Chapter Five
Ice called when they were a few minutes away, because they hadn’t eaten yet and wanted to bring a takeaway over. It was a good idea, right? It’d make things more social than enforced.
“Yeah, man. Thanks. Uh… we haven’t eaten either.”
“Pizza should be good, right? We’ll get a couple of different ones. She’s not allergic to anything?”
Was she? She hadn’t been back when we were friends, but now she was literally a different person. Anything could change when it appeared like everything already fucking had.
“Not that I know of,” I finally said, feeling as fucking helpless as I’d ever felt in my life.
Ten minutes later, when they arrived at the door, I was no closer to figuring out a damn thing.
Ice slapped my back, and bro hugged me, and then he introduced me to his old lady, Lissa. I think we’d met at some point, maybe even at the demolition party at the club grounds, but it was good to meet her officially.
“Thanks for coming,” I said lamely, inviting them in. I’d expected them to have to use the code to let themselves in, but since Glory had done a runner, I’d been able to do the honours.
“We brought food, man. Where do we eat in here? This way?” Ice started marching directly for my kitchen, and the adjoining dining room, like he’d been here before, and was just humouring me.
“Uh… yeah…”
Lissa shrugged out of her leather jacket and I hung it on the rack for her.
She smoothed her hair into the low ponytail she wore, and glanced around us.
“Where’s Gloria?”
I pointed at the ceiling. “Upstairs, hiding in the room she chose. I dunno… what do I do?”
She smiled, reaching out to pat my arm.
“Ah ah… we don’t touch other men, do we, little vixen?”
Her hand halted in the air and she sighed. “I swear he’s got a sixth sense or something.”
“Little vixen, huh, that’s cute.”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay if I go up to see Gloria?”
“You don’t want to eat first?”
She grinned. “I intend to bring her down to eat with us. Worth a try, right?”
Hell yeah. I pointed out the stairs, and explained which room to head for, and then I joined Ice in the dining room. The pizzas were still boxed in the centre of the table, and he was leaning against it with his arms folded.
“She didn’t touch me, man.”
He laughed, shaking his head at me. “She knows the rules… she’d just have to make it up to me.”
Jesus. I glanced over my shoulder, hoping they hadn’t appeared yet.
“I know that predatory crap might work for you guys, but if Glory hears you talking like that, she’ll be shit scared of you.”
Ice sobered, straightening up from the table’s edge. Thank god. I really didn’t want his ass on my table anyway.
“Fuck. I’ll watch it, brother, sorry. The fucker who did this. We’re dealing with that, right?”
I nodded, then shrugged. It wasn’t my place to decide that, was it?
“Club justice, man. He hurt someone connected to our club, he fucking suffers. Anyway. While Lissa works her magic, why don’t you show me around this swanky pad of yours?”
I backed into the kitchen again, scratching my jaw as I watched him peruse the place, his eyes not missing a fucking detail. Like, for example, the wall where the hidden door was. He grinned, resting his palm against it as if he fucking knew already. Smug bastard.
“Yeah, see, I like houses like this. Old Edwardian, but with some serious modifications, like that high tech security system, and the coded locks. Another interesting fact about Edwardian houses…” he glanced at the wall again, his palm stroking the wood panelling, “yeah, often they have little hidden treats, like, say… basements or cellars.”
Fucking hell. I groaned as he smirked at me, patting the wall lightly.
“Yeah, from the blueprints, I know you have one, you jammy bastard, but what I don’t get is… there should be a door over here somewhere. So, with all your fancy high tech shit… it’s a hidden door, right?” Blueprints?! What the fuck?
I opened my mouth, but he raised a palm.
“No no. Let me figure it out. There’s a latch or some kind of seam we can’t see.” He started fingering the wood panelling, and I sighed.
“You’re going to leave marks on it, man. My cleaner doesn’t like that shit.”
“Ha. Cleaner. You snooty bastard. Nope… it’s here somewhere, I know it.”
I groaned and reached over before he could molest the whole damn wall, and pushed the hidden latch as he backed up with a groan.
“I was going there next, dammit.”
“Yeah, after you fingered every bloody inch of it!”
“Lissa never complains.”
He gestured to the secret door, which was no longer a secret, and currently sat ajar.
“Can I?”
“It’s just a… a man-cave, Ice. There’s nothing to see.”
He smirked again. “My searches tell me you have a firearms licence, man. Your guns down here?” Jesus fuck!
“Is there anything you don’t know?”
