Veronica
“Miss Hollifield.” It may just be my imagination, but his voice saying my name sounds like foreplay for my ears.
I hold back a soft moan and tighten my lips into a stiff smile. “Hello,” I say, refusing to call him Hawk but not sure I wouldn’t insult him if I called him Nico. “Thank you for having me.”
He doesn’t move from the front door, his massive chest filling the frame.
He’s taken off the leather vest and has changed into a long-sleeved blue plaid shirt.
The cotton looks soft, well broken in, and he’s rolled the sleeves up past his elbows, revealing tattoos on his massive forearms. He’s wearing midnight-blue jeans, and he’s got on light blue socks.
He stands there, staring at me, taking me in as if he’s not even sure what I’m doing here and whether he should let me in.
“I didn’t have time to change,” I explain, looking down at myself. I hadn’t even considered heading home to shower and change after the school board meeting, but now I wish I had. “I, uh…brought popcorn.”
“Popcorn?” he echoes, one corner of his mouth quirking up. He’s holding the door open, and I can see the muscles in his forearms flex.
“Well, it’s a school fundraiser. Profits go to the dance team, and I didn’t want to come without bringing something. It’s okay. I can just—”
“I love that shit. Thank you.” He continues to stand there, looking at me while I look at him.
Finally, a voice from behind him breaks our sensual staredown. “Ummm, Uncle Hawk? Are you going to let her in?” Daisy pushes her way between us, shoving the big man aside. “Hi, Miss Hollifield! Come on in.”
She grabs the bag from my hands and peeks inside. “No way! Holly!” she yells. “Dibs on the caramel.”
I chuckle at their enthusiasm and look back up to see that Hawk hasn’t moved. He’s still standing there looking at me like I’m the dinner and he can’t wait to devour me. I feel the pulse thud in my throat, and I nod. “Should I come in?”
He takes a long, deep breath like he’s reluctant to have to stop staring at me, but then he takes a step back and lets me inside. He closes the door, and I kick off my heels, leaving them on a small area rug.
We face each other there, looking at each other like two lost souls who have no clue how they ended up stuck together. It’s a strange feeling.
The house is beautiful, from what I can see. Lots of windows and natural light. The place is spotless, and the furnishings are modern but classic at the same time.
You’d never know two teenagers live here. This seems like the home of a successful businessperson, not a biker.
“So how do you know the girls’ parents?” I ask, setting my purse on the floor by my shoes.
Hawk shakes his head and picks it up. “Bad luck to leave your wallet or purse on the floor. The vessel for your money should always be protected.” He shocks the shit out of me by taking my purse and setting it gently on an end table beside the couch.
He nods toward the kitchen and lowers his voice.
“I’m gonna give you the PG answer to your question.
I’ll tell you the truth if we ever see each other again.
” As he says that, he leans close to my ear.
A whiff of something incredible travels from his lips to my skin.
He smells like faded cologne, not too strong, but alluring.
“Their daddy’s my buddy. Pretty simple how that works. ”
This man is something. I swallow and nod, then follow him into the kitchen. The girls have already started eating the popcorn, Daisy eating fistfuls of caramel right from the bag while Holly delicately plucks at the cheesy pieces.
“Go ahead,” Hawk says to them, “ruin your dinner with popcorn. More steak for the grown-ups.”
Daisy balls up a wet dishcloth and tosses it like a baseball at Hawk’s back, but he must be a pro at this because he turns and catches it effortlessly. He sets down the rag, then grabs a handful of popcorn from the bag and tosses it into his mouth.
“No fair,” Daisy grumbles but then moves the bag out of Hawk’s reach and goes right back to eating caramel corn.
“Y’all wanna offer Miss Hollifield something to drink?” he asks, turning toward the fridge. He opens it and pulls out a shallow glass dish covered in plastic wrap. Lovely cuts of steak are marinating in a sauce that I can smell all the way across the kitchen when he pulls off the wrapping.
“Can I help?” I ask, heading to the sink to wash my hands.
Hawk shakes his head at me, giving me a curious smile. He looks at me like he’s trying to read something deep inside my mind but can’t. “Take a load off. You worked all day. I’m gonna go out back to grill. Everything else is ready.”
The girls pour me some tea, and the three of us gather around the fridge to look at pictures of the family. Photos of their younger brother, a baby, and the girls’ father and stepmom.
“We have an incredibly smothering grandmother,” Holly says, pointing to a picture of a woman I recognize as a local politician. “She’s great, but strict. If she had been here the last few days, we would have been to school early.”
Daisy sighs dramatically. “It would have been awful. We begged Poppy and Dad to let one of the uncles come to stay.”
“What about Stella?” I ask. “The other woman on your guardian paperwork. Is she your uncle’s girlfriend?”
Holly and Daisy trade looks and then burst out laughing. “Uh, no,” Daisy says, happy to give me the dirt. She drops down into a kitchen chair and wipes caramel off her hands onto a napkin. “Stella is like… I mean, I guess I don’t know what she is.”
