Chapter Twenty-One
Hazel
My feet hurt.
Not the cute kind of hurt where I could kick off my shoes and complain for five minutes before forgetting about it. They fucking hurt.
I rolled my shoulders as I drove down the dark road toward home, trying to work out the knot that had settled between them sometime around ten o’clock.
Bing’s hadn’t been insanely busy, but it had been steady all night, and steady almost seemed worse.
There hadn’t been enough of a lull to sit down for more than two minutes, but there also hadn’t been enough chaos to make the hours fly by.
Crystal had left before me, and Kori had spent the last twenty minutes of our shift talking about the cinnamon roll she’d saved from the farmers market like she had a lover waiting for her at home.
I was pretty sure she needed help.
Then again, the cinnamon roll had been really good.
I smiled and turned onto my road.
The farther I got from town, the darker it became. Houses disappeared, streetlights became nonexistent, and trees crowded both sides of the road. I’d thought it might bother me when I’d first moved here.
It didn’t.
I liked it.
For half a second, Bone crossed my mind. Not that I’d spent all night thinking about him.
I hadn’t. I was pretty proud of that fact.
Okay, maybe I’d thought about him twice. Three times. Possibly four, but one of those had been because Taco and his stupid strawberry jam had popped into my head, and that had led to Bone, so I didn’t think it should count.
Either way, I wasn’t sitting around wondering when he was going to call.
We’d had sex.
Amazing sex.
Then he’d left the next morning.
That was okay. I didn’t need to turn it into something it wasn’t.
I slowed as my house came into view.
Pink’s porch light was on next door, but the rest of her house was dark. Mine was exactly how I’d left it, with the little lamp in the living room glowing through the front window.
Except there was something in my driveway that hadn’t been there when I’d left.
A motorcycle. My stomach flipped. “Oh.” I pulled in behind my unexpected visitor and killed the engine.
For someone I’d been doing such an excellent job not thinking about, I knew exactly whose bike it was before I even saw him.
Bone sat on my front porch.
He was leaned back in one of the chairs with his long legs stretched in front of him, boots crossed at the ankles. His cut was open over a black T-shirt, and even in the dim light from the porch, I could see his arms folded over his chest.
Waiting for me.
I sat in the SUV for a second. “Well,” I whispered. Apparently, Bone hadn’t gotten over doing the casual disappearing act.
I grabbed my purse and climbed out.
His head turned toward me. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I shut the door and hit the lock. “How long have you been sitting there?”
“Not long.” That could mean five minutes or three hours coming from him.
I walked toward the porch. “You know most people text before they show up at someone’s house.”
“I was in the area.”
I stopped on the bottom step. “The clubhouse is two miles away.”
“Exactly.”
I laughed.
Bone’s mouth twitched.
“That’s not what ‘in the area’ means.”
“Close enough.”
I climbed the steps and he stood.
That was when I really looked at him.
Something was off.
Not bad, exactly.
Just... heavier.
Bone wasn’t exactly a bubbly man on his best day, but tonight there was something behind his eyes that hadn’t been there the last time I’d seen him.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
I nodded.
If he didn’t want to talk about it, I wasn’t going to drag it out of him.
I moved toward the door. “Want to come inside?”
“Hazel.”
My hand stopped halfway into my purse.
I looked at him. “What?”
He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”
That wasn’t what I’d expected. “With what?”
His eyes locked on mine.
I knew.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
I pulled my keys from my purse but didn’t unlock the door. Instead, I leaned back against it. “Okay.”
His eyebrows pulled together. “Okay?”
“Yeah.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means okay.”
He stared at me.
I smiled a little. “You’re not very good at this, are you?”
“At what?”
“This.” I waved my hand between us.
His jaw tightened. “No.”
At least he admitted it.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Then tell me what you’re trying to say.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“I figured.”
“With club shit.”
“I figured that too.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “You’re not pissed?”
“Should I be?”
“I don’t fucking know.”
“Neither do I.”
He blew out a breath and looked toward the yard.
I watched him for a second.
Bone was strange.
Not strange in a Taco-buying-jam-at-the-farmers-market way. Bone was strange because I could almost see him fighting with himself while he stood there.
Everything about him seemed so controlled.
He was the president of a motorcycle club. People listened when he talked. I’d seen that the night the guys came into Bing’s. Even surrounded by all of those big personalities, there had been something different about Bone.
He didn’t have to be the loudest. He didn’t have to demand attention. He just had it.
