Chapter 27 #2
But once on the inside, we were soft as shit, willing to bend and become whatever we needed to be whenever they needed us to be it.
We were Hounds, but we weren’t all about the roaring and the howling.
We whimpered for each other, too. We stayed tight.
I loved him… and whether it was the event coming up in just a few days time or not, I didn’t know, but I suddenly wasn’t sure which ones of us were going to make it anymore, and which ones weren’t.
And that scared the living shit out of me.
The week wore on. Everyone was getting ready for the big night on Friday.
What was going to be disguised as Tate’s belated sixteenth birthday party was, in fact, a ploy to draw out Jacob and all Tate’s teammates in the hope that we could entice Jacob’s Nav friend out into the moonlight, while also getting a glimpse at every boy and man from Babylon High, and how they reacted around Sloane.
Howard had been present in the school all week, as had two of his men.
Tate and Sloane, much to theirs and Libby’s protests, had gone along with the plan for them to be seen as a couple, once again, to the majority of Babylon.
They’d gone to classes holding hands. They’d gone to Rusty’s after school to eat waffles and ice cream while Ayda served them with a not-at-all-worried smile.
Our efforts to portray a breezy life to everyone that might be watching us were award winning.
Even I was playing the doting Prince Charming to my Ayda every time we walked through Babylon together, or I pushed through the door of Rusty’s.
Ayda could have won an Oscar for her performance.
She told me while we had a few minutes alone that it wasn’t an act, it was just pushing that doubt to the back while she focused on the promise of tomorrow I’d planted in her mind.
Her performances weren’t all for me, though.
Even when Tate and Sloane were in Rusty’s, she doted over the couple as though they were always meant to be together.
No matter what was put in front of her, what was asked of her, she did without question, and happily.
There were only a couple of seconds of doubt on her cheerful face, and they were almost too fast to really pay attention to, but even Deeks had said they were concerning.
On the Thursday before the event we were holding on Friday, I was in my office, going over the plans in my own bubble of isolation.
I wasn’t withdrawing, exactly… I just knew when I needed time to think and when I needed to be alone.
Ayda, once again, shone, letting me go whenever I gave her a look that I couldn’t quite put into words.
It was Slater who pushed through my office door without knocking, forcing my attention to snap up.
“How you feeling?” he asked without fuss. It was what made him such a good Sarge for the club.
I leaned back in my chair, dropping my pen to the desk. “Cautious,” I answered.
“It’s just a birthday party.” He held his hands in the air as he walked forward. “That’s all it needs to be. There’re no guarantees the Nav will show.”
“He’ll show.”
“And Jacob?”
“He’ll definitely show.”
“What if…” He stopped himself as he sank into the seat opposite me, placing his hands on the desk and looking up at me through the thickness of his heavy brows. “This could go like last time, Tucker. I need to know, as your Sarge, that you’re going to do things differently this time.”
“Differently?”
“As in, you’re not going to enter any situations alone. You’re not going to leave Ayda alone. You’re not going to do anything…”
“... alone,” I finished for him. “No, captain. I’m not going to do anything alone.”
“And if the Navs show?”
“I’ll be respectful. I just want to see their faces. I’ll know if they have a problem as soon as I look them in the eyes.”
Slater nodded, but I could see the tactician trying to read all the unspoken thoughts that were lingering in my eyes. “Good.”
“Did I pass?” I asked sarcastically.
He huffed out a laugh and shook his head. “You always do, Tucker.” With that, he stood and slapped his hand on the desk before he turned to leave. “Stay alive this time.”
“Always do,” I called back out, watching as he disappeared through the door, only for Tate’s head to replace Slater’s. “Don’t tell me, Hanagan… you want to go over a few last minute details, too.”
He slipped through the crack in the door, his eyes never meeting mine until he sank into the chair Slater had been sitting in just moments before.
When he looked up at me, he looked like a young man trying to hide the fact that he was nervous.
It reminded me of all the times I’d looked at Pete the same way, and I instantly felt a tightening in my chest. Whatever I’d done or not done to earn Tate’s respect and weird adoration, I was grateful for it.
