DAX
Once again dressed, we walked out of the bathroom and back to the table.
The guys shifted so I could be locked in the corner, soothing their fear of me running away again.
I glanced over at Tilly, and she just gave me a thumbs up and grinned.
Welp, that sure clears up how far they could hear me from the bathroom.
It’s a good thing that I wasn’t shy about sex or else I would have been a puddle of embarrassment.
“Feeling better?” Picasso asked as he slid a menu over to me.
“Much, thank you for asking.” I smiled, then chugged down the glass of water.
The waitress that had greeted us when we came in arrived at the table with her order pad out and pen poised. “Before we get started, am I going to find any nasty surprises in the bathroom? I run a clean place around here and I let a lot of things slide, but I’m not cleaning up after nothing kinky.”
“Nah, Nelly, you’d never know we were in there,” Cognac shared, giving me a wink.
“Glad to hear it. I’d hate to toss you boys out after so many years of being such loyal customers,” Nelly stated, then turned to Sprocket. “What’ll it be, sugarplum?”
Something about hearing her using a pet name like that on Sprocket raised my hackles. I had to grit my teeth together so I didn’t lash out, since I’ve been screaming from the heavens that these men aren’t mine.
“Patty melt for me with pepper jack,” Sprocket answered, adding a few more things, but I wasn’t really listening.
No, my eyes were on this woman whose age I couldn’t quite guess.
She was pretty enough with her black hair pulled back, thick arched brows, and bright green eyes.
Nelly was fit, but the uniform she was wearing did nothing to flatter her figure...
but that could be on purpose. Diners in general seemed to attract an odd sort of clientele, not to mention the sign said open twenty-four hours.
Everything about her was blunt and to the point, but there was something in the odd, slightly southern lilt to her speech that made me think she had a soft spot for these men.
“Little demon, turn off the death glare for a moment so she can live long enough to get your order,” Void whispered into my ear, snapping me back into the here and now.
“Any day now, Rainbow Bright,” Nelly demanded. “We’ve got a good salad with some lite dressing if you’re not sure what to order.”
I went for the gun on the small of my back, but both Void and Eagle wrapped their arms around me, trapping me in their hold.
“She’ll have the bacon burger, no tomato.
Really—as in don’t even try to put it on then take it off again.
She’ll know and make you remake the whole thing.
Side of onion rings with ranch and BBQ sauce, and a strawberry milkshake with all the whipped cream you can put on it,” Weston rattled off, sensing that Nelly needed to move along.
Nelly blinked at Weston, then flicked her gaze to me then over to Cognac. “Sure thing…”
With that, she left, apparently having gotten everyone’s order before mine. Feeling that it was safe, Void and Eagle relaxed but didn’t remove their arms from me, just let them rest on my hips, each grabbing an ass cheek.
“So, I take it you don’t like tomatoes,” Sprocket mused, holding back a smirk.
“How can that be? I saw you eating pizza,” Picasso interjected.
I let out a huff, knowing that this wouldn’t make sense to them because no one seemed to understand my pain. “Pizza sauce isn’t chunky.”
“So ketchup is okay?” he pressed.
“It’s purée, so yes. If there are any kind of chunks of tomato, I’ll pick it out if I can, but raw tomato is a no-go. There’s essence of tomato left behind. You can’t get rid of that shit no matter what you do, so it’s better to just burn it and try again,” I explained.
This made them all chuckle at my expense.
“Little rebel, you never cease to amaze me at what hill you are willing to die on… essence of tomato. God, that is priceless.” Sprocket laughed, slouching back in his seat.
“Oh yeah, sugarplum, like you don’t have something you hate to eat?” I snapped, crossing my arms and jutting my chin.
“Nope,” he answered, popping the P. “When you’ve gone hungry and had to eat out of trash cans, you learn not to be picky.”
Well, that’s one way to end an argument.
Nelly came back over with all the drinks and refilled the waters. “You boys haven’t been around much lately, too distracted with other things?”
Why did this woman want to die? This is the second chick that has tried to start shit with me tonight and my already short fuse of dealing with bullshit is all but nonexistent at the moment.
“Where are our manners?” Eagle spoke up. “Nelly, this is our girlfriend Dax, and her boyfriend Weston. They recently came to live with us, and we’ve been taking some time to get things sorted, combining our lives and all.”
Damn that man, he put me right in the perfect position that I couldn’t yell at him. If I pissed this woman off, not only would she feel like she won but she most likely would fuck with my food. I could only handle one meal getting fucked up, not two.
“Ours, as in all of you?” Nelly asked, brows furrowed. “Wait, did you say she already has a boyfriend? I mean, I should have guessed, seeing that he could order for her but… this is for real? You all live together and everything?”
“We are still working out the details,” I added. “You know, since Weston and I have a house in the city, as well as jobs and all that. Who knows, this might not last all that long, but hey who wouldn’t give it a try for five men who look like these guys?”
Eagle tightened his arm around me, pulling me into his lap. “Yes, we have lots to talk about, which is why we came to neutral ground to figure it all out.”