But standing on my porch? The man looked like he’d rather fight ten people at once than explain what the hell he was doing with me.
“You know,” I said, “we could make this really easy.”
His eyes came back to mine.
“How?”
“If you don’t want to do this, don’t.”
His face immediately hardened.
I held up my hand. “I’m not mad.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You look like you’re about to argue with me.”
“I probably am.”
I laughed softly. “Okay, then wait until I’m done before you do.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I like you.”
His eyes stayed on mine.
“I obviously find you attractive.”
His mouth twitched.
“Don’t get cocky.”
“Wasn’t.”
“You were about to,” I laughed.
“Maybe,” he admitted.
I rolled my eyes. “And what happened the other night was...” I paused. “Very good.”
“Very?”
“Don’t push it.”
He almost smiled. That helped.
“But I don’t know what you’re looking for, Bone. And honestly? I don’t think you know either.”
The almost-smile disappeared.
“You’ve got the club. You’re president. I get that it isn’t some weekend hobby where you guys put on leather vests and ride motorcycles around town.”
“Cuts.”
“What?”
“They’re cuts.”
I blinked. “That’s what you took from that?”
“You called it a vest.”
“Fine. Leather cuts.”
His lips twitched again. “Better.”
“You’re impossible.”
“So I’ve been told.”
I shook my head. “Anyway, I get it. The club is your life.”
“Yeah.” No hesitation. I liked that. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I did. Bone knew exactly who he was when it came to the Grave Prowlers.
“I can see that.”
He watched me.
“I’ve been around you enough to see it. Your guys call, you go.
Something needs to be done, you handle it.
You’re checking on your mom all the time.
You’ve got the coffin business. You’ve got whatever else comes with being president.
” A whole lot of whatever else, if I had to guess, but that wasn’t my business.
At least not right now.
“You don’t stop,” I said.
“No.”
“And that’s okay.”
He frowned. “You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep looking at me like I’m supposed to be mad.”
“A lot of women would be.”
“I’m not a lot of women.”
“No.” Something about the way he said it sent a little shiver through me.
I ignored it. Mostly. “I moved here because I didn’t have anything holding me in Ohio. I got handed a house out of nowhere, packed up everything I owned, hooked a trailer to my SUV, and drove to Wisconsin.”
“By yourself.”
“By myself,” I parroted.
“Still fucking crazy.”
“Still did it,” I laughed.
He nodded. “Yeah, you did.”
“I don’t have some grand plan, Bone. I don’t know what my life is going to look like six months from now. Hell, two weeks ago, I didn’t know Pink existed. Now she feeds me three times a week and walks into my house without knocking.”
“Welcome to my life.”
I laughed. “Exactly. I got a job. I met Crystal and Kori. I bought honey from happy bees this morning.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Happy bees?”
“Apparently.”
“How the fuck do you know they’re happy?”
“I don’t. The guy was very convincing.”
He shook his head.
“And I found out Taco has a secret relationship with strawberry jam.”
Bone laughed.
I smiled. “He told you?”
“He didn’t have to.”
“He was so embarrassed.”
“He should be.”
“There is nothing wrong with jam,” I tried to defend him.
“That’s what he said.”
“Rowdy told us he goes every Saturday.”
Bone shook his head. “Fucking Taco.”
I let the smile linger for another second before getting back to what mattered. “My point is, I’m just going with things right now. I don’t need to know exactly what everything is.”
Bone’s amusement faded. “I don’t do relationships.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
His jaw tightened. “You gonna say anything else?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.”
I pushed away from the door.
“If you don’t do relationships, you don’t do relationships.”
“Hazel.”
“What?”
“Why the fuck are you making this so easy?”
I stared at him. “Would you rather I cry?”
He visibly cringed. “No.”
“Yell?”
“No.”
“Throw something?”
“Fuck no.”
“Then I’m confused about what you’re looking for here.”
He dragged a hand over his beard. “I don’t know.”
Something in his face made me believe him. Bone really didn’t know what the hell he was doing here.
I stepped closer. “You thought we’d have sex and that would be it.”
His eyes snapped to mine.
I smiled. “I’m right.”
He didn’t answer.
“Oh my God,” I laughed.
“Don’t.”
“You did.”
“I said don’t.”
“You thought you’d sleep with me and get me out of your system.”
His expression told me everything.
I started laughing.
“It’s not fucking funny.”
“It kind of is.”
“How?”
“Because you’re sitting on my porch.”
That shut him up.