“She’s like a bartender at our dad’s compound.”
Okay, that sounds ominous. A compound with a bartender?
“But she’s not like dating anyone that I know of. Definitely not Uncle Hawk,” Daisy says.
“I see,” I say. “So how many uncles do you have?”
“A ton.” Holly gets up and pulls a salad from the fridge.
She starts mixing oil and vinegar and spices to make a dressing.
She shrugs. “Our dad has this like crew of friends. Some of them are really close friends. Like guys he trusts with his life and, of course, our lives. Uncle Hawk is one of those.”
That immediately brings warmth to my chest. Hawk must be a decent guy if their parents trust him with their teenagers.
“So, Stella hasn’t been staying here?” I ask, annoyed at my apparently endless curiosity over what Stella and Hawk may or may not have between them. “Just your uncle?”
Holly tosses the salad and hands it to her sister. “Honestly, I prefer Uncle Hawk. Although Stella probably wouldn’t have gotten burned while you were curling your hair.”
“Oh my God. I almost forgot.” Daisy jumps up from the table, drops the salad so close to the edge that I reach out to make sure it doesn’t fall on the floor, and then runs upstairs, making more noise than the freshman football team storming the field.
Holly shakes her head. “It’s our last night with him, so we got him a little thank-you present.”
I smile at their sweetness. They must really care about him.
It shouldn’t matter to me whether Hawk is a good man or not.
The girls are obviously safe with him. If he can get them to school on time tomorrow morning, everything will be right with the world, I guess.
But that’s not why I’m here, if I’m honest. I don’t have time to think through my motivations more, though.
Hawk is sliding open the patio doors and bringing a plate full of grilled steak in from the yard. “Soup’s on,” he calls, and this time, it’s Holly who looks a little confused.
“What soup?” she asks.
“It’s an expression, kid,” he says, setting the plate of thinly sliced grilled meat on the table. He focuses his chocolate-brown eyes on me, and it’s as if all the air leaves the room. “Everything here good?”
I don’t know how to answer that. But the food smells amazing, and Daisy is rushing back into the kitchen with something in her hands, so I go into administrator mode. “Everything is good,” I say, smiling at him. Then I watch as Daisy drops a small gift on the table beside Hawk’s plate.
“What’s that?” He looks between the girls suspiciously.
I sit back in my chair and take a long sip of tea.
Funny how much hotter it got in the kitchen now that Hawk is back.
I brush some loose hairs away from my face and try not to consume every movement Hawk makes with my eyes.
The long, muscular lines of his thighs beneath his jeans.
His tattooed hands. The thick brown hair that looks perfectly styled but not pretentious somehow.
“We got you a present,” Holly says.
“Well, we’re giving you a present. It’s not like we bought you anything,” Daisy clarifies.
Holly serves us each steak, salad, and bread, while Hawk opens his present. As soon as he tears the corner off the paper, he raises a brow and shakes his head.
The girls roar with laughter. I unfold my paper napkin and place it on my lap, not sure what I’m missing. But all of this feels good. Sweet, cold tea. The grilled steak. Salad perfectly dressed by Holly.
Hawk holds up his gift—a flat yellow plastic duck. “This,” he says, “saved me from permanent scarring.” He holds up his forearm. “Curling iron burn.”
I notice a soft pink mark that definitely could be a healing burn. The duck looks to be a freezer pack like the ones we use for sports injuries, but it’s a heck of a lot cuter.
The girls crack up, but Daisy gets up and yanks the duck from his hands. She marches over to the freezer and dramatically puts the duck in the side rack, facing out. “He’ll be right here when you need him next,” she promises.
After that, we dig into our dinners. The meal is great, and the kids keep the conversation rolling, which I’m happy about. I don’t say much, because every time I do, I feel the heat of Hawk’s stare. When he talks, I do the same to him.
Gone is the man who called me the School B and hung up on me just the other day. This man is gracious and warm. He’s heavily tattooed and looks terrifying and huge, but there’s a softness to him when he talks to the girls. A sweetness in the way he’s cooked for me and welcomed me in.
He brings out red velvet cupcakes for dessert, and the kids lose their minds…again.
“I should cut you off,” he says, pointing at Daisy. One perfect, thick brow arches at her. “If you get a stomachache from the popcorn and now dessert…”
Daisy argues that she’s not a toddler and she will not get a stomachache from too many sweets, and we all indulge in cupcakes. When the meal is over, I get up to do the dishes, but the kids try to rush me out of the kitchen.
“Don’t you have homework?” I ask. “I’m happy to clean up.”
The girls look at me as if they just now remembered that I’m their principal.
“We do,” Holly says, “but when Hawk cooks, we clean up. House rules.”
I bring my dish to the sink and turn to Hawk. “This was delicious,” I tell him. “Thank you. But I should let you all get on with your night.”
He opens his mouth to say something but then just nods. “Say goodnight, girls. I’m going to walk Miss Hollifield out.”
The sounds of those words make me a lot sadder than they should.