21. Flame
FLAME
Grey and I follow Michael into the living room.
I take a seat on the giant, L-shaped, black leather sofa, moving one of the twenty throw blankets that are placed around the living room.
I can tell my girl loves them; they are all different prints and textures like she collects them or some shit.
The more time I spend in her space, the more and more I learn about her.
After the conversation at dinner, I can tell how protective she is of this cozy space that she has created for herself.
This huge, welcoming house is the place that I can see us coming home to at the end of a long day in the fucked-up world that we both live in.
It’s not my home yet, but I will be working on it for the next two weeks.
That is, if Smoke doesn’t kill me on the way back to the clubhouse tonight.
It’s time to have the conversation with him, and I’m not sure how he will feel about it.
He just met his new sister, but I can tell that he cares about her and is already fuckin’ protective, which I get.
Willow is the most genuinely kind and forgiving person that I have ever met.
It shows in the way that she forgave Smoke the day after their shitty first meeting, and in the fact that she didn’t kick Grey out of her house for being a dick to her.
Instead, she cooked him fuckin’ dinner. I can tell that in the future, I will have to step in when her forgiving nature gets in the way.
I don’t mind being a dick so she doesn’t have to be.
She is a contradiction of a sassy, badass contract killer and a naive, sweet, tiny woman who doesn’t need to be physically protected, but to have her feelings protected.
This is going to be a lot of work for me, but I will give her everything that I have to keep every part of her safe.
She and Smoke will get that when I prove myself, but first, I have to make it out alive from this conversation with her dad.
Michael is already a badass protector with an army of killers behind him, but he is even more deadly now after someone threatened his daughter. He is also staring daggers at Grey, and he works for him. I take that as a sign that we are both on level ground going into this conversation.
Grey also takes a seat, but as far away from me as he could on the giant couch.
When I first “met” him, I was more focused on how he was treating Willow and sizing him up to beat the shit out of him for how he spoke to my girl.
All I could recall about him was the stupid blonde hair with the military haircut, that he looked like he lived in a fuckin’ gym, and to my displeasure, two full sleeves of tattoos that were fuckin’ impressive.
If I didn’t hate him on the spot, I would have asked him who did them.
Dicks don’t deserve badass work like that. They deserve shitty line work and misspelled, uneven tattoos that look like they were done in someone’s garage. I also recalled that he had that whole rugged, buff, manly thing going on.
It pissed me off that my girl was going on a trip with someone that looked like a fuckin’ Abercrombie model had a baby with the Hulk and the Rock.
I’m sure my little Fox noticed how hot he is.
Fuck, even I do! It was a relief when I saw she was actively ignoring his presence.
He was not the one getting the sweet smiles and blushes that she was trying to hide.
He didn’t have her checking him out when she thought he was distracted; that was all me.
It gives me hope that even though she is completely out of my league, she hasn’t realized that yet, so I still have a chance.
I look back at Michael when Grey and I are done staring each other down.
He’s glaring at us with a furrowed brow.
He runs his fingers through his short hair, pulling it a little, and closes his eyes.
He takes a deep breath before opening them again and giving us pointed looks like it’s our fault.
I’m starting to think he is a little frustrated with this situation, even if he was acting fine with it at the dinner table.
“I’m going to ask this question once, and I will know if you are bullshitting me. Is there something going on with you two and my daughter?” he asks us in a serious tone. I see what he did there in reminding us that she is his daughter.
“No,” “Not yet,” Grey and I say at the same time, and Michael and Grey look at me like they want to set me on fire.
“What do you mean ‘yet’?” Michael asks me in a deadly calm voice.
“I mean that I am going to claim her as my ‘Ol Lady,” I say in a confident voice.
The room is quiet for a minute, filling with more and more tension.
Then, out of nowhere, Michael lets out a chuckle, which turns into flat-out laughing.
At some point, the asshole is laughing so hard, I see a tear trying to come out of his left eye, which he wipes away as he calms down.
“I hope the boys and I can be there when you tell her that you are claiming her.” Taking a deep breath to collect himself, he stops laughing at me, then turns to Grey.
“Nothing happened when you were away?” he asks Grey again. I don’t point out that he said he was only asking once; I still need my future father-in-law to like me.
“Of course nothing happened. She’s a child,” Grey replies in an offended tone.
“She’s the same age as her brothers,” I throw out. My woman is tiny, but she is all fuckin’ woman, especially after I got a good look at all of her curves that made me want to peel off her tight shorts that she was walking around in all night.
Grey looks surprised for a second, and then shakes his head. I am feeling better about their relationship by the second. How could you spend two weeks with someone and not know their age?
“It doesn’t matter. I have no interest in her,” he states in a defensive tone. I wonder if he is saying it to Michael or to himself. Seems my little Fox is messing with his head, too—he’s just too much of a pussy to admit it.
“You sure? Because I know my daughter, and I have never seen her show so much anger directed at someone from Vital. She gets along with everyone. I find it strange that you two go on a job, you don’t use the room accommodations that I set you up with, and you come back at each other’s throats all night.
It may be normal for you, but not Will,” he says while analyzing Grey’s face like he is trying to look for the lies.
“I stayed in the house with her because that’s what Kaiser usually does. If she needed back up, I needed to be close by,” Grey replies in a matter-of-fact tone. My head is just moving back and forth between them like those Spanish soap operas that my mom used to watch when I was a kid.
“Kaiser does stay at the accommodation with her, but I decided to get you your own since you didn’t know each other well.
Also, I believe that I mentioned before you left that you were not ‘back up’ for her job.
You were the point of contact while she was gone.
My daughter is capable of running her own jobs from start to finish.
” His tone goes from annoyed to proud by the time he’s finished.
“Nothing happened. We just have conflicting thoughts and personalities,” is all Grey says, still not elaborating. Michael and I can tell he is done talking about whatever happened while they were gone.
After another round of silence, Michael breaks it again.
“Next is some information that both of you should know before staying with Will for the next few weeks. First, I want to thank you both for helping while I am gone. She isn’t worried about the stalker, but I don’t like it.”
“Why don’t you make her go with you on the jobs if you don’t like her being by herself?” Grey blurts out like he can’t keep the question in anymore. Seeing how calculated and detached he is, this must really be driving him crazy if he has to break character.
“Will was right in what she said at the table. She can defend herself, and she does need a chance to finish setting up her life here. When we were setting things up to move here, she tried to make it work when she wasn’t with her mother.
Her life was put on hold so that she could take care of the rest of us,” Michael says in a guilty tone.
“She only agreed to put up with someone staying with her because she knows it would help her brothers and I not worry about her while we are gone. My daughter has always been the most selfless person, and she needs to figure out how to be selfish sometimes,” he says as he rubs his temples and closes his eyes, like the idea is giving him a headache.
Not sure if it is the thought of her going out on her own or the fact that he can’t force her to put herself first.
“I can take care of her. I don’t need him here stressing her out more than she already will be when you guys are gone.
I haven’t spent much time with her yet, but anyone can see that she loves you.
She said multiple times tonight that she doesn’t want any bullshit coming in her safe space.
I think we should respect that,” I say to Michael, ignoring Grey completely.
“Even if she doesn’t see why having someone with formal training would help her, she knows that it will help Michael.
He knows I can keep her safe, and that means more to her than some biker with his head stuck up her ass hanging around,” Grey responds while leaning forward on the couch, resting his elbows on his knees.