Chapter 25
Christ, I’m bone tired. Been up since four a.m., on the fire until five this evening, then packing up spike camp and hitting the road back home to Sky Ridge. After unpacking at base, we all agreed to head over to Shifty’s to celebrate.
As badly as I want to go home and sleep, I need a fucking drink.
Cal meets me at the door, holding it open for me without a word, though we do nod our chins at each other in acknowledgment. We hardly spoke all week. I’ve been so lost in my own stupid head and I’m certain he’s doing his best not to be that overprotective big brother I know he is.
We make our way over to the corner where our usual smattering of tables and booths are located, half our crew already here. King was the first one here, eager to see his lady. Violette saunters over with a tray full of bottles of beer, setting several down on the chipped and cracked tabletop.
She sets the last one in front of me and I lean forward to grab it, murmuring, “Thanks, Viole— ehhh! ”
The small, round tray she’s carrying thumps me in the back of the head sharply, knocking my teeth together with a jarring click. I reach up, rubbing the tender spot on the back of my head and turn narrowed eyes onto her. She stands over me, shoving the tray up under one arm and then crosses both arms over her chest. She glares at me with a fire I haven’t seen since she gave King a fucking run for his money.
“Before you open up your mouth and ask a stupid question like ‘what was that for’, you know why. Jackass ,” she snaps, her lips thinning. Heat crawls up the back of my neck, realizing that every damn eye at our tables is on us. On me. Getting scolded like a damn toddler. “That was a real dick move, Xander. I can’t believe you actually said that to her.”
Fuck. These women have ganged up together.
And I can feel Cal’s eyes on the side of my head like a fucking laser.
“That was fucking epic, love,” King laughs from where he’s seated. Grabbing hold of one of her belt loops and hauling her over to him, he wraps one arm around her waist. She’s still glaring daggers at me, but her arm loops around his neck, tucking his head against her side.
“You stink,” she mutters, wrinkling her nose. He chuckles again, unfazed as she ruffles his hair before bending low to kiss him. It’s not a quick, chaste kiss, either. I pretend not to see the way his hand curves around her ass before she pecks one last kiss to his mouth and straightens. He watches her walk away, his gaze on her backside as she makes her way back toward the bar. He adjusts himself in his pants and I roll my eyes.
“Do you two need to disappear into the back for a few minutes?” Cal mumbles over to King, who raises a hand and flips him off without taking his eyes off Violette. Cal chuckles into his beer.
I shift in my seat, bracing my elbows on the tabletop in front of me, hands clasped tight around the bottle. I stare down at the floor between my dirty work boots.
“Fucking pain in the ass women,” I grumble under my breath. I know she’s right. Fuck, I know I was a dick to Teddy. But I did it to protect her. To protect her kids.
“ Watch it ,” King mutters sharply, all levity leaving his face as he turns to glare at me, too. I sigh, nodding. Fucking hell, I’m just making a mess of everything it seems.
I hunch my shoulders in, continuing to pick at the label on the beer bottle clasped between my hands, and then Cal is leaning forward, too, so that his shoulders are only about six inches away from mine.
“I know you’ve been waiting for me to kick your ass all week, but I think you’re doing that enough on your own,” he mutters low, just between me and him. I huff out a breath and nod solemnly.
King claps me on the shoulder from my other side. “That why you’ve been a grumpy motherfucker this week? Trouble in paradise?”
I shoot him a glower from beneath lowered brows. Cal leans back in his chair again, taking a drink of his beer. He stretches his legs out beneath the table, balancing his beer on his belt buckle at his waist.
“Sup’s always a grumpy motherfucker,” Opp mutters, grinning over at us. “It’s like his factory default setting.”
“There’s nothing for there to be trouble with, because there’s nothing going on,” I mumble, tipping my beer back. I down half of it, then nod to Violette when she raises an eyebrow at me from across the bar, a silent signal for ‘ready for another one?’. She’s back a minute later with another round, placing not one, but two Pbr bottles in front of me. Like she knows how much I’m fucking beating myself up over this thing with Teddy. Even if I’ll never allow myself to say it out loud. Especially around these goons.
They don’t need to know that I’d almost come in my fucking shorts with Teddy grinding over me, or how incredibly soft she is beneath my hands. They definitely don’t need to know I’ve thought of nothing but the way her mouth tastes and the way her fingers feel twining through my hair. Pretty sure Cal would gladly throat punch me if he knew how filthy my thoughts are where his sister is involved. He doesn’t need to know that. None of them do.
Or how badly I want to be the man that comes home to her every fucking night.
How I’ve made sure that’s never going to happen. My chest tightens again, like it always does, when I think about the way she’d stared at me like I’d just kicked her puppy.
The door opens and Cal’s head swivels, a smile breaking out across his face, and I know without turning that Scottie has just walked in. Placing his beer on the table in front of us, he rises from his seat and takes several steps toward her. I glance over my shoulder at them just as he wraps one arm around her waist and lifts her clear off the floor, their mouths meeting.
She’s still wearing her EMT uniform, like she came straight over after her shift ended without taking the time to change. Like she couldn’t bear to be away from him a second longer than necessary. My chest tightens painfully. Why now, after all this time, do I want that?
“Glad to see you in one piece,” she whispers as he sets her back down on her feet. She runs her hands over his chest as if assessing for any hidden injuries. He grins and kisses her once more.
“There’s this lady, she’s kinda scary. She made me promise I had to, so I try to do my best,” he teases lightly, quietly. Then, his voice dips lower, softer. “Still with me?”
She smiles up at him. “Always.”
His fingers flit over a faint scar at her hairline above her right eye, his eyes going soft for a heartbeat before dropping his hand and turning back toward the table. He shoves Roycie’s booted feet off an empty chair at the table next to us and pulls it over to our table, then sits down. Scottie takes the seat Cal had previously been sitting in as Violette shows back up with a highball tumbler of brown liquor for her.
“Thank you, Vi,” Scottie says, smiling up at her. Violette smiles back and I grit my teeth until my jaw aches. Everyone else gets a friendly hello but me, apparently.
Cal’s arm settles across the back of Scottie’s chair, his fingers trailing along her neck beneath her hair that’s pulled up into a sleek bun, and her hand finds its way to Cal’s thigh.
Those little, mindless touches between lovers that speak volumes. Not wanting to be apart, even just for a moment.
I finish the second beer and reach for the third. Before she can walk away, I ask Violette, “Can I get a whisky? Make it a double, please.”
Fuck it. I might just get drunk tonight.