Chapter Sixteen
Plans. He told me he has plans.
Ever since I’ve known Bullet, he’s never told me he’s had plans. He tells me when he has something going on with his family or when he has something that he needs to do with the club, but never just plans.
My curiosity gets the best of me, and I open up the folder that’s buried inside another folder on my phone.
I click the tracking app that he installed that he doesn’t think I know about.
Or if I had to guess, Trigger actually installed.
Either way, it works to my benefit. What Bullet doesn’t know is that I can track him as well.
Thank you, friends and family feature.
I wonder for a moment if that’s why Trigger installed this particular app. I know he could track me without me knowing if he wanted, but he left me this crumb. One I am happy to follow.
I click on his name and wait for it to load. When I see that he’s at a restaurant in Vegas, my heart sinks.
He’s on a date. He has to be right?
Insecurity rushes through me, and my throat feels dry.
We can’t happen.
I’m too young for him. The club and my dad are standing in the way.
Am I crazy? Did I just imagine everything between us?
No. It was real. He feels the same way, I know it.
Before I know it, my insecurity is replaced with anger.
Does he really think he can get away with this? Over my dead body.
I smile as the plan starts to form in the back of my mind. Leaving my room, I head downstairs. The prospect stuck on babysitting duty looks up as I enter the room.
“Hey, you okay?” he asks.
“I’m all right I just came down because I’m hungry.”
His head bobs. “Cool, are you grabbing something from the kitchen or do you want me to order something for you?”
“Actually, I was wondering if we could go out to eat.”
A line forms between his eyebrows. “You wanna go eat at, like, a restaurant?”
“Yeah, unless there’s a reason we can’t…”
“I don’t know. I’d have to message Bullet and Reaper and see what they think,” he says as he moves to pull out his phone.
“Come on. If they didn’t explicitly say that we couldn’t leave, then it should be fine. Besides, you’ll be with me. Please…” I drawl out.
To really sell it, I hold my hands in front of me like I’m praying and bat my eyelashes.
“Yeah, okay, uh, we can’t take my bike, though.”
Fuck yes. Hook, line, and sinker.
“That’s fine, we can take my car and you can drive if you want.”
“Yeah, sure, okay,” he says unknowingly, sealing his own grave.
The poor soul doesn’t even realize I set him up for failure.
“I’m ready if you are,” I tell him.
He gets up, and we head toward my car. We make the twenty-minute ride to the restaurant with nothing but the radio playing.
“Are we underdressed?” he asks as we approach the door.
“Nah, we’re fine,” I lie.
This place is definitely nicer than jeans and a T-shirt, but that doesn’t matter. I’m not here for the food.
As soon as the hostess seats us, I see him.
Perfect.
“Hey, I’ll be right back. If the waitress comes to take our order, can you order me a water, please?”
I don’t even give the prospect enough time to respond before I stand up and walk away. Neither of them notice me as I approach, which pisses me off.
Goddammit, Bullet, are you really not paying attention to your surroundings?
I clear my throat as I come to a stop next to the table.
“Hey, Jacob,” I say sweetly.
He looks up and his eyes widen.
“Fancy running into you here,” I say.
“Do you two know each other?” Adalyn asks hesitantly, giving me a look like she already knows the answer to her question.
“I don’t know. Do we, Jacob?”
“Harlee…”
Ignoring his warning, I turn and look at the girl and offer her my fakest smile.
“I’m sorry for interrupting your date. It’s just Jacob and I go way back, so I was surprised to see him here when he told me he had somewhere else he needed to be tonight.
It’s good to see you, though. I hope you found another book that you enjoyed. ”
Her eyes widen. “Oh god, I am so sorry. He never said anything about you two being together.”
I wave away her apology. “Oh, it’s not like that between us. Anyway, I’d better get to my table before the waitress gets there. I just thought I’d come over and say hi. I hope you two have a lovely night.”
I walk away before either of them can say anything else and head back to the prospect, who’s shaking his head.
“You know they warned me about you, but I thought they were overreacting.”
“What can I say, I am a handful.” I shrug.
“So are we staying or are we going?” he asks.
“Let’s get out of here. It’s not really our scene now, is it?” I laugh.
“You can say that again,” he mutters.
“I’ll meet you at the car. I’m going to go to the bathroom real fast.”
We go our separate ways, and I head toward the restroom. When I step out of the stall after doing my business, I come to a stop when I see her.
“Hey.” She smiles weakly as she wrings her hands together.
“Hi,” I say as I go to the sink and start to wash my hands.
“I just wanted to apologize. He never said anything about seeing anyone or anything like that. If he had, I never would have come.”
“Trust me, what just happened has nothing to do with you and everything to do with him and me. You did nothing wrong.”
“I still feel like I did, though. It’s never fun feeling like someone is trying to take what’s yours.”
She’s not wrong.
“If it makes you feel better, I don’t plan on seeing him again,” she says.
“Why? Is he a bad date or something?” I ask, feeling slightly defensive.
She’s lucky she can date him out in the open like this. She should be jumping at the chance to lock him down.
She winces. “No, it’s nothing like that. It’s just my dad wouldn’t approve, and we really aren’t connecting.”
“Is he not your type?” I ask as I lean against the sink, turning to give her my attention.
Her cheeks flush. “Don’t get me wrong, he’s attractive and everything, but it’s just not there.”
She looks like she wants to say something else, but she’s holding back.
“And…”
“Well, I was hoping that maybe if you’re open to it, we could be friends?” she asks hesitantly.
“Friends?” I didn’t see this coming.
“Yeah, I’m new to town, and I really don’t know anybody.” She laughs sarcastically. “Which is one of the reasons I said yes to this date.”
