Chapter 4
Sebastian
“You still working on that Dyna?” Dragon asked as I strode out of the garage.
I paused and turned toward him, surprised he’d even noticed. The president of the Eugene chapter of the Aces was a good man. He was fair, and he’d lay his life down for any one of us—but he didn’t really pay attention to the shit we were working on as long as each of us was pulling our weight.
“Probably for a couple more days,” I informed him. “The rust was fuckin’ everywhere.”
Dragon nodded. “I’ll check it out when you’re finished. Grease said you’ve been killin’ it.”
I nodded back and watched him walk inside the clubhouse. Shaking off the weird interaction, I strode over to the covered area at the end of the garage for some privacy and quiet.
I’d been going back and forth about calling the lawyer back all weekend, but in the end, I figured I should probably just do it.
I couldn’t imagine a scenario where Bernice had left me money or anything like that, but I was pretty sure after researching that even if I didn’t want whatever she’d left me—I still had to sign papers to that effect.
If I didn’t call him back, he was going to keep calling me. I might as well face it.
Scrolling through my recent calls, I ignored the embarrassing number of times I called Harper’s phone and found the lawyer’s incoming call.
“Concord and Ford, how can I direct your call?” the receptionist answered.
“Hey, I’m calling for Lewis Concord,” I replied awkwardly.
“Can I ask what this is regarding?”
“Bernice Macintosh’s estate.”
“Thanks. Hold, please.”
I stood there in the cold, watching the rain fall as terrible classical music played through the speaker.
“This is Lewis Concord,” the man finally answered.
“Hey, this is Sebastian Banks returning your call.”
“Mr. Banks, I’m glad to hear from you.”
“I said I’d call you back on Monday,” I reminded him. “Can you tell me a little about what Bernice left me? And how the hell did she die?”
I’d searched her name all weekend, trying different keywords, but nothing had come up. Not even an obituary.
Concord paused for a long moment. “I apologize, Mr. Banks. I should’ve realized that you wouldn’t have known that she passed.”
I didn’t bother replying. I just wanted to know what the fuck happened.
“Ms. Macintosh had cancer. When she realized that treatments would only take her so far, she came to me to get her affairs in order.”
“Oh,” I breathed.
Cancer. Fuck. I’d imagined it was a car accident or something. Fast. For some reason, that had been easier for me to wrap my head around. Easier to stomach. Instead, she’d known she was dying. She’d waited to die.
And I hadn’t been there.
“If you come into the office, we can go over everything in detail. There are quite a few things we need to discuss to get things moving. Are you available this week?”
“I live in Eugene,” I replied dumbly. “This week doesn’t work for me.”
“Next week, then? If it’s a matter of work, I can come in on a Saturday if that’s easier for you.”
I was so focused on the conversation that I didn’t even notice Lily and Harper drive up until they were climbing out of Lily’s car. Their voices drifted over as Leo met them out front, and I could hear them getting closer.
“I’ll call you back and schedule it,” I said quickly. “Maybe next week.”
“I can put it on the calendar now,” Concord replied. “How about Saturday?”
“Sure, man,” I said as they rounded the corner. “That’s fine.”
“What’s your email? I’ll send you the address—”
“I’ll find you,” I cut him off, hanging up before he could drag the conversation out any longer.
“The Toyota, the Honda, or the Mazda,” Leo said, pointing at the cars parked behind me. “The others are crap, and I don’t want you drivin’ ’em.”
“Don’t you loan them out?” Harper asked with a laugh.
“Yeah, don’t tell anyone I said that,” Leo replied. “Fuck, Bas. Where’d you come from?”
Harper’s head shot up like a deer in the headlights.
“I was here, man. You snuck up on me.” I stuffed my phone into my pocket.
“Harper’s gonna borrow one of the loaners until she gets something.”
“Makes sense.”
“Leo,” Grease bellowed from over by the bays.
“Shit, kid,” he said, glancing at his daughter. He dropped some keys into her palm. “I’ll be back. Check ’em out and see which one you wanna take.”
He jogged back around the corner, leaving me and Harper staring at each other. After the conversation I’d just had, the sight of her was like a breath of fresh air.
“I should probably just buy my own car,” she said with an uncomfortable laugh, flapping her arms a little. “But I’m not sure if my new job will provide one, so—”
“You got a new job already?”
“Well, no, not yet.” She shrugged. “But I will. I mean, it’s only a matter of time, and I don’t want to be stuck with a payment if I don’t need to.”
“Understandable.”
She pulled off her glasses to dry the rain off with the bottom of her sweater and huffed a little in frustration.
