22. Veronica
Veronica
When I wake up the next morning, I slip into soft sweats and a T-shirt.
Poor Hawk is passed out, drained dry, no doubt from the night.
The lingerie Millie sent me is ruined. I don’t think even a dry cleaner could get the oils and fluids out of that lace.
I ball it up and slip it back into the backpack.
I’ll throw it out when I’m home. I forgot to bring other shoes, so I slide on my heels and head out into the hallway.
I close the bedroom door carefully behind me and tiptoe as quietly as I can in heels. When I reach the main room of the compound, I can see that the party was indeed a good one. People are passed out on every piece of furniture. The place smells like sex, weed, and booze.
Tank has his jeans unzipped and is asleep sitting up in a chair with a video game controller in his hand.
I can’t help but laugh at the sight. All the uninhibited sex that goes on around here does somewhat unnerve me, but I get it.
These bikers are unattached and free. Why wouldn’t they party while they can?
But I find myself looking for the guys I know have wives or girlfriends waiting for them back at home. I don’t see Shadow or Savage among the half-naked people. I do, however, see Phantom. He’s standing behind the bar, holding a mug in his hand.
He raises a brow at me and cocks his head in invitation. I tiptoe around the sleeping forms, careful not to step on anyone.
“Come on,” Phantom says, his voice low.
I follow him past the bar into a huge commercial kitchen. Empty pizza boxes are stacked high in piles, and bags filled with trash are tied up and overflowing the bins. This place is a mess and my instinct, even though I don’t know where anything goes, is to start cleaning.
“Can I do anything?” I ask quietly.
Phantom shakes his head. “We’ve got people whose job it is. It can wait until they wake up.” He points to a huge coffeemaker.
“Yes, please. And do you mind if I grab some water?”
He motions to the stainless-steel fridge. “Take a couple bottles back for your man too.”
My man. I grin. There is nothing boyish about Hawk.
Is he mine? I look at Phantom, who looks showered and fresh. “Did you stay here last night?” I ask, wondering if he’ll understand what I’m asking.
“Yeah. Poppy’s mom wanted to have a sleepover with her grandkids, but…” He waves his hand toward the party. “I don’t play like I used to.”
He grabs a mug from a cabinet and hands it to me. I pour myself some coffee, and he pushes a bowl of sugar across the counter. “Milk’s in the fridge.”
I spoon a little sugar into my coffee and stir. “Was it hard for you?” I ask. “Going from that—” I, too, motion toward where the party was “—to being a family man?”
I have so many questions, and I hope I’m not offending him. This isn’t an interrogation, but I wonder how the bikers’ wives tolerate knowing about the parties, the drinking, the drugs, and all the nudity their men are exposed to all the time.
Phantom must have had this conversation before or else he can understand what I’m thinking by the skeptical look on my face.
“Fuck no, not for me,” he says. “I had the girls—shared custody with their mom—until I met Poppy. Then my ex went through some shit, and I took them full time. Best years of my life.”
He sips his coffee and looks at me over the mug. He’s even bigger than Hawk, if I can believe it, and yet talking to him like this over coffee in the kitchen on a Sunday morning feels like the most natural thing in the world.
“Your daughters are incredible,” I say, and I think he can tell from my voice that I mean it. “They are so lucky to have Poppy as a stepmom.”
The word catches in my throat.
“I grew up without my mom, and my dad never remarried. I didn’t want my kids to feel that hole like I did.
They deserve more. But it wasn’t always easy.
That’s the thing about family. We do right by each other in the ways that matter.
” He shoots me a look. “Goes the same for the brotherhood. We ain’t always easy to live with, but when we get wifed up, that’s that.
No more fucking around. No straying. I’d kick the ass of any one of my guys who disrespected their woman. ”
I must look shocked.
“Now, if you’re like Tank out there, single and celebrating?
” Phantom laughs, and I can actually see his teeth, he’s grinning so big.
“They get all the pussy and video games they want. But me, Shadow, Savage, and now Hawk?” He lowers his brows, serious.
“When we commit, we’re committed. No two ways about it. ”
“You think Hawk’s committed?” I don’t even want to ask the question, but I need to know the answer. I have to trust Hawk, this man who’s claimed my heart in ways I thought no one ever could.
“No question.” Phantom comes closer to me and sets his mug down on the counter.
“We protect our own, and when we trust someone enough to let them in…” He shakes his head.
“It’s absolute. Done deal. You don’t have to worry about him eyeballing Stella or foolin’ around with the club bitches.
I know him. Have known him a long time. He’s in this with you.
If,” he says, putting emphasis on the word, “you’re in this with him.
” He takes a couple bottles of water out of the fridge and hands them to me.
“You been okay? Since that incident at school?”
I nod, not sure if I should thank him for hurting the father of a student. In this moment, it feels like the right thing to do. “I never said thank you—” I start, but Phantom cuts me off with a hand.
“Like I said,” he says. “We protect our own.”
He moves to pass me, but then he turns back. “I spent a lot of years in prison,” he tells me.
I’m not shocked, but I make sure my face doesn’t reveal even the least bit of surprise.
“Not all at once, but I went away enough to know what matters. And sometimes the juice just isn’t worth the squeeze.
Sometimes, you squeeze or you die. I make every choice based on one moral code, one set of laws.
What would I do to protect my family? That may not keep me out of trouble, but it’s the only code that has never failed me.
” He gives me another smile that is disarmingly big and sincere. “Welcome to the Heat, Miss Hollifield.”
After he leaves me in the kitchen, I tuck the bottles of water into the pockets of my sweats and tighten the string so they don’t fall down, and I refill my coffee.
Then I head back to Hawk’s room. I don’t know what I’ve gotten myself into, but we need to talk.