, giggling.
“Well, I mean…I don’t judge, but I am firmly into beautiful women like yourself.”
She blushes a bit more. “I’m Adalyn.”
“Jake. Nice to meet you.” I tell her a nickname of my name I almost never use.
It feels wrong giving her my real name. I don’t want to know her, and I don’t want her to know me, but we both seem stuck on a path that neither of us can change.
“Well, I think the section you are looking for is down there.” She points around the corner where there is indeed a sign that says “Sci-Fi.”
“Oh. Thank you. I should leave you alone with your books.” I nod my head at her.
“Or you could stay and chat?” She sounds so hopeful, which makes me feel like shit.
If I were any other man, this woman would be a dream come true, but my heart has long since been claimed. I feel dirty just talking to this woman, even if it’s for club business.
Still, I stop and turn to her.
“Yeah. I could stay for a bit.”
Her phone dings then, and her face pales. I don’t like the fear in them, but she covers it up before she looks up at me.
“I’m sorry. I need to go. Um, can I give you my number?” she asks.
“Yeah. I would love that. Here,” I tell her, handing her the burner phone Trigger gave me.
She types her number in, then smiles when her phone dings.
“I texted myself so I know it’s you. I hope you won’t wait three days to call me.”
I laugh. “Never make a beautiful woman wait. That’s what my mom always told me.”
“Smart woman. I’ll see you later then?”
“For sure.”
I watch as she walks to the front and checks out. She blushes when she looks back one more time to find me watching her. When the door shuts behind her, I expect Harlee to come out raising hell. It scares the hell out of me when she walks out with a box of books and goes back to stocking.
“Can we talk?” I ask her.
She looks up at me with a forced smile. “What about? We are just friends. You can flirt with whoever you want.”
That hurts more than if she had yelled at me. I did tell her we were friends, and really, that is all I can ever be to her, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting there to be more. For wanting her to fight for us.
“Harlee…”
“Stop, Bullet. You have your orders. I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it. Honestly, it’s for the best. She’s really pretty, and I’m sure she will look great on your arm.”
I grab her arm, turning her to me. “She means nothing. I don’t want her.”
“You don’t want me either. I have to let go of this crush I have on you. I’m finally getting my life back on track, and I can’t lose you, too. So if it means we are friends, then we are friends. You wanted me to grow up. This is what that looks like.” She says the last bit in a whisper.
I cup her cheek, letting my forehead fall to hers. “It’s not like that. It’s club business. She means nothing. She might be a pretty face, but her beauty doesn’t hold a candle to you.”
She swallows hard. “Are you going to defy my father and the club rules?”
It’s the first time she has acknowledged what keeps me at a distance from her. She really is growing up.
“If I do, I forfeit my place in the club and possibly my life,” I tell her.
She nods. “So this is pointless. We are friends. I want to be your friend. I can’t lose another person I care about, so this is how it has to be.”
I hate that she’s right. If it were just me, I would claim her and we could run off into the sunset. I won’t take her from the only family she has known, though. Not when she has already lost so much.
She thinks I won’t defy them, but I would in a heartbeat if I thought it was what was best for her.
That’s the problem with loving someone. You are willing to do anything in your power to make their life better, even if it makes yours worse.
I don’t think I can handle seeing her flirt with another man the way I flirted with that woman, but she is proving to be stronger than I am. She is brushing it off and pretending to be unaffected. I hate that, but at the same time, I’m grateful.
One day, she will find someone else and I’ll go nomad because I know I won’t be able to live near her and not have her.
“You should go. I’ll be home later if you want to watch a movie or something or send the prospect. I’ll understand.”
She turns away from me and goes back to her work.
My heart hurts, but I leave her there, wondering if I will ever recover from loving Harlee.