CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Killjoy
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Killjoy
I took one look around the garage, feeling like I was never gonna see it the same after today.
Having Danny in my space hadn’t been so bad. Rather the opposite, actually. Having him here was gonna leave images in my head that I wouldn’t forget for a long fuckin’ time. Not that I’d want to.
Fuck! He really was beautiful. I’d truly meant it when I’d said it to him.
His smile alone could take my damn breath away.
I was draggin’ my ass getting back to the cabin. Not sure why. I couldn’t wait to see Danny again, but I kinda had this heavy feeling about it.
The moment I pushed open the door to the mud room, I was hit with the light smell of sugar and vanilla.
As I stripped down, my eyes were glued to Danny, shaking his butt while he pulled a tray out of the oven.
When he noticed me, he froze, but it didn’t take long before a big smile spread across his face.
Then he was shaking his butt again with no real rhythm. It was damn cute.
He was just so free.
Something I’d never really had the chance to experience. Deep down, a part of me might have hated him for it, but that part didn’t fuckin’ matter, because more than anything, I realized I never wanted him to stop being that way.
This shit sucked. It was terrifying to realize you wanted someone and were willing to give them everything just to see them happy, only you didn’t have a damn clue how the future was going to go. Did he feel the same? Was he going to take off the moment he knew he had his money back?
Ah, fuck! I had to tell him. I’d already kept it from him for a whole damn day. At this point, it plain felt like I was lying to him, and that shit wasn’t okay.
The moment I stepped into the house, I was punched in the nose with the smell of warm cookies. My mouth watered as I wondered if he’d share. How hot were cookies right out of the oven? When could I eat them?
“Hi,” he said, setting a second tray on top of the stove and closing the oven. “I made some sugar cookies.”
“I can tell,” I said, almost cheerfully. As cheerful as my ass could get. I think he got that I was excited.
“I was thinking we could decorate them later tonight.”
Damn, there was a fuckin’ lump in my throat that I was having trouble clearin’ away.
My head was spinning, my thoughts a mess.
Things I’d never thought I’d be thinking were lingering like they had a right to be there.
All of it makin’ me see things. Makin’ me wonder things.
Like, what would it be like to come home to this every day?
Not him makin’ cookies, but just him here, in the cabin, being… at home in the space like he belonged here.
It was a vision that was so easy to see, but hard to grasp onto.
“I need to let these cool,” he went on as if he had no clue about the breakdown I was currently having. “Oh! And I made some potato soup. It’s ready, so we can eat that whenever you get hungry.”
“Thanks,” I grunted.
He paused, eyes going soft when he looked at me. Then he said sweetly, “You’re welcome.”
“Come here,” I urged, but I was already making my way to him.
The moment he was within reach, I pulled him into me, wrapping my arms around his waist to keep him close.
“I like this,” he said, gazing up at me. “How was… work?”
I nearly snorted.
“It was good. I got Wrangler’s chopper all done.”
“That’s awesome. Is he one of your… friends?”
“Babe, you’ve already seen my cut—”
“Cut! That’s what it’s called!”
“And you know I belong to a club. Now do we need to talk about it?”
“Maybe…”
“Fine,” I said, pecking his lips before releasing him. I wanted him to know I was taking this seriously. I was gonna be an open book for him, even if it was the hardest thing I’d ever done. There was shit I couldn’t get into about the club, but I’d cross that bridge when we got there.
If we ever got there. If he stuck around long enough to get to that point.
Shit! Why was this so hard? Why was it eatin’ me up like this? Why could I say I was going to be an open book about club shit, but the thought of tellin’ him how much I wanted him felt impossible. There was that whole fear of rejection… yeah, that wasn’t helping.
“My brother and I ran into a few of them one weekend. We’d gone a few towns over to…
well, get laid.” I rolled my eyes at Danny’s adorable, bright expression.
“Anyway, we started talking. Met the Prez. Liked the vibe. And, eventually, my brother decided he wanted to get in with them. I didn’t want to let him do it alone.
We found ourselves on a year-long trial, prospecting. ”
“So, I take it you got in?”
“Yeah,” I said with a slow dip of my head. “We got invited into the club. We moved up there, took the three youngest kids who were still in school. Stayed there in Gray Fort until the youngest graduated from high school and saved up enough money to get herself a place.”
