Chapter 2
Sloane
“I’m home, Pops!” I yell out when I walk into the mudroom from the garage.
“How’d it go, honey?” he shouts back needlessly loud, popping his head into the doorway and scaring the crap out of me. “Ya know, I can hear the garage door open, right? No arthritis in my ears.”
“No one likes a smart ass,” I repeat back the phrase we use more often than ‘I love you’, entering the kitchen to see that he’s been preparing a sandwich out of last night’s leftovers. “And to answer your question, I must have run into every neanderthal in the county today.”
“You just give me their names, these hands can still handle a shotgun, y’know,” he tells me as I grab a plate for myself and piece together my own supper.
“Actually, one of them remembered you. This guy with the Northern Grizzlies? Weird name for this area,” I tell him but stop talking when he turns to stare at me.
“Jigsaw’s dead, so I guess you’re talking about his son,” Pops says more to himself than to me.
“I don’t know his dad’s moniker, but he goes by Vector. The name on the paperwork said Andrew Morgan.” I relay the only information I have on the biker I met earlier. Turning away from him and cursing my fair skin for blushing as I pretend to look for something in the fridge in the hopes he won’t gauge my interest.
I close the door to find his wise old eyes studying me. Instead of saying anything, I hold up the two Lite beers that I snagged, and he nods in appreciation.
“You must have made quite an impression on him,” I say, setting the trap to get him interested in the invite.
“Well, I’m an impressive man,” he retorts, his back cracking as he stands to his full height.
Juggling the beers and my plate, I follow him over to the family room where we eat most of our meals in the comfort of the well-worn furniture.
“How did I factor into the conversation?” Pops restarts the topic just as I reach for the remote control.
“He recognized my last name,” I answer him with a shrug, before downplaying what Vector had told me. “He said his dad had you do some work around the place.”
“ Some work ?” he snorts, looking amused. “That asshole nearly took up two years of my life, with all the work I did around there.”
“Oh, yeah?” I prod for more information in between bites of my dinner.
“Did you get inside the main building? I built that whole bar, the booths—God! The work I did in his office was world-class. Then, he had me do custom shelving, cabinets, and trim in the house and garage.” The excitement in Pops’ voice is palpable as he thinks about the property.
“He mentioned they’re having a party for some kids there on Saturday, if you wanted to drop by and see how it held up,” I casually mention as I hit the power button for the TV.
“Oh, he did, did he?” Pops replies with a snort. “I suppose you were invited to tag along also.”
I raise an eyebrow in his direction and give him a little smile to acknowledge that he’s busted me.
“Fine, but I’m driving,” he grunts before finishing his sandwich.
Opening my mouth to argue, I just as quickly change my mind. Pops can still drive, it’s not like the arthritis in his hands, back, and feet affect that—it’s just one of the tasks that I automatically assumed when I moved in. It’s his pride that’s in play, in this instance, so I just nod my head before standing up and taking our plates out to the kitchen.
“Talked to your momma earlier, they’re all wondering when you’ll make it home for a spell,” he casually says, like he wasn’t waiting to drop that into our conversation; he’s keeping his eyes focused on the TV since he knows that’s not an easy topic for me.
I let out a hum as if I’m considering it, then excuse myself to go shower.
*
By the end of the next day, Vector is the only person on my list that hasn’t signed off on the project and I’m just about to head home when I notice my boss across the room. It’s not so much that he’s on the phone, he usually is—what catches my eye is how red he is. Unlike me, my boss has a more olive tone to his skin, so he’s really got to be upset.
Just then his eyes land on me and I find myself immediately walking toward his office. Graziano holds up a finger, asking me to wait before I enter. I stand back until he ends the call, then enter without delay.
“Christ, Folly,” he growls, pinching his fingers against the bridge of his nose. “That Morgan asshole who wouldn’t sign off? His lawyers have requested a meeting on Monday with us and the county, to review the agreement and counter .”
“Counter?” I ask, surprised and curious about whether Vector decided to push for his lines to be replaced. “Wait, us ?”
“Not you, but me and VNG’s attorney have to be present.”
“Oh, thank God,” I huff and immediately get a glare from Graziano.
“I should make you join me for that.” The light in his eyes undercuts his harsh tone, one that he’s known for around here. That and how everyone jokes that he even calls his mom by her last name.
“But if I attend, who would work on the quarterly projections?” I ask, sliding into the seat across from him with a smirk. While the look he gives me would send half of the office running, the fact that I was raised around Roughnecks makes him seem almost docile to me.
“I’d almost prefer to handle those than sit in a room full of lawyers,” he barks out a laugh. “Okay, it’s nearly five, I don’t want to keep you—even though my wife’s still pestering me to invite you over for Sunday dinner again.”
“Any time you know her brother’s not going to be around, I’d enjoy coming by again. And I appreciate her wanting to set me up with someone she cares about, but I’d rather not defecate where I dine.” Cleaning up that old phrase out of respect for my boss, gets a smile from him.
I’ve overheard the men around here talking enough to know I wouldn’t be the first one to casually swear in his office, but I also appreciate the lengths they go to not to curse in my presence.
*
“You made it!” The man I had first spoken to at the clubhouse calls out when he sees me sliding out of Pop’s car.
