Chapter 11
Curtis
“Hey, baby,” I greeted, holding Teddy’s door open as she hopped out of her truck. “How’d Finn sleep in his new bed last night?”
“He said he had dreams about falling off a building,” she replied dryly, stopping to look up at me. “But I had to wake him up this morning before I left, so I think it’s fine.”
I chuckled as I leaned down and brushed my lips over hers.
We’d hit the jackpot yesterday when we found a fancy-ass neighborhood that was having a massive community garage sale and pretty much furnished the entire house.
We hadn’t been able to fit it in Teddy’s truck, and we’d had to take a load back home, unload it, and then bring both Teddy’s and Dylan’s trucks back for the rest.
“Did you find out what this is about?” Teddy asked as we walked toward the clubhouse. “Grease was at the house last week. It seems like he could’ve told me whatever he needed to then.”
“No, I haven’t heard anything,” I replied. “You turn your phone on this morning?”
“Not yet,” she confessed with a wince. “I figured I’d get this over with first.”
“Not smart,” I murmured as I opened the door for her. “You can’t prepare for the shit you don’t see comin’.”
“I’ll turn it on as soon as we’re done,” she assured me. “Before I drive home.”
“You’ll fill me in on anythin’ I need to know?”
“Of course.”
“Grandson,” Grandpa Casper greeted, meeting us when we’d made it about halfway down the long bar. “Teddy, good to see you again, sweetheart.”
“Hey,” Teddy replied.
“Sorry we didn’t get more time to visit on Saturday,” he said. “There’s always so much goin’ on, and Farrah was on my ass tellin’ me not to overwhelm ya.”
Teddy laughed lightly. “I appreciate it. I’m not sure I remember anyone’s names, I met so many people.”
“It’ll get easier,” he assured her. “Come on. The boys are waitin’ on us.”
“The boys?” Teddy mouthed at me.
I just shook my head. We were about five seconds from the doorway, and she’d see for herself. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I set it in the basket on the end of the bar.
“Your phone in your bag?” I asked her.
“Yeah, why?”
“Leave it out on the bar, baby.”
“You can leave the whole bag,” Casper advised. “No one will touch it.”
“Um…okay,” she murmured, pulling it off her shoulder.
As soon as she’d set it on the bar, Casper led us into the room. Sitting around the table were my dad, Uncle Leo, Grandpa Dragon, and Grease. Their conversation came to an end as they turned to look at us.
“Jesus, you look like your mother,” Grandpa Dragon said with a smile. “Didn’t notice it when you had your hair down Saturday, but I’m sure as hell seein’ it now.”
Teddy smiled and reached back to touch the braid at the base of her neck. “Yeah, that’s what Grease said.”
“’Cause it’s true,” Grease chuckled. “Come in and take a seat, Teddy.”
I pressed my hand against the base of Teddy’s spine to get her moving, rubbing my thumb back and forth to reassure her as she picked a chair. As soon as she sat down, I stood behind her.
“Like that, is it?” Grandpa Dragon asked, his eyes laser sharp on mine.
“Did you expect it to be any other way?” I replied.
He held my gaze for a long moment. His lips twitched as he gave me a small nod, then he looked to Teddy.
“You settlin’ in all right?” he asked her, leaning forward to rest his forearms on the table. “Kids good?”
“Yeah,” she murmured, glancing questioningly up at me. “Thank you for everything you did.” She glanced over at Grease. “I know my dad asked you to look out for me—”
“Called in a marker,” Dragon corrected.
“What?”
“We owed him.”
“Oh,” she muttered. “Right. Well, thank you.”
I wasn’t sure what Teddy and I were. We’d blurred the lines the minute she’d stripped out of that ratty tank top two nights before.
Roommates at the very least and friends if I was feeling confident.
But even if all of that was ignored, I’d still been tasked with giving her and her kids cover—making sure they were safe and protected—and I wasn’t happy with the way my grandfather was speaking to her.
There wasn’t anything outwardly antagonistic, but his tone was riding the line of dismissive, like he was putting her in her place.
Which made no fucking sense because she hadn’t done anything wrong.
“I understand you’re a diesel mechanic,” he continued.
“Yeah, I worked at a friend’s shop before we moved. I’m competent with heavy machinery, but I’m a fucking magician with semis—”
“That all you do?” he asked, cutting her off.
I stiffened as I realized what he was getting at, and Teddy’s shoulder tightened under my hand. My dad had mentioned that Dragon wanted to talk to Teddy about her job search, and she’d gone into the meeting thinking that.
“Are you asking if I can do modifications?” she questioned emotionlessly. “Or if I’ve done them in the past?”
“Both.”
