29 #3
“I know,” he said, the edge of his old performance flickering back. “That’s what makes me a saint.” Priest snorted, which immediately offended Evan’s sense of branding.
Evan pointed at him. “Do not ruin my branding.”
Blue laughed, soft and grateful. “It’s in the kitchen. Cooler bag on the counter.”
He gave her a mock salute. “A mission. Finally.”
He disappeared toward the kitchen while life around us kept moving. Blue and Tessa talked about ceremony chairs near the lake. Priest answered Raina about the turnout. Across the room, Jade bent over the pool table while Jackson watched her line up a shot, pride written all over him.
Then Evan came back too fast and without the bottle. His face had gone pale beneath the clubhouse lights. The brightness that usually filled every room with him had flattened into something so wrong I noticed before he reached us.
“I have to go.”
Confusion tightened Blue’s face. “What?”
Alarm had already replaced every other thought in my head. “Evan, what’s wrong?”
He shook his head too quickly. “Nothing. I just... don’t feel good all of a sudden. I need to go home before it gets worse.”
Even sick, Evan would have turned his suffering into theater. This flatness scared me more than dramatics ever could.
“Do you want me to come with you?” Every instinct in me was already preparing to follow.
“No.” The smile he gave me was thin and carefully assembled. “No, sweetheart, I’m fine. Just need my bed and silence and maybe something aggressively carbonated.”
He leaned down and kissed my cheek. His voice dropped low enough that no one else could hear. “Open yourself up to your biker hunk, Lila. You deserve happiness too, same as Blue.”
The words hit wrong for the moment, almost like a goodbye he had disguised as advice. I stared at him, but he had already turned to Blue.
“I’m so happy for you,” he told her, and whatever else he was hiding, that part was real. “Don’t let anybody ruin today for you.”
Blue caught his wrist. “Evan...”
He eased away before she could stop him and gave Tessa and Raina a quick wave. “Lovely meeting you both.”
Then he was gone before any of us could corner him into telling the truth. Blue stared after him, troubled enough that Priest’s attention sharpened immediately. “What the hell was that?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” I said. Worry had already settled under my ribs. “But that wasn’t right.”
Before I could decide whether to follow Evan, the kitchen door opened.
Ink came out first, one hand at his jeans, his cut hanging open over a dark T-shirt rumpled enough to erase any question about what had happened back there.
Vixen followed slowly, satisfaction written all over her while she rubbed at the corners of her mouth.
Understanding hit hard: Evan hadn’t suddenly felt sick. Blue’s body tightened beside Priest, and anger rose through me fast enough to burn away my confusion.
Priest took in the scene and muttered, “Oh shit.” The curse carried the same realization that had just hit me.
Ink didn’t notice us immediately. Vixen curled toward him again, but he shrugged her off without looking at her. Then his eyes found the couches, and his pace slowed as he started toward us.
Ink’s gaze moved over the couches as he approached. “Hey.” He gave the group a small chin lift, then his eyes swept the room again before settling back on Blue. “Where’d Evan disappear to?”
Blue turned toward him with enough ice in the movement to make me almost pity him. Priest lowered his gaze and shook his head once.
“Fuck, man,” he said under his breath.
Ink looked between us, confusion turning wary. “What?”
Nobody seemed eager to answer, so I did.
“He went to the kitchen to grab a bottle for Little Jax,” I said. “Then he came back almost immediately looking pale and said he felt sick. He left before we could really talk to him.”
Ink’s confusion disappeared as the pieces started fitting together. His attention shifted past us toward the front doors, his body going unnaturally still.
Ink went still as the meaning landed. His eyes flicked toward the kitchen, then to Vixen behind him, and something hard twisted across his face.
“Shit.”
He dug his keys from his pocket and turned for the doors.
Vixen reached for his arm. “Ink, wait—”
He brushed her off without slowing, every trace of that careless detachment gone. Whatever had happened in that kitchen had just become secondary to the fact that Evan had seen enough to walk out hurt.
A second later the clubhouse doors slammed behind him.
No one on the couches needed an explanation. We all knew what Evan had seen and why Ink had gone after him.
Priest exhaled and pressed his mouth near Blue’s temple, soothing her automatically. “They’ll work it out.”
Blue turned on him with the precise fury of a surgeon choosing where to cut. “In the meantime,” she said, “I want to slice Ink’s testicles off slowly with a scalpel for obviously hurting my friend.”
Tessa choked on a laugh. Raina covered her mouth, but the battle was already lost.
“Priest,” Raina said, still grinning, “you better stay on your best behavior with that one.”
Priest smirked against Blue’s hair. “Always.”