He shrugged, stroking the edge of the door, but for all his jerking me around, he wasn’t even opening it unless I said so, and I appreciated that respect, even after all this.
“Probably. I mean, I couldn’t find the door latch first off like I thought I would.”
“Hey, guys. Gloria wanted to join us for pizza, so do you want to stop playing with yourselves?”
We both turned to face the women, but I didn’t miss the way Ice gently nudged the door closed again, leaving it flush with the wall and invisible once more.
“You’re showing me later,” he murmured as he stepped out from behind me.
“Hi Gloria. I’m Ice, one of Henley’s club brothers. We uh… brought a few things, so hopefully you like something we have here?” He didn’t even hesitate, going straight to lifting the boxes and reading out what the contents were; Meat Explosion, Chicken Supreme, Hawaiian… wtf. Hawaiian?
“Who the hell eats pineapple on pizza, you sicko?!” I blurted, setting Ice and Lissa off laughing, but the great part? The part that made a glimmer of hope appear among the shards of what used to be my heart? Glory laughed too. She fucking laughed.
As soon as she realised I was watching her, she ducked her head again, that damn hair hiding her face.
The urge to fucking grab it and tuck it over her ear was literally making my hand twitch, but a quick tutting sound from Lissa made me back off.
An almost imperceptible head shake from her when I glanced up was more than fucking clear to me. Hands off. Don’t spook her.
We settled around the table, after I bustled around getting plates, napkins, and drinks, and started tucking into pizza.
As it turned out, Gloria liked everything they’d brought along, and insisted on starting with the Hawaiian, since none of us even liked it.
I swear she never used to like it before, but the second she took a bite, I saw her wince. Was it too hot? Was it too disgusting?
She grimaced as she swallowed, and that was it for me.
“Jesus fuck, Glory, don’t eat that shit.”
“Henley! Leave her to eat what she wants.”
I pointed at the way she was woodenly chewing at it. “She doesn’t fucking like it. Is this what he was like? Did he force you to eat stuff you don’t fucking like?!” I snatched the whole pizza away, folding the box closed as she dropped the slice on her plate.
“Henley, take a breath and put the pizza down,” Lissa practically ordered, and as I obeyed, because apparently that’s what I do now, I caught Ice’s smirk.
I sat back down, and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Glory, it’s just… eat the ones you love, please. I just want you to enjoy things again.”
Lissa delicately mopped at her mouth. “It’s not about what you want, Henley. This is about Gloria. Hey,” she caught Glory’s attention, “what say we load up our plates and go sit in the other room to girl talk? Away from all this testosterone.”
Gloria nodded hesitantly and picked up a single slice of pizza. One fucking slice. My mouth opened, as I reached for the boxes, and it slammed shut again at a glare from Lissa.
“We can always come back for more.”
They left the room and I fell back against the seat with a groan.
“I’m just fucking everything up.”
Ice grabbed another slice of the meaty pizza. “I mean, we’re men. We get tons of shit wrong. That’s why Lissa’s around. She fixes what we fuck up.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not her job.”
He shrugged.
“Just saying, she’s done a lot of good at the club.
More of our brothers speak to her than I ever thought possible.
Even the really meatheaded ones are talking shit out with her.
So yeah, let Lissa do her thing, but if you think for one minute she isn’t the boss of everyone in this house, you’re so fucking delusional.
My woman owns every room she’s in. It’s sexy, really.
This one time, she was so bossy with Reacher, that I had to drag her back into the-”
“Okayyyy… why don’t I show you the basement?”
“I thought you’d never ask, man.” The shit-eating grin on his face told me he set the trap, and I blundered into it, but what the hell. Clearly there were no secrets from the nosy bastard anyway.
Gloria
Iliked Lissa, and not just because she was the only other woman in the house right now, and certainly not because she was up front about the fact that she was a damn therapist. No.
It was the fact that she seemed to calm down everyone around her.
She had a kind of ethereal serenity that I couldn’t get enough of.
She sat down on the leather sofa with her plate, and waited for me to do the same. It was strange to be comfortable sitting so close to a stranger, but she only gave off good vibes. If it was some kind of therapist trick to make me talk, it just might work.
“Men can be so pigheaded, I swear,” she said first, watching me as I set my plate aside. My appetite was gone, even though the pizza smelled so good.
“He wasn’t wrong,” I whispered, eyeing the doorway fearfully to check Nate wasn’t hovering.
“Henley?”
I hesitated for the briefest moment. “You guys call him Henley?”
Lissa shrugged a delicate shoulder.