I look behind me, surprised that he seems to be waiting for me.
“Sloane, right? I’m Roman.” His long legs quickly eat up the distance between us as he shakes my hand, before walking around to introduce himself to my grandfather. “Paul. Vector is just wrapping up a little business but wanted me to keep an eye out for you both. Unless you are interested in a pony ride, why don’t we head to the garage?”
With barely a pause for us to grin at his joke, the large biker turned tour guide, spins on his heel and heads to one of the buildings to the side of the main clubhouse. Pops motions for me to get moving.
While Roman is leading the way, the moment Pops crosses into the building, under the open bay door, he takes over. Even our tour guide looks a little surprised when my grandfather turns to his left and starts talking about the odd shaped table that has some pieces of machinery on it, taken apart so it looks like Lego pieces neatly laid out and ready for assembly.
“This is Swann’s current project,” Roman says as I approach it, reaching out to where there’s a nick in the edge of the stained wood counter. “He can be intense, so make sure you don’t disturb it.”
“Jigsaw did that,” Pops tells me, smiling at the imperfection that my finger had traced over. “Not ten minutes after I completed this section. He told me to leave it, he said it would be a reminder not to go around touching all the pretty things he wanted to lay his hands on.”
Roman snorts at that comment, immediately answering my unvoiced question about Jigsaw.
Following behind Pops and Roman, I listen to the stories that my grandfather recounts, his voice sounding more animated than it has since I moved here and I’m grateful for this opportunity. I smile and nod every time Pops turns to make sure I’m paying attention, careful not to let him see how moist my eyes have become.
It’s one of the times that I turn from the men to swat at the dampness that threatens to flow down my cheek, that I see Vector watching us from the entranceway.
He throws me a wink, more of a teasing I saw that , than anything flirtatious. It almost makes me wonder if I misread the interest I thought I saw in his eyes the other day.
I’ve been trying to figure out what I would say if he did make a pass at me. I know he’s a bit older than I am, and putting his looks aside—because there’s no denying that he’s sexy as fuck—there is something in him that calls to me. Several of my dad’s friends were in an MC back in Louisiana, and having attended some of those parties, I know that the party going on today is the fairy-tale version of what this lifestyle entails.
“It’s a hot day,” he drawls out, drawing the others’ attention, as he approaches me. “Would have been nice to offer them something cool, Roman.”
“Well, he did offer us a pony ride,” I retort in his defense. Kind of.
“I’m happy to give you a ride later,” Vector says for my ears only, eliminating any doubt of his intentions. He gives me a wolfish grin and lightly squeezes my upper arm in a greeting of sorts, before he moves past me to reintroduce himself to my grandfather.
Considering it’s been a couple of decades, Pops goes on about how reed thin Vector was as a boy. When Roman takes his leave, Vector points to an ATV parked in the back corner of the garage and suggests taking that back to the house.
I appreciate his thoughtfulness, but I see my grandfather’s pride rearing its head, so I speak up, “That sounds great! I swear I almost got sunburned on the walk from the car.”
“Yeah, you do look a little red,” Pops grudgingly admits, although he looks mildly suspicious.
“Great.” Vector pulls the keys out of his pocket and signals for us to wait a moment.
“Is your sister around today?” I call out to him.
“Naw, she got delayed,” he says before starting up the vehicle and pulling up even to us. I jump in the back before Pops can say anything, leaving him to take shotgun.
“Your sister?” Pops asks, sounding confused and I’m glad he asks the next question about the woman I’m strangely curious about.
Vector lets out a deep breath as he circumvents the party to drive back to the house. “Dad had another kid, I don’t know, maybe a year or so after you finished up around here?”
“That must have been about the time all that trouble started,” Pops comments with a shrug of his shoulders. “I was sorry to hear of his passing, for all that we didn’t stay in touch.”
“Nah, it was too messy back then, he cut ties with a lot of people—trying to limit any collateral damage,” Vector replies, giving me a glance over his shoulder.
Questions are firing through my brain, but I decide to sit back and listen for now. If there comes a time that needing to know Vector’s history becomes relevant, I’ll sure as hell have questions then. Besides, Pops will probably talk my ear off about the subject over dinner in the nights to come.
“You know when my wife died, Jigsaw worked out groceries being delivered to my house once a week for a month,” Pops announces out of the blue and I catch the look of surprise on Vector’s face. “I sent him a thank you card, but that never seemed enough to me. I don’t think I had been to a grocery store for more than a dozen years before Cathy died.”
“I had no idea.” Vector’s voice sounds low and thick, telling me how much hearing about this side of his father means to him.
“Ever since then, when someone I know passes away, I don’t send flowers. I try to do something useful,” Pops tells us as we’re about to step onto the porch of the house. “What good are flowers anyway? They just wither and die, making everything worse.”
I can’t help the shiver that goes down my spine at his words, remembering how furious the sight of all those flowers on the altar made me the day we buried my younger brother. Funny to think Pops and I feel the same way when it’s not something we ever spoke about to each other.
A second thought hits me, well, my pride, really. That suddenly talking more about his arthritis the day of Billy’s funeral and later begrudgingly accepting my help, was his way of doing something useful .