“How the fuck is this neutral when it’s your place, and this woman is eye fucking you all the time?!” I snapped, before I realized that I’d just outed myself for being jealous.
Eagle chuckled as he raised a hand to grip my chin and turn me to him.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out where this was going, and I had two options.
Let him stake his claim or make a scene…
His lips melded to mine before his tongue flicked out, asking to deepen the kiss.
This was when I decided to play the upper hand and bit down on his lower lip hard, then sucked it into my mouth to lick the blood off before releasing him.
I sat back, giving him a smug look as his eyes smoldered with desire and irritation at one-upping him.
I heard Nelly huff and walk away from our table.
I just hoped she wouldn’t fuck with my food or else I was going to shoot her in the leg. I wasn’t that petty.
“Little hellcat, there is no need to be jealous over Nelly, she’s like family. We’ve been coming to this diner for years and nothing has happened between us,” Eagle assured me.
“Now, can we talk about you moving in with us, officially?” Void asked, pulling me from Eagle’s lap onto his own.
I shifted, so I was now straddling him, nose to nose. “Why the fuck would I move in with you after we’ve known each other for a week, and our whole foundation is built upon you kidnapping me? You get this makes no sense, right?”
“This is not only connected to the fact that we want you to be ours in every way possible, instead look at this like Two Tricks would,” Void started, covering my mouth with his hand when I started to speak.
“No, you’re going to listen to all the facts, then you can shoot them all to hell if you want. ”
I relaxed and licked the underside of his hand like the two-year-old that I sometimes acted like. Void just grunted and pulled his hand away, wiping it off on his jeans.
“Your lucky you’re fucking cute,” Void growled.
“Alright, so both the Mad Dogs and the De León Cartel are after you. It’s safe to say they have been tailing you for some time if they knew about Harper.
Uh-uh, no interrupting.” I pouted but settled back to listen.
“Yes, they could have followed her home that night from your house, but they’d already sent the pizza guy to your house to kidnap her, and you hadn’t seen her in a week.
They picked that night because you were back from our compound, making me guess they think it would be much harder to get you there.
Granted, I don’t have a clue the scope of your Hidden Empire, but I guess that’s why you call it hidden.
If you have a better plan that will keep everyone involved safe, then I’m all ears, but from where I’m looking, we need a central location.
Weston even went back to your place and collected a bunch of stuff to bring here. ”
I turned to look at Wes with a questioning brow.
“Yeah, shortcake, he’s telling the truth. I needed my equipment. I couldn’t work on the shit they were letting me use,” Wes said to confirm. “I also brought along some of your stuff as well. Nothing major, just things I knew you’d miss.”
“Why weren’t we dating a long time ago? You make the best kind of wife.” I winked, blowing him a kiss.
He grinned and rested his head on a hand, leaning on the table. “You’re gonna need to blame yourself for that one. I would have made a move forever ago if I didn’t think you’d run for the hills.”
“Anyway,” Eagle cut in. “Having a ‘home base’ isn’t the worst idea and from what Picasso and Wes tell me, your place can’t fit all of us.”
I contemplated this a moment, knowing that what Void and Eagle said did have merit.
“If, and I’m not saying yes, we do this.
I will need to be able to come and go as I need to.
I have the tattoo shop and all the other moving parts of the empire to run.
I decided to do an announcement and come clean about the fact that I’m Tricks.
Things will move a lot faster if I don’t have to do the whole dog and pony show and I can just order things to happen.
You lot tend to smother me about everything, and I’m used to being the top dog and calling the shots on how things go. ”
“This is where learning to compromise might come in handy,” Sprocket shared.
“The same could be said for us as well. The five of us have learned how to work together but adding in you and Wes will take a little adjusting. Having open and honest conversations like this one will help things in the long run, not running off to the beach to avoid doing the hard work.”
Twisting back around, I shifted to sit on my own so I could see them all.
“Hard work I have no problem with, I’ve done it all my life.
It’s just this emotional bullshit I can’t wrap my head around.
You want honesty, then here is one big-ass-heaping scoop for you all.
I never thought I would be alive long enough to have deep relationships, a husband, kids, the whole family thing.
Once my twin, Devin, died, I felt like my future did too.
It’s just pure luck and stubborn-ass determination on Weston’s part that I’m still around. ”
“What it sounds like to me is that you just didn’t want to get attached to people because you didn’t want them to hurt when you died, like you did when Devin passed.
I get that, believe it or not. When I was twelve, my mom and sisters were killed when we snuck out of Mexico.
The coyote, who my father paid to get us out and across the border, turned on us and sold us all to traffickers, but my sisters were too little and weren’t strong enough to survive being stowed away in a shipping container to Venezuela.
My mother was eight months pregnant with my baby brother—they didn’t make it either.
I had to sit there, trapped in the dark with one jug of water to last us the two-week trip after crossing the desert and I watched them die,” Cognac shared, his copper eyes locked onto mine as he spoke.
“Trauma, death, and other life-altering things can happen to anyone. I thought about killing myself many times since that day, but how we choose to live after what we’ve lost… that is up to us.”