Huh.
Could I be friends with her?
I mean, surely if Bullet asked her out, she’s not that bad. Not only that, but I wouldn’t have to worry about her stealing him from me at any point. Or flirting with him like Skyla does.
“You know what? Sure,” I find myself saying.
Her face lights up, and if I were less confident, I would totally hate her for how pretty she is.
“Really?”
“Yeah, do you still have my number?” I ask, remembering I gave it to her at Tara’s store.
“I do.”
“Text me later,” I tell her.
“I will, and thank you for being so understanding about all of this.”
As I leave the restroom, I can’t help but laugh. I don’t think any of us saw tonight going the way it did. But I’m not mad about it.
The date is going as well as it could be. Adalyn and I are getting to know each other and doing all the typical first date things. Where are you from? Do you have any siblings? What’s your favorite food? Where’s your favorite place you’ve ever been.
Thanks to Trigger’s research, I already know most of her answers ahead of time.
What I wasn’t expecting was for Harlee to ruin it. When she walked up to the table, I froze. I didn’t know what to say or do.
I watch as she walks away. How do I even begin to salvage this?
“Sorry about her,” I say to Adalyn.
“Is she like an ex or something?” she asks hesitantly
“No,” I say without hesitation.
Adalyn’s eyes narrow with suspicion. Shit I must have answered too soon.
Sighing, I try to figure out how much to tell her. If I tell her the truth that I would like nothing more than to date Harlee, then this date would be over. We wouldn’t get the answers we need.
Then again, Adalyn herself might not know the answers we need.
I watch her as she picks up her napkin and drops it onto the table.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to run to the little girl’s room quickly,” she says.
Like a gentleman, I stand. “Of course.”
I watch as Adalyn scurries away like her ass is on fire, and I tip my head back and groan.
Goddammit, Harlee. Out of all the nights she could have came and fucked up my plans, it had to be tonight. We haven’t even gotten our drinks yet after a thirty-minute wait before being seated, and this date has already gone to shit.
Not only that, but I know the only reason Adalyn wants to go to the restroom is to have a word with Harlee. She wants to compare notes with Harlee to see if what I said is true.
This isn’t the time to start your shit, Harlee.
A throat clears, and I look over.
“Sorry about tonight,” the prospect says awkwardly.
“Don’t worry about it, man. We both know it wasn’t your idea.”
He winces. “Yeah, but I should have called you and Reaper first. I thought about it, but she brought up a good point that if you didn’t want her leaving the house, you would have said something.”
“Yeah, that was an oversight on my part.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
I start shaking my head before he even finishes his question.
“Nah, man, I got this. Thanks, though. You’ll make sure Harlee gets home okay?”
“Yeah, for sure.” He pauses for a second. “Just so you know, we brought her car. She didn’t ride on the back of my bike,” he says, making my body relax.
Shit, I hadn’t even thought about that. I would have killed him if he had her on his bike.
“Thanks, man, I appreciate it.”
“I better take off before she gets back. I’ll see you back at Harlee’s later.”
“Later, man.”
Blowing out a breath, I run my hand over my face.
Well, fuck. I can’t wait to see what the guys have to say about this.
No matter what, I need to find a way to get her DNA. We need it to test against William to see if she is really his daughter.
The scraping of the chair gets my attention, and I open my eyes and watch as Adalyn takes the seat across from me.
“Everything okay?” she asks softly.
“Of course. Look, I just want to apologize for Harlee’s behavior. She and I are just friends,” I say, the lie tasting bitter on my tongue.
Adalyn laughs softly as she shakes her head. “Jake, I know I don’t really know you, but even I can tell that there’s more than just friendship between the two of you,” she says, making me freeze.
Shit, are we really that obvious?
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t get me wrong, you’ve been a lovely date, but you haven’t looked at me the way you looked at her. When you saw her, you looked like you were a fox caught in the henhouse.”
I mean, she’s not wrong. The last place I wanted Harlee to catch me was out on a date with another woman.
“I’m serious, we’re just friends.”
“Yeah, but you would like to be more with her,” she says confidently.
For a moment I contemplate denying it, but I can’t.
“That’s what I thought. So tell me, what’s stopping you?”
“A lot of things, but that doesn’t matter. I’m here with you,” I say, trying to pull the conversation away from Harlee.
Adalyn smiles softly. “While I appreciate your chivalry, it’s not necessary. As great as this date was going before she showed up, I think we can both agree that it was going nowhere. There’s no spark between us.”
I feign offense. “Ow, talk about a punch to the ego,” I say, making her laugh.
“You know it’s true.” She laughs.
“So, what now?”
“Maybe we can be friends? If Harlee’s okay with it.”
Shit, this girl is too sweet for her own good. She almost reminds me of Natalie. From what little I know of William, I don’t know how she’s his daughter. The dude’s a selfish asshole.
“What do you say?” she asks hesitantly.
“Yeah, if Harlee is okay with it, I think we could be friends,” I tell her without thinking about it.
“I’ll be honest, when I left the table I went to go talk to her,” she confesses.
“Yeah, how’d that go?”
“Well, I told her that she could have you all to herself and that I would like to be friends with her.”
I think about Harlee and what little I know of Adalyn. They are polar opposites, but not in a bad way. In fact I kind of like the idea of them being friends.
Maybe Harlee would help her be louder, and she would help keep Harlee calm. Maybe they would balance each other out.
“What did she say to you about that?”
“She exchanged numbers with me.”
“Make sure you text her. She could use somebody like you in her life.”
“I will. Now tell me what are you going to do to win your girl over?”
Shit, isn’t that the question of the year.