I lifted my eyebrows. “Looks like your plan didn’t work.”
“No.”
The word came out low.
My laughter died.
There was no hesitation that time either.
“No?” I repeated.
His eyes dropped to my mouth. “No.”
I swallowed. “Mine didn’t either.”
“What was your plan?”
“I didn’t have one.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
I smiled. “I told you. I’m going with it.”
“You just go with everything?”
“Not everything.”
His eyes lifted back to mine. “But this?”
I nodded. “This, I can go with.”
He stared at me for so long I wondered what was happening inside that head of his. Probably a lot of swearing.
Finally, I reached out and hooked my finger beneath the edge of his cut. “Maybe you’re making this harder than it needs to be.”
“How?”
“Because you’re trying to figure out what we’re supposed to be.”
“Aren’t you?”
“No.”
That seemed to surprise him.
I shrugged. “If titles are what you don’t want, then we don’t have to call this anything.”
His eyes narrowed. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means exactly what I said.”
“We’re fucking.”
I laughed. “You really are romantic.”
“Never claimed to be.”
“No, you certainly did not.”
His hand settled on my hip.
I stepped closer. “We don’t need boyfriend. Girlfriend. Relationship. Casual. Friends with benefits. Whatever.”
His thumb moved against my side. “Then what are we?”
I looked up at him. “Hazel and Bone.”
He went completely still.
I watched his face. Bone didn’t seem built for huge reactions, but the tension around his mouth eased. His shoulders relaxed, and his hand tightened slightly on my hip.
“Hazel and Bone,” he repeated.
“That’s it.”
“No rules?”
I thought about that. “One.”
His eyebrows lifted. “What’s that?”
“Don’t be an asshole.”
He snorted. “That might be a problem.”
“Then try really hard.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t need a rule.”
“Bullshit.”
I smiled sweetly. “I’m delightful.”
“You’re a pain in my ass.”
“And yet...” I glanced around my porch. “Here you are.”
His eyes darkened. “Yeah.” His other hand landed on my hip.
He pulled me against him and I went willingly.
Very willingly.
My hands slid up his chest. “You know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think you missed me.”
“No.”
“Liar.”
“I don’t miss people.”
“Okay.”
His eyes narrowed. “You don’t believe me.”
“Not even a little.”
“I had shit going on,” he insisted.
“I know.”
“Important shit.”
“I believe you.”
“I wasn’t sitting around thinking about you.”
“Bone,” I sighed.
“What?”
“Stop talking.”
His mouth came down on mine finally.
I smiled against his lips for half a second before the kiss wiped every smart-ass thought out of my head.
There was nothing tentative about Bone.
There never had been.
His hand slid around my back and pulled me flush against him as his mouth moved over mine. I curled my fingers into his shirt, holding on as he backed me against the front door.
My keys dug into my palm.
His mouth left mine and moved along my jaw.
“You still think you didn’t miss me?” I whispered.
He lifted his head. “I never said that.”
I blinked. “You literally did.”
“Changed my mind.”
I laughed. “That fast?”
“Shut up, Hazel.” He kissed me again. I melted right back into him.
This was what I’d felt from the first time we’d met.
That pull, except now I understood it a little better.
Bone carried the weight of an entire club on his shoulders. I’d moved across two states because someone I’d never met left me a house and I’d decided, why the hell not?
Bone needed to know where everything fit.
I didn’t.
Maybe that was why this worked. Or maybe it was going to crash and burn spectacularly. Either way, I wasn’t running from it.
Bone’s mouth moved to my neck.
My head tipped back against the door.
“Inside.”
“Good idea.”
I blindly shoved my key toward the lock. I twisted it, shoved the door open, and nearly fell backward into the house.
Bone caught me around the waist.
I burst out laughing.
“Smooth,” he muttered.
“I had it handled.”
“You were falling.”
“Gracefully.”
“Sure.”
He kicked the door shut behind us. I dropped my purse somewhere near the couch. Bone’s hands landed on me again.
This time when he kissed me, the laughter disappeared. Heat took its place.
I slid my arms around his neck as he pulled me closer, and there wasn’t a single thought in my head about what we were supposed to call this.
I didn’t need one.
Neither did he.
We were Hazel and Bone.
For now, that was enough.
I grabbed his hand and started backing toward the hallway.
His eyes dropped to our joined hands and then lifted to mine. “Where are we going?”
I smiled. “You know exactly where we’re going.”
That slow smirk spread across his face. “Lead the way.”