Chapter 11 #2
“Sounds like your dad had good standards,” I muttered, the reference to Ayda’s ex making my mood darken just a little bit as the memories of him from earlier came floating back. Those eyes. That cocky face. The familiarity. “Speaking of Jacob…”
“Let’s not,” Ayda said, pushing out her bottom lip. “It was going so well.”
I ignored her, turning to the other guys and narrowing my eyes. “Did he look familiar to any of you?”
“Familiar?” Slater asked.
Jedd pressed his lips together and frowned as he thought. “In what way?”
“In a freaky fuckin’ way.”
“That doesn’t help us,” Jedd grunted.
I blew out a breath and leaned back, straightening my spine and sitting tall as though Jacob was in front of me. Staring down at the bar counter top, I swirled a hand around my face and tried to focus. “Everything about him. I’ve seen those eyes before. That arrogant grin.”
“That’s you looking in the mirror, dickhead,” Slater pushed out, earning a few laughs from everyone but me.
“I’m serious, Slate. You didn’t see anything you recognized about him?”
I turned Slater’s way to see him, too, studying his own thoughts as he stared down into his empty glass. “Nothing I can think of.”
“Deeks?”
“Nope,” he said, shaking his head.
“Weird.” I sighed, turning back to Ayda. “Who are Jacob’s parents?”
“Don and Lisa Hove,” she said, shrugging. “Don is an engineer at one of the drilling sites. Lisa owns the hobby shop in town.”
I scowled as I tried to connect their names to the look I’d seen Jacob wearing. “Don and Lisa Hove,” I muttered to myself before I looked up at the other guys. “Ring any alarm bells with any of you?”
“No,” Jedd mumbled, shaking his head.
“Nope,” Slater added.
“Think I’ve run into Lisa a few times, but nothing that has made me think anything of her,” Harry said from across the bar.
“It’s not like an engineer and a hobby shop owner have any business with the likes of us, Drew,” Deeks butted in.
“No,” I breathed out. “Any siblings?” I asked Ayda, my last line of questioning before I put these creepy itchy feelings down as post-warehouse paranoia and moved the hell along.
“An older brother, Travis.” Ayda glanced around the room before meeting my eyes again, the question of whether that helped clear in her baby blues.
Travis Hove, I thought to myself, rattling the name around in my mind and bouncing it off every wall that wasn’t battered beyond repair in there.
I must have gotten lost in my own thoughts for a moment too long, ‘cause when I looked up again, Ayda was giving me that worried look of hers. It wasn’t one the other guys would have recognized, but we had that secret, silent language of ours going on—the one we were getting more practiced in with every passing day.
Leaning back, I shrugged it off and dropped my hand to her thigh, making my lips curl up on one side. “Nope. Nothing. I must just be getting a bit too familiar with the look of hate in other men’s eyes.”
Ayda studied me for a second longer before nodding in recognition and flashing her grin. “I really don’t know how you make that sound like a compliment.”
“Don’t you know, darlin’?” I leaned in closer, our faces only inches apart. “The better you’re doing in life, the more people hate you. And I’ve never been doing better than I am right now.”
Ayda wrapped her arms around my neck, her lips brushing over my cheek, the movement tickling my skin as she spoke. “By that measure, everyone should hate me to my marrow.”
I heard the guys all grumbling and flipped them the middle finger while staying focused on her. “Most of the Hound Whores probably do,” I teased, wrinkling my nose up and curling my lip.
Gaze flickering to the corner, Ayda rolled her eyes. “I think you’re right. Makes so much more sense now.”
I huffed out a laugh and put my arm around her shoulder, turning us both back to the men, but not before I snuck a sly kiss to her lips. I still hadn’t figured out a way of pulling away from her when we were so close. Not without tasting her lips in some way.
“You finished?” Harry asked, raising both brows as he leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms. The picture of Pete and me sat right by his face, and my eyes flickered to it, causing me to suck in a small breath.
“Finished,” I said through a smile.
Harry turned to the picture and rolled his eyes. “Thought you’d trained him to have a heart of stone, Pete. He’ll be singing Puppy Love next and draping roses on the floor for her to walk on.”
“Roses, Harry?” Ayda said, nudging her glass and fluttering her eyelashes playfully. “Those are only for special occasions. Daisies will do just fine.”
“We save roses for Titty Tuesday, brother.” I laughed.
Harry’s eyes stayed focused on Pete’s picture. “You should have sent him back to his parents so his failures didn’t fall on your shoulders, Pete.”
“Eric couldn’t handle Drew at four, never mind fourteen,” Slater huffed out, grabbing the whiskey bottle from the bar and filling up his shot glass again.
My smile fell slowly, but I tried to recover it quickly, focusing on Pete’s face instead of the name of my father ringing in my ears.
“Imagine how he’d have felt seeing me at twenty-four on my way to the joint,” I said without thinking.
Ayda rubbed my shoulder without consciously thinking about it, her body pressing against mine as she turned her gaze on Pete. “How old were you when your dad died?”
I turned to face her instantly, my eyes staring into hers as my scowl grew deeper and deeper by the second, and I felt my breathing grow sharper.
Everyone around us had stopped. Stopped breathing. Stopped talking. Stopped moving.
I barely moved my lips as I continued to search the blues of her eyes. “When he died?”
“I…” She trailed off and looked around at the group of grown men who were staring at her like she’d grown a pair of tits on her head. “Fuck. I just… Oh God. Was it bad?”
“Ayda,” I breathed. “He isn’t dead. My dad…” I frowned harder, swallowing the harsh lump in my throat. “He’s still alive.”