Chapter 13
Sebastian
I stood in the living room staring at the front door for far too long. Harper had taken off with Nova and Rumi, and Myla had disappeared after she’d firebombed my relationship. I was finally knocked out of my stupor when a little hand grabbed mine.
“Whatcha doing, Uncle Bas?” Titus’s little girl, Diana, asked.
“Hey, pumpkin,” I greeted, lifting her into my arms. “Did you have fun tonight?”
“I can’t wait until it’s my birthday,” she replied with a little pout.
“I bet Ariel will let you share her new toys if you ask nicely.”
“It’s not the same.” Her little bottom lip poked out, and I had a hard time keeping a straight face.
“Yeah, I know.” I rubbed her back. “What do you want for your birthday?”
“A race car.”
“A race car?”
“Yeah.”
“Like an RC?” I asked as Noel called for her from upstairs.
Turning, I moved to the stairs to carry her up.
“No, I wanna drive it,” Diana clarified. “Real fast.”
I couldn’t wait to tell Titus.
“That sounds like a good present,” I told Diana. “Anything else you want?”
“Barbies.”
“What kind of Barbies?”
“The one with the puppy.”
I had no idea what Barbie came with a puppy, so I just nodded.
“There you are,” Noel said, poking her head out of the bathroom door. “It’s bathtime, honey. Tell Uncle Bas good night.”
Diana’s arms tightened around my neck. “You’re gonna come back tomorrow, right?” she asked, her nose about a centimeter from mine.
“Maybe not tomorrow, but definitely this week.”
“He’s going to come have dinner with us,” Noel said as I sat Diana on her feet. “Won’t that be fun?”
“I guess,” Diana grumbled as she slowly walked toward her mom.
“Escape while you can,” Noel teased as soon as Diana had disappeared into the bathroom. “Thanks for coming.”
“Thanks for having me,” I replied as she closed the door.
As I walked back downstairs, the anger that I’d ignored while I had Diana came right back to the surface.
I couldn’t fucking believe Myla had cornered me at her niece’s birthday party.
Not only was it not the time, but she’d also known that Harper was around somewhere and could’ve overheard her.
Maybe that’s what she’d been counting on.
I found her in the living room.
“Why the fuck would you say that shit?” I called out as I crossed the room.
“Don’t fucking yell at me!”
“What the hell is going on?” Cian asked, glancing at the ceiling. “The kids can hear you two.”
“Myla thinks I’ve been goin’ back and forth between Harper and Lou, I guess?” I replied, lowering my voice. “Because that sounds like somethin’ I’d do.”
“What the hell, Myla?” Cian asked in confusion.
“You saw him coming out of the bedroom with Lou, too,” she snapped. “I’m not the only one.”
“Nothin’ happened,” I ground out through my teeth. “We’ve slept in the same bed a hundred times. Nothin’ ever happens.”
“Sure, it doesn’t,” Myla retorted, rolling her eyes.
“Why don’t you ask Lou? She’d tell you the same thing.”
“Lou refuses to badmouth you ever,” Myla shot back.
“Maybe because there’s nothin’ to say?” I asked sarcastically.
“You guys need to take this out on the porch,” Cian said firmly. “The kids don’t need to hear you bitchin’ each other out.”
“I’m done,” I said, shaking my head as I raised my hands in surrender. “Completely fuckin’ done.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Myla sputtered as she followed me outside.
The cool air did nothing to calm me down. I’d told Harper flat out that there wasn’t anything going on with Lou, and now she thought there was because Myla couldn’t keep her opinions to her goddamn self for once in her life.
“Fuck off, Myla.”
“You fuck up, and somehow I’m the bad guy?” She scoffed. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
“I didn’t do shit to you,” I spit, spinning to face her. “Once again you put your nose in where it doesn’t fuckin’ belong.”
“So, I’m just supposed to ignore the crap you’ve been pulling?”
“How long have you fuckin’ known me?” I asked, pointing to my chest. “This is such bullshit.”
“Clearly I don’t know you that well.”
“Clearly,” I snapped, then realization dawned. “You’re not pissed because you think I had somethin’ goin’ with both of ’em. You’re pissed because I’ve got somethin’ with someone who isn’t Lou.”
“That is not it.”
“It is,” I replied, glancing at Cian, who was watching us both warily.
“In your head, me and Lou were supposed to be a couple, and you’ve got your panties in a twist because I’m seein’ someone else—which is completely fucked up because you know Harper.
She’s not just club, she’s blood. You love Harper. ”
“Maybe I’m pissed because you’ve been stringing Lou along for years,” Myla argued.
“That’s not even fuckin’ true,” I replied, throwing my hands up. “And if you talked to Lou about it, she’d tell you the same thing.”
“I’d tell her what?” Lou asked quietly, stepping out onto the porch and carefully closing the front door behind her.
“That I haven’t been stringing you along,” I told her flatly.
“Oh.” Lou looked at me and then Myla. “No, he hasn’t.”
“Oh, bullshit,” Myla spat.
“No, really,” Lou said quietly. “We’ve known for a long time that kind of relationship wasn’t ever going to work.”
“Why the hell not?” Myla demanded. “You’re together all the fucking time. He watches you like a hawk. He’s constantly staying over with some excuse or another. I mean, come on. You don’t have to freaking cover for him.”
“I’m not,” Lou said, shaking her head. “I swear I’m not. We talked about it a little while we were still in college, but it just—there’s no chemistry.”
Myla stared at Lou, her lips pressed firmly together.
“So, you fucked up whatever I had with Harper because you knew best,” I told Myla. “Because you couldn’t talk to your best fucking friend and maybe ask her about it.”
“Myla, stay here,” Titus ordered as he came flying out the front door. “Cian, Bas, with me.”
Neither of us hesitated for a moment as we followed him.
“What’s going on?” Cian asked as we ran toward the garage.
“Shooting at Casper’s,” Titus said vaguely. He looked back at the porch. “Stay with my family.”
“I will,” Myla called back, her tone laced with worry.
Rain pelted me in the face as we raced toward Casper and Farrah’s house.
The weather was complete shit, but I was too preoccupied to care.
The property we were headed to had already had its share of tragedy—a shooting that happened long before I joined the club—and the house had been rebuilt after a wildfire had burned it to the ground.
I couldn’t even think of a reason there would’ve been a shooting there, but I mentally prepared myself for whatever we’d be walking into.
When we got there, we parked in a sea of Harleys, all of them recognizable. It looked like we were the last ones to make it there. From outside, I couldn’t hear anything out of the ordinary, and my stomach did somersaults as we hurried toward the porch.
I just hoped no one was dead.
When we stepped inside, there wasn’t anyone in the entryway. All of the voices came from the back of the house, and I followed Titus toward the sound, ending up in the kitchen. Nearly every member of the club was there.
Scanning the room, I found who I was looking for. Farrah and Casper stood near the back door, her arms around his waist and his around her neck. Her shoulders were shaking. I wasn’t sure if she was laughing from nerves or crying.
Then the crowd parted, and I saw Leo across the room.
My legs nearly buckled at the look in his eyes.