Chapter 6 #2
“I don’t know, but enough that Ralston now wants me to keep it going.”
“Shit. And Knox knows?” Sable asks, taking another sip of coffee.
“Yeah, he knows, and he didn’t want to believe it. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about him or her anymore. If I continue, I might just have a breakdown. I need music, and maybe a small screaming session to reset my nervous system.”
Mera laughs. “On it.”
They turn on the music—Lady Gaga, because of course they do—and within three minutes all of us are belting the chorus and shaking our asses as we sweep, wipe, and mop. I’m halfway through scrubbing the counters when Mera nudges me in the ribs. “So, Knox. Are we rooting for him to try again?”
“Absolutely not,” I say instantly. “He is hung up on his dead woman, and I’m not about to clean that mess up or be the reason he tries to get over it. Besides, I’m not interested.”
I know I’m lying. I can feel the night in my mouth, the taste of it, the way he kissed me like revenge.
I wish I hated it.
Nia grins as she goes past. “If you ever want to talk about it, or if you want to pretend to talk about it but really just need to set something on fire, you let me know.”
The rest of the morning passes in a blur of cleaning, bitching, and gossiping about which of the club guys has the best jawline.
Talon won, because the man is chiseled like a Greek god.
Still, it was a close call. By five o’clock, the kitchen is the cleanest I think it has ever been, the guys have patched the roof and mowed the lawn, and have created a fire outside.
They also got alcohol.
I’m not unhappy about that.
We pour whiskey into plastic cups and join them outside.
The wind is cold, but the fire is a beacon, and we sit around it.
I feel the heat warming me to my bones, and I close my eyes, enjoying every small second of it.
We drink for a bit, then we go for an adventure to the barn.
In there, we find a huge tank filled with water.
“Let’s jump in,” Nia says, her eyes wide.
Mera looks to me, then Sable. “I’m in. It looks clean.”
Sable scrunches up her nose. “There might be a huge snake in there?”
“Come on, you only live once,” Nia laughs and climbs up the side. She jumps, screaming, fully clothed, which means the rest of us have to follow suit or risk eternal shame.
“Might as well,” Mera says, putting her cup down.
Fuck it. I climb the ladder and watch Sable cannonball in, sending tidal waves over the rusted edge.
Only she would do that, pregnant, without a care in the world.
Nia goes in after and then Mera, and before I know it, I am jumping in, my body surrounded by cold water.
I surface, gasping and laughing, and the four of us swim around and splash until we’re too cold to take a second more.
We climb out, soaked, just as a heap of guys are coming into the barn.
“Holy shit, Callie,” Nia whistles at me. “You are the literal dictionary definition of hot mess.”
I flip her the bird, but she’s not wrong.
My shirt, pale and thin, leaves nothing to the imagination.
I peel it off, wringing it at my side, and for the second time in twenty-four hours, I feel eyes on me—a certain intense, all-consuming stare.
My gaze moves to the door and locks on Knox looking straight at me.
No expression, but not blank, either. More like he’s memorizing me: top to toe, wet hair to ruined jeans, and that unyielding heat in his eyes.
Fuck, I wish he wouldn’t look at me like that. Sable whistles, low. “Girl, your body is lit.”
“She ain’t wrong,” Zane winks at me, and I laugh, tossing the wet shirt at him.
“Keep your mind out of the gutter. I’m getting another drink,” I announce, taking my half-filled cup and walking towards the exit as Wolfe tosses his shirt, followed by Talon, and I know they’re going on.
My foot slips out just as I step past the guys, some old cow food on the floor, I don’t know, but it sends me stumbling backwards.
Something catches me. No, not something, someone—arms, heavy and sure, lock around my waist and steady me hard against a body I recognize by smell alone.
I look up, and Knox’s face is right there, eyes fixed on me.
He holds me suspended, one hand at my lower back and the other gripping my opposite arm.
“Watch your step,” he murmurs, voice so low it’s almost a vibration, and for once, I can’t muster a single sarcastic comeback.
We stand like that, frozen in some cliché movie moment, until too much time passes and it isn’t funny or cute anymore.
It’s... dangerous. My pulse is everywhere, too loud, and when Knox eventually sets me upright, my face stays close enough to his that I can see a tiny scar above his left eyebrow.
His thumb lingers an unholy second longer at my waist; the spot burns afterward like a brand.
I start to say something—a joke, a thank you, anything to dull the sharpness of this minute—but Mera’s whistle echoes through the barn. “You two should get a room.”
The spell shatters.
I wriggle free and make a show of brushing wet hay off my jeans. Knox’s face is unreadable, the classic non-expression, but he doesn’t move until I’m ten feet away. Then he follows, slow as ever, hands buried in his pockets.
God damn.
There is not enough whiskey in the world to make this feeling go away.