Chapter 23 #2
Rue finally ran out of steam—having taken out all her frustrations on Code while OD shoved more food in his mouth—while grinning—and came over. “I won’t hug you since,” she gestured down at herself, “you know. You look amazing though. Love the shorts.”
“Thank you. It’s so nice to meet you both.”
“Sorry about them,” Rue said, jerking a finger over her shoulder. Most of the men and the teens gave matching toothy grins.
Dev’s eyes swept over everyone. “The bikers or the boys?”
Rue’s own grin grew huge. “Yes.”
They all laughed together while Code and Hype rolled their eyes. Ruck chuckled and shrugged when Code looked at him in disbelief. “What?” he asked. “Pretty sure they’re not talking about me.”
“Yeah, he’s alright,” Rue said, waving toward Ruck.
“Though he is the leader of this group,” Camila pointed out.
Rue turned and all three women stared at Ruck. “Good point,” Rue said.
“Hey,” Ruck started, but that didn’t stop the girls.
“Never mind,” Rue decided. “They’re all the same…even the dog.”
Norman poked his head up between Flir—which set him off on a cursing tirade—and the table and whined.
“Just kidding,” Rue said, then gave Devyn a wide eyed look. “Norman is sensitive,” she whispered. “The rest aren’t. And those two,” she pointed at the boys, “their heads are hard as rock and filled with candy. So just ignore them.”
“Hey,” Teddy said, swallowing down another bite.
“I think they just insulted us,” Ryan said with a wry smile.
“Joke’s on them,” Teddy smiled back conspiratorially. “We can eat faster than these old men. If they try to keep up, they’ll get reflux or some other old man’s disease.”
“What?” Merc yelled. “We’re not old like these fucks here, and reflux isn’t a disease numb-nuts.”
“Bolo is an ancient old man.” Ryan shoved more food in his mouth. “But I’m not really sure we can keep up with him.” The last was said in a lower voice for Teddy, though the rest of us heard. “Have you seen him eat?”
“Good point,” Teddy mumbled.
“Why don’t we move this over to the table?” I suggested. “Before one of the cretins mistakes your hand for food.”
“You just don’t want the food to disappear before you get some,” Devyn said with a laugh.
I gave her an ‘offended’ look then moved my finger between Camila and Rue. “You two are a bad influence.”
“We like her,” Rue replied.
Camila nodded. “Yeah. Good job bringing home a good one.”
Rue nodded in agreement, then frowned. “You realize there’s no way we can trust those three to pick their own women?” She motioned to Merc, Hype, and Code.
“Hmmm, we can help find them good women,” Camila commented.
“That’s not possible for those two,” Rue replied, pointing at Code and Hype. “Lost causes. We’ll work on him.”
Merc’s eyes widened as their focus settled on him.
“No. Not happening. I don’t need help,” Merc told them, sounding a bit panicked. “And I don’t need an old lady.”
“I have some friends,” Rue continued as though he hadn’t spoken.
“Blind dates work great sometimes,” Camila agreed with a nod. “We’ll set it up.”
Merc’s mouth was moving, but nothing that resembled words was coming out.
Camila grabbed Devyn’s hand, completely ignoring the biker’s shock and distress at the idea of the women setting him up. “Why don’t you come help us with a few more things. We can talk without all of…” she looked over at us, “all of that interrupting us.”
“Wait, are we the ‘that’, or are the boys the ‘that’?” Strike asked, clearly worried that this would affect his access to more food.
Drifter just shrugged. They’d been watching all the chaos quietly, content not to join in much and watch the girls run roughshod over everyone.
Kilo wisely kept his mouth closed when Code gave him a look that said ‘you going to let her say that?’ Because yes, yes he was. And so were the rest of us.
The kid would learn not to interfere when women were going to gift you with fucking delicious food.
Because if you opened your mouth and said stupid shit, the food would never come again.
And neither would the beautiful women that you were hoping to spend time with.
Code was still young. He had a lot of dumbass mistakes to make that the rest of us had already learned from.
It didn’t take long before Kilo and OD got up to bring all the grub into the dining room. Devyn was sitting between me and Relay, and she was actually managing to get my brother to talk a bit.
I met Ruck’s bemused stare as he watched over everyone while we ate.
Arching a brow, I silently asked what he was so amused over.
But I already knew. Somehow these women were starting to civilize us.
As much as we could be anyway. We were sitting down at a dinner table, in nice clothing, using actual table manners—I winced when Rue smacked Ryan’s knuckles with a fork when he went to reach for something instead of asking for it to be passed to him—and we were all mostly happy to be here.
This wave of contentment flooded through me.
I would’ve never guessed that this was what I was missing before.
The restless feeling I’d been living with for some time now was completely gone.
Devyn laughed at something Relay said and he grinned at her and I just sat there staring at them.
Who would’ve known that one woman could smooth out my life so easily?
I met Ruck’s gaze again and realized he’d known.
Bastard. Somehow he knew this was what we all needed. And he’d known it for quite a while.