“Then what? I’m going to assume you aren’t as… active?”
“I’m still a part of the club, but I’m not an active member of the Gray Fort chapter. Usually, I’ll help out if they need somethin’. I ride through the other chapters, too. But I don’t usually stay. They know they can call if they ever need anything.”
“And I’m going to guess that fixing up their motorcycles during your winter getaway is part of helping them out?” he asked.
“Mostly I do it because they gave me a lot and I want to give back. They took us in when shit was hard. When I still had kids depending on me and a dad who had totally fucked off at that point. They worked with me while I prospected. I gave them my trust, and in return, they gave me theirs. I do it because… well…”
“Because that’s the kind of thing family does?”
I felt my brows pinch as I took in his words.
Yeah, it had the idea of family. Now that I thought about it, I feel like I hadn’t fully let it in before.
The club had been there for us at every turn.
They’d helped us keep a roof over our heads even before they deemed us worthy of being part of them.
Even now, when my anti-social ass only came around a handful of times during the year, they still treated me like I was one of them.
They still picked up the phone when I needed something.
“Yeah. I suppose so,” I finally said.
“So, the motorcycle is done,” he stated, like he was pulling the conversation back around.
He seemed chill with it all. I shouldn’t have expected anything less.
The more I was around him, the more I understood that he was curious for two reasons.
One, he wanted to know more about me. And two, the more important one, it was to protect himself.
He was scared of getting hurt. Which, hey, I one hundred percent understood. “What do you do with it, then?”
“I just need to give it a test run, which I won’t be doing around here.”
“Right, because snow and motorcycles don’t mix.” I gave him a nod. “Then where are you going to go?”
“I’ll probably head down to Georgia for a few days.
Maybe Florida,” I answered. “I’ll load mine and Wrangler’s up on a trailer and haul ’em down there.
Run it around a bit, and probably get a few miles in on mine.
Don’t want the girl getting angry at me because she feels neglected.
” He sent me a soft smile and shook his head like he thought I was silly.
“Then I’ll stop by Gray Fort and drop off Wrangler’s to him. ”
“Sounds like a nice little break,” he said. There was something in his tone that scratched at my skin like a needle. I wished I knew what the fuck I was missing. “Maybe it will do you good to be social, too.”
With furrowed brows, I grunted.
“Why do you hate people?” he asked.
“I don’t,” I shot back automatically. When he looked at me pointedly, I huffed out a frustrated sigh. “I’m not good with people. And on top of that, I had to do everything growing up, so now, I just like to worry about me and not care about other people’s problems.”
“But that’s not completely true, is it?”
“The fuck you talkin’ about?”
“Well,” he held up a finger, “you’re fixing up your friend’s motorcycle.”
“Brother,” I corrected, though I didn’t know why. “He’s a club brother. Means more than friends, but also… it’s not like we’re that close.”
“Oh, sure. Anyway,” he went on, and by the way he held up another finger, I knew he was going to tick off all his damn points.
“Two, you helped me. Like, you didn’t hesitate.
First, you offered to set me up with a place, and then you said I could stay here.
You even went as far as to offer to help get my money back. ”
Which reminded me that I needed to tell him that his money was in his account. But it was best to let him finish his little rant first since it looked like he was practically vibrating out of his skin to prove me wrong.
I found it adorable, but he didn’t need to know that.
“Three—”
Actually, I decided the moment his third finger went up that I wasn’t going to do either of those things. Instead, I was going to kiss him.
He moaned against my lips, a smile curving up at the corner of his mouth.
“What? Too much talking?” he asked in a whisper. “Or too much of me being right?”
I kissed him again. And again. Until it turned into one long make-out session right there in the kitchen. When he reached for the button of my jeans, I stopped him.
“You’re always doing things for me. I want to do something for you,” he said, peering sweetly at me with those hazel eyes.
“You will.”
“Tonight,” he demanded.
“Tonight,” I assured him. “But I’m gonna warn you, it ain’t just gonna be about me.”
Suddenly, I was damn nervous about it.
What if this was it? What if we got one last moment together and then he was gone? What if I got to taste every inch of him, know every inch of him, and then that was it?