“Both,” she replied flatly. “Like I told your man…” She jerked her head at Grease. “I haven’t done that kind of work in over five years.”
“For Granger,” Dragon said.
“Yeah, for Granger.” She sat up straighter in her chair, which I hadn’t realized was possible. “Like I said before, I did some work for him over five years ago. I wasn’t happy about it, but I didn’t really have a choice.”
“And nothing since then?”
“She already answered you,” I barked.
My dad called my name in warning.
“You keep your mouth shut,” my grandfather ordered, pointing at me. “You’re here as a courtesy. Nothin’ more.”
I grit my teeth as Teddy’s hand came up and patted mine.
“Is that what this is?” she asked, glancing around the table. “You want me to do some mods? I’m rusty, but I could take a look.”
“We’ve had a call from David Granger,” Dragon said, leaning back into his seat. “Said you work for him, and he’s reachin’ out to see why you’re here.”
“I don’t work for him,” Teddy replied firmly. She was practically vibrating. “I did a few mods over five years ago.”
“And nothing since then?”
“No. Nothing since then.”
“Okay,” he said with a nod.
“Is that it?” she asked. Without waiting for an answer, she rose to her feet. “Cool. Good talk.”
She spun and left the room as Grandpa Casper called my name.
I turned to look at him.
“We had to be sure,” he said carefully. “If we’re shelterin’ her here, we had to be sure.”
I stared at him for a moment, knowing that if I said what was on my mind, I’d be fucked.
They could’ve just asked her. Grease, the man she remembered, could’ve stopped by the house at any time and asked her what they needed to know.
Instead, they’d called her into the club, sat her down in a room full of men she didn’t know, and interrogated her.
“She’s mine,” I said finally, when I could force myself to speak evenly. “Doesn’t matter what her history is. Doesn’t matter what her connections are. Doesn’t matter if she lied or told the truth. Doesn’t matter what the fuck David Granger has to say. She’s mine, and no one touches her.”
“Curtis, think about this,” my dad warned. “You’ve known the woman less than a week.”
“Her kids are sleepin’ in my fuckin’ house,” I snapped, meeting his eyes.
“Yesterday, I sat and watched some weird-ass show for hours with her eldest while they got their hair braided. This mornin’ before I came into work, I stopped to check that her youngest hadn’t fallen out of the loft bed we set up for him yesterday.
When Dylan fucked up and brought his girlfriend with him to Oregon, that woman I’d known less than a day took a punch meant for your grandson from a man who weighs three hundred pounds.
Then she somehow kept her feet and kneed him in the balls so hard that he was still curled up in a ball when I got there.
She’s sleepin’ in my bed. She’s on the back of my bike. I don’t need to think about shit.”
The room was absolutely silent when I finished.
“Then she’s got the club’s protection,” Dragon announced.
“She had that when Harv called in his marker,” I replied, looking at him.
“Now she’s got mine. There’s not a member of this club who would let you drag their old lady in and interrogate her, scaring the shit outta her in the process.
I won’t either. You have questions in the future, you come to me. ”
I got the fuck out of there and grabbed my phone off the bar as I passed it. Even though I hurried, Teddy’s truck was already gone when I got outside.
“Curt,” my brother called as I strode toward my bike. “What’s goin’ on? I just saw Teddy take off like her ass was on fire.”
“Bullshit,” I answered, climbing onto my bike. “Absolute fuckin’ garbage.”
I went straight home and let out a breath of relief when I found Teddy’s truck in the driveway. The front door wasn’t locked, and there was no one in the living room or kitchen, but I could hear the kids up in the bonus room as I took the stairs two at a time.
“Hey, Curt,” Finn greeted as I came to a stop in the doorway.
“Hey, bud,” I replied. Jesse was playing a video game, sitting on the back of the couch with their feet on the cushions, and Dylan was at the other end, doing something on his phone. “You seen your mom?”
“She said she was going in to take a shower,” Jesse said, glancing at me over their shower.
“Cool, thanks.”
I moved slower than I wanted to as I made my way down to the other end of the hall, hoping that the kids wouldn’t wonder why both of us were home in the middle of the day.
Teddy didn’t have a job yet, but I usually wasn’t home until around four o’clock.
I’d noticed that Finn was pretty oblivious to that kind of thing, but Jesse and Dylan would clock it.
When I opened our bedroom door, I could hear the shower running in the bathroom, but Teddy was seated on the edge of the bed.
Something about how she was sitting with her back to the door, her shoulders curved forward and head tipped down, made my guts twist as I quietly closed the door behind me and crossed the room.
“Hey, baby,” I greeted as I sat down next to her. “You hauled ass out of there so fast, you were gone when I came out.”