BAZZI - MINE
I peered out onto the driveway when Rachel left, zipping away on the back of Rex’s bike.
She hadn’t even noticed that I was sitting on the veranda.
If she had, I knew she’d have been surprised.
It was taking every ounce of strength in my being to stay seated. Not to move. To stay still.
“I can do this, I can do this, I can do this,” I whimpered in a rush, my hands curling around the edge of the seat until the wicker bit into them.
Tucked away in the shadows, I was properly placed to see a couple called Digger and MaryCat amble through the gates.
Their baby was cute, and I’d agreed to sit for them while they went to the clubhouse.
What else was I going to do? It was a great excuse for me not to leave the house, after all.
But when I’d heard the music start up, a longing so raw had me facing my fears and forcing myself to drift outside to listen to the roar of sound.
I almost wished I’d been able to attend the ceremony—it had sounded wild. Alive. So unlike the funerals I’d attended as a child.
As MaryCat and Digger returned, their arms clinging to one another, a piercing longing shot through me.
I was so alone.
It was my own choice—but that didn’t diminish how horrible it was to require that as a basic survival instinct.
Before they reached the house, someone called out, “Digger, you know where Storm went?”
“Think he headed to the Fridge with the others, didn’t he?”
“Ah, shit.”
The soft drawl of an accent had me peering through the darkness to the faces that were illuminated in the moonlight.
My brow furrowed as I saw the stranger when he hunched his shoulders and turned to glower at Digger.
He was on the thinner side, but his face was beautiful.
His cheeks were full, his brow wide, and his lips were soft even when they were pursed in irritation. But in his eyes, there was a kindness that I didn’t think I was mistaking.
His hair flopped onto his forehead in a way that made my fingers crave to stroke it back, to touch him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Wanted to talk to him about the arrangements for tomorrow.”
“So late? Jesus, Sweet Lips, you’re taking this too seriously. Go back to the clubhouse, get laid, and get drunk.”
Sweet Lips?
That was his name?
I mean, he did have sweet lips. That was no lie but I didn’t think road names were supposed to be complimentary. Why would the one called Nyx be called Nyx when that was a goddess’ name and not a god’s?
The MC brothers were strange, that was for sure.
Digger didn’t wait for an answer, just buried his face in MaryCat’s hair.
He said something that had her chuckling, and it made it too awkward for me to tell them I was there, listening in, so I let them go inside, and I watched as Sweet Lips kept his hands stacked on his hips in annoyance, glaring over at Rachel’s place.
As he approached the veranda, I tensed up.
When he climbed the stairs, rumbling, “Eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves,” I thought my heart was going to combust.
“I wasn’t eavesdropping,” I said on a gasp. “Honestly! I was sitting here the whole time. I didn’t hide on purpose.”
Now he was under the veranda’s canopy, much as they did for me, the shadows hid his expression. I heard a rustling sound, tensed up, then he muttered, “Want one?”
I squinted at him and barely saw the faint gleam of the wrapper in his hand.
“Cow Tales?”
He hummed. “My favorite.”
Swallowing, I said, “Thank you but I’m fine.” I really wanted the candy, but that would have required me to let go of the chair beneath me. That was impossible—my fingers were soldered in place now. “I haven’t had anything like that in years.”
I heard the wrapper shred beneath his fingers. “I couldn’t live without candy. I’m guessing you heard my name? Loving candy is how I earned it. What’s yours?”
Huh. Sweet Lips from the candy. Clearly, the brothers didn’t recognize how truly sweet his lips were.
“I’m Parker.” Nerves hit me. “I’m Rachel’s assistant.”
“Interesting.”
“Interesting, how?”
“Just is. She shocked a lot of folks at the clubhouse tonight. There were plenty of mutterings about her.”
“About Rachel?” I demanded with concern. “Why?”
“You’re not with the MC, are you?”
“No.”
“Can’t tell you then, sweetheart.”
I huffed. “She’s my boss, but she’s also my friend. Is that why she and Rex went racing off?”
“They came here?”
“They did.”
“Interesting.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I can’t. It is interesting.”
Huffing out a breath, not realizing that I’d stopped clenching my fingers around the chair, I muttered, “Is that the only adjective you know?”
“You asking that because I’m a biker ergo I’m stupid or because I keep saying shit’s interesting and I won’t tell you why and you’re being bitchy because you’re curious?”
“Ergo?” Of everything he had to say, that stuck out like a sore thumb to me.
He shrugged. “It means—”
“I know what it means. I work for a lawyer. If you know what that is, then, you know another word for interesting.”