It made me feel like I was something I’d never be until the Hanagans had showed up in my life.
“You okay?” I asked him quietly.
Tate nodded, twisting his hands together in his lap but pushing his chest out to seem more confident than he felt. “Tomorrow night…”
“Yeah?”
“Am I meant to, you know…? Sloane. Am I supposed to kiss her and carry this on?”
“Yeah.” I smiled flatly, hating the position I’d put him in. “That gonna be okay for you and Libby?”
“Libby actually seems cooler with it than I do. She knows this is for the good of the club.”
“Good to know.”
“I’m just worried what else I’m going to have to do for the good of the club.” His eyes penetrated mine with questions I couldn’t possibly answer.
I couldn’t promise Tate a life without sacrifice. Not with us. I couldn’t promise him that he’d never have to do anything else that made him feel uncomfortable after this. There was only one promise I could make.
“You’ll always be loved and protected by this band of brothers, Tate. Always. It might not seem easy at times, but anything worth having in life never is.”
“You sound like Ayda.” He smirked.
“She’s rubbing off on me a little bit.” I rolled my eyes and tried to play it cool, but the kid meant a lot to me, and that was becoming more and more obvious with the instant smile that I had to try and bite back every time he was around.
“I really don’t wanna know,” he grumbled before he pretended to vomit.
“You’re screwing two women right now. You’ve no room to judge me.”
“Only for the good of the club,” Tate bit back as he pushed up from the chair and towered over me. “And Sloane is like my sister now. Don’t talk about her like that.”
“There’s hope for you yet, kid,” I said as I stared up at him. Nothing made me respect a man more than when he stood up for a woman. A boy. A girl. Whatever the hell these kids all were. “Now get out of here.”
He turned to leave, and I thought I’d gotten rid of him before he leaned back and peered around the door one final time.
“Is it true you’re gonna marry my sister?” he asked, his lips pursed.
“Excuse me?”
“Asking for a friend.”
I narrowed my eyes and leaned farther over my desk. “You tell that sister of yours to stop asking people to find things out for her that I’m willing to tell her myself every second of every minute of every goddamn day, Little Hanagan. Now get… out… of… here.”
He went with his laughter trailing behind him, while I shook my head and swallowed down my own laughter, too.
It might have been the tension of what was to come, the nerves playing out, I wasn’t sure, but as I met everyone out in that bar later that night, it seemed we were all laughing way too much considering that a group of brothers were loading up guns in one corner of The Hut, while Deeks and Harry were pulling our bulletproof vests from an old bag at the other side of the room.
Were we being over cautious? Probably.
Did we have a right to be? Abso-fucking-lutely.
We’d gone on a dinner date just a few months earlier and almost died.
Tomorrow we were setting up a trap that didn’t just involve us, but half the population of Babylon.
We had a band playing in Rusty’s diner. We were hosting an open happy hour for people to walk in while Autumn, Janette, and Sam mixed up Tate Hanagan special cocktails for the locals.
It was like the Emps funeral all over again.
A farce. A stage for us all to play on. Only this time we knew who was watching in the shadows and we had a right to be twitchy.
After I’d run through some of the finer details with my brothers, I’d spotted Ayda looking quiet on the stool by the bar.
As soon as I’d seen that vacant stare gazing into the bottom of an empty tumbler, I made my way over to her, dropped my hands to her shoulders and began to massage the tension out of her muscles.
“Come to bed with me tonight?” she whispered quietly, her eyes still trained on the glass in her hands.
I hated the way her voice sounded pained, but I loved the words she spoke, regardless. “Want me to take you there now?”
A ghost of a smile appeared on her face as she put the glass on the bar. When she twisted on the stool to face me, she glanced up with eyes that were unreadable. The small smile on her lips made her bottom lip tremble.
“I need you inside of me.”
I wasted no time in lifting her off the stool until she wrapped her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist. The men had seen it all before.
They barely batted an eye our way. I wouldn’t have known if they had anyway.
I was too lost, looking up at the fucking love of my life as her hair fell around my face, creating a curtain of privacy that left one ex-playboy wannabe staring at one hell of an angel he definitely didn’t deserve.