God, she was beautiful. Her hair was damp, and she was wearing a dress that hung past her knees. The wind blew it around a little bit as she stood there struggling with her glasses, and the longer it went on, the redder her cheeks got.
“Here, let me,” I ordered, moving closer. I put my hand out for her glasses and waited. When she handed them over, she barely looked at me, but the moment I pulled my shirt out from under my hoodie, her gaze zeroed in on the sliver of skin at my waistband. I handed them back slowly.
“Thanks,” she said, staring at her glasses before sliding them back on her face.
“You gonna look at me?” I asked, leaning down a little to try and catch her eye.
“I am,” she shot back, her eyes finally meeting mine.
“What’s up?” I asked, searching her face.
“Just looking for a car,” she replied, her voice thin. “What’s up with you?”
“Called you this weekend.”
“You did?”
“A few times. Yeah.”
“Oh, uh.” She looked away and then back at me. “My phone’s dead.”
Well, that was clear enough. It wasn’t the first time I’d gotten the brush-off, but I had to say, it was the most surprising. I hadn’t been by myself on Titus’s porch. I knew she’d been just as pulled in as I was.
“Got it.” I nodded and took a step back. “The Toyota is the nicest of the three. Plus, it’s got heated seats. I’d choose that one.”
I turned to leave but stopped when she reached out to grab my arm.
“No, really,” she said, lifting her eyebrows. “My phone is dead. I haven’t turned it on since I got home.”
“You need to go get a charger.”
Harper let out a dry laugh as her hand fell away. “Yeah, I know. I have one—I just didn’t use it. I planned on plugging back in as soon as we finished with this car stuff. I just didn’t want to deal with any of it yet.”
“Still hidin’ out, huh?”
“Nope, that stops today,” she said ruefully. “Getting a car. Turning on my phone. Who knows what I’ll do next. Maybe start reaching out to my contacts about jobs.”
“Look at you go.”
“Woo hoo,” she said with a sigh. “Fuck, it’s cold out here. I need to borrow a coat from my mom or something.”
“Come on,” I ordered, leading her over to the Toyota. “Climb in.”
I waited for her to unlock the car and then sat down in the passenger seat while she climbed in the driver’s side.
“Dang, this thing is nicer than I thought it would be.”
“Yep,” I said with a nod. “You’ve got cruise control, heated seats, and a backup camera.”
“Fancy shit,” she joked, grinning at me.
I smiled back, glad that she seemed to have lost the awkward, distant thing she’d been doing.
I had no clue why she’d disappeared from the party the way she had, but I didn’t want shit to be weird between us.
I liked Harper. Even if nothing else ever happened, I wanted to be able to spend time around her.
Of course, I wasn’t an idiot, and I was dying to touch her again. I’d spent the entire weekend thinking about her.
So, when she couldn’t seem to stop staring at my mouth and the tension in the car ratcheted up to eleven, I was fucking in.
Reaching out, I slid my hand into her hair and gripped it at the base of her neck, waiting for her to give any indication that she didn’t want me to touch her. Instead, her eyes fluttered closed, and she leaned into it just enough that her throat arched.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
“This is a bad idea,” she replied, her eyes barely opening as I pulled her toward me across the seat.
“It’s a great idea,” I argued, running my lips along her jaw.
Her skin was so fucking soft. By the time I reached her mouth, her lips had parted and she was ready for me.
This kiss, somehow, was better than the first time.
Maybe because both of us knew what we were getting, or maybe just because there was nothing tentative about it.
One of Harper’s hands cupped my cheek. The other gripped the neck of my hoodie, like she was afraid I was going to pull away from her before she was ready.
I groaned as that hand slipped under the fabric, her nails digging into my trap.
Unwilling to let go of the hair tangled around my fingers, I turned and used the other hand to grip her waist, urging her closer.
It was no use. The little Toyota crossover was too small to easily get her over the center console and into my lap without some serious maneuvering, and I wasn’t about to give up her mouth long enough to do it.
Her hands on my skin and mine in her hair would have to be enough as the kiss grew desperate and wet.
I’m not sure how long we would’ve stayed there if my phone hadn’t started ringing and broken the silence like a gunshot.
I pulled away, making Harper whimper as she chased my mouth with hers. As her teeth bit down on my bottom lip, I almost decided to ignore the call. I probably would’ve, if the phone hadn’t just kept ringing and ringing.
Harper sat dazedly as I leaned back and pulled the phone out of my pocket.
“What?” I answered, watching as her eyes slowly sobered.
“Where you at?” Cian asked. “We still grabbing lunch?”
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Where’d you go?”