“Might do, but that won’t ease your curiosity.” He clucked his tongue. “Your hands stopped clenching around the chair. You can relax again, honey. I ain’t gonna hurt you. Might look mean but I’m not gonna bite.”
I blinked. “I didn’t think you would.”
“No? Most people see the cut and nothing else. You want some candy now?”
Biting my lip, I told him, my voice rawer than I’d like, “If I take the candy, then I’ll have to let go of the chair, and if I do that, then I might run inside.”
“Why? Because you’re scared of me?”
A hard laugh escaped me. “I’m scared of everything.”
“Huh. That sounds annoying for you.”
“You’ve no idea.” I gnawed on my lip again. “Could you maybe feed me the candy?”
God, I really wanted that treat.
“You’d be okay with that?”
For candy, I would.
“More than okay.”
“I got clean hands,” he told me as the crinkling of another wrapper sounded loud in the silence on the veranda.
“I doubt it.”
He paused. “Huh?”
“Do you know how many different types of bacteria live on your palms?” I pulled a face he couldn’t see, explaining, “I used to be a germophobe.”
“Is that something you grow out of?” he queried as he passed me the treat, placing it on my lips. “Bite down so that I can drag off the wrapping without touching it.”
Well, hell, how considerate was that?
Doing as he’d bid, I savored the treat. The sugar hit me fast.
“Better than an orgasm, I swear,” I mumbled once I was done chewing.
“Honey, I love candy, but you’ve been doing sex wrong if you think it’s better than an orgasm.”
I refused to blush. “I very likely have,” was my prim retort. “And yes, I weaned myself off of being a germophobe. I had too many phobias. It was getting tiresome to juggle them all.”
“Huh.” He paused a second, grabbed another piece of candy and, before he ate it, asked, “How many phobias do you have?”
“Now? Two. Back then, it was like sixteen or something.”
He coughed. “Sixteen?”
“Yeah.” My nose crinkled. “See why it was tiresome?”
“I mean, maybe. If one of those was you being scared of sharks, it’s not like you see a shark every day in New Jersey, is it?”
“I live in Pennsylvania,” I corrected.
“They have sharks there?” he asked around a laugh.
“Only in aquariums,” I retorted, but I was smiling. “I just don’t go to them.”
“Smart. So that’s one of the phobias you still have?”
“Yes. I used to know someone who was terrified of frozen custard. Can you imagine?”
“I really can’t,” he said somberly before he cleared his throat. “So, you’re scared of being outside, huh? Agoraphobia?”
I bit my lip. “Yes.”
My voice was so tiny a frickin’ mouse could have uttered that confirmation.
“Sitting out here’s being brave for you, isn’t it?”
“Very. Just being here period is too.”
“Ah, yes. You’re a Pennsylvania girl. You came for the funeral?”
I didn’t correct him. Unfortunately for me, I was Jersey born and bred. Only unfortunate because my goddamn family were from here too, and I didn’t like associating with anything to do with them.
That was why I’d moved.
Also why I’d stopped eating hoagies, and they were my favorite fucking thing in the world. Even more than candy.
“I sort of did.”
“Sort of? You didn’t know Bear? Not that I really did. He was before my time.”
“No. I only know him through my boss.”
“So, why’d you come?”
I grimaced. “My roommate failed to tell me that she’d have collectors coming around to grab all our furniture as payment for her debts.”
He stilled. “That’s really shitty.”
“Right?” I demanded, still beyond pissed, and he was the first person I’d told about this. The person I could tell, Rachel, had so much on right now that I didn’t feel like I could add to her stress.
“They took all your possessions?”
“Apart from my computer.”
“How did you salvage that?”
I sucked in a breath. “I ran off with that, my phone, and my wallet.”
“That’s all you have to your name?” he questioned, his shock clear.
Trying not to cry, I whispered, “It is now.”
“Fuck! That’s not right. Not at all. Come on, we’ll go there now and I’ll get your stuff back.”
My eyes flared wide in bewilderment. “What? No! I couldn’t ask that of you.”
“Jesus Christ, Parker, that’s disgustin’. I don’t have an Old Lady anymore—” Did he sound bitter about that or was it just me? “—got nothing to spend my cut on. Let me help you.”
I knew if he’d seen me in the light, I’d have looked like a fish out of water with how my mouth was opening and closing the way it was, but what in the frickin’ fuck?
“I can’t ask you to do that,” I denied.
“You didn’t ask me. I offered.”
“Because it wouldn’t be fair to you. You don’t know me. R-Rachel would help if I asked—”
“You haven’t told her? Or is she a bitch who’d let you be tossed out on your ass without a damn thing to your name?”