Chapter Four
Kylo
She was a terrible liar.
I followed her out of the greenhouse and toward the shop again, wondering what she was lying to cover up. That she was some international arms dealer?
The thought was so absurd that I almost laughed aloud.
No one who met this woman would think she even understood how to use a gun, let alone how to source one from other countries.
Sure, some people who were in illegal trades were surprisingly normal. Others also were good enough actors that they could pretend to lie poorly to mask the fact that they were masters of it.
I didn’t think that was the case for Rue.
There’d been something vulnerable in her eyes. It was gone in a flash, but it had been there.
I was pretty sure she wasn’t in on the shipments. At least not willingly. But my feelings weren’t going to be evidence enough for McCoy or Huck.
By the time I left the store, I had three new plants, pots, moisture meters, a watering can shaped like an elephant, fertilizer, and a macramé plant hanger, since one of my plants was going to ‘trail’ eventually.
I put everything into the trunk, got in the driver’s seat, turned on the air, then finally let out the breath I’d been half-holding since the second I’d walked into that shop.
I might not have known who I was expecting.
But I did know it wasn’t Rue.
I’d been walking in, maybe figuring it was more of a middle-aged or older woman, possibly someone in a rainbow skirt with lots of necklaces and gemstone bracelets.
I definitely wasn’t prepared for a woman a little younger than me with her red-brown hair, sharp features, stormy eyes, and lips just begging to be kissed, wearing a worn pair of overalls with nothing underneath but a yellow bra that was not hiding the fact that she thought the air was on just a little too high for her comfort.
I’d wanted more time to talk to her. To, you know, feel shit out. Not any other reason. But when we got back into the shop, her assistant had been the one to guide the conversation.
The guy was nice but as subtle as a brick. He kept trying to find common interests between myself and Rue. He’d gotten desperate enough to harp on the fact that we both liked coffee and dogs.
I didn’t go right back to the clubhouse after I left, though.
No, I turned off the road toward it and drove down the block to a small neighborhood of new townhouses.
I’d seen the sign go up about two years before.
The price on them just so happened to be the exact amount of money I had sitting in a safety deposit box. Money that kept coming in for my work at the club that I had nothing to spend on, since the food and bills were all paid for by Huck.
It felt like a nudge from some higher power, like the universe itself understood that some part of me was reaching for something that was my own again.
As much as I loved the club and the brotherhood I found there, I’d always been someone who had to take care of themself, who always had a place and plan of my own.
Really, the only thing wrong about it was the fact that I hadn’t told the club about it.
I knew keeping secrets and shit like that wasn’t allowed. At first, as the townhouses were being built, some part of me felt like there was nothing to tell Huck and the others because I didn’t technically have a house yet.
It had only been about two months since the house was finished. Less time, even, since I had the paperwork signed and a key in my hand.
Once Huck was back, I was going to have to tell him. However uncomfortable that might be.
I followed the winding street through sets of townhouses grouped in fours, each with slightly different facades, though the pattern repeated with each group.
Full red brick front, white siding front, full gray brick front, gray siding front. Shower, rinse, repeat. The only differences were the personal touches and the cars in the driveway.
I lucked out with a full red brick, which meant I got to be the corner lot. There was a slightly bigger lawn, though I didn’t really care about that. I liked that there were only neighbors to one side, not leaving me sandwiched between other houses.
I pulled up the driveway, seeing nothing but lines on my lawn, thanks to the service that was paid for through our HOA fees.
My house was the blandest in the neighborhood.
It seemed like everyone else got their keys then got right to work making the exterior distinct—wreaths on the doors, bright, happy flowers in the beds, novelty mailboxes, or solar lights.
Mine, by contrast, looked like no one lived there.
It was fitting.
I didn’t.
But maybe someday.
And it was where my plants were going to live, since one thing the new house did have was amazing windows and light. I also didn’t have any curtains, so there was nothing to obstruct it.
I took the new plants inside in trips, setting them on the edge of the pass-through toward the kitchen that sat at the front of the house just behind the entryway with its powder room, door to the garage, and door to the mechanical room.
On the other side of the passway from the kitchen was a tiny dining space that flowed into a grand living room with a fifteen-foot ceiling and windows that crept all the way up. A fireplace was on the wall—all white marble. Then there was the stairway up to the second and third floors.
The second floor featured only the primary bedroom and bath. The third floor had two smaller bedrooms with a shared bath.
It was pretty large for a townhouse, and it was nice feeling like I had room to breathe. I don’t think I realized how claustrophobic I’d been feeling at the often-packed clubhouse until I got inside and felt my shoulders drop and my jaw unclench.
There wasn’t anything inside. No rugs covered up the dark wood that stretched across the whole lower floor.
There were no couches, no end tables, no art on the white walls.
The kitchen—with its white cabinets and white marble countertops—didn’t have any plates or forks in the cabinets or drawers.
The fridge had nothing good inside it. There wasn’t even a coffee machine on the counter.
What the kitchen did have was a bay window that I believed, according to Rue’s little chart, would provide the best indirect light for some of the plants I’d bought.
I found, oddly, that I actually gave a shit that they lived.
If you asked me before I’d gone into that shop if I’d had any kind of feeling about plants, I’d have said no. Sure, they added a certain something to the rooms I’d seen them in. I’d just never felt the need to have any of my own.
Now that I did, I wanted them to thrive.
Maybe my claim to be really into plants hadn’t been a complete lie after all.
I found the placements for three of them, deciding to bring the ‘starter’ pothos plant back to the clubhouse with me so McCoy knew I was committing to the job.
I walked back through my house, finding myself viewing it through the eyes of someone who loved plants and wanted more of them. I could imagine where I’d put all the ones I’d spotted at Vital Greens that I’d been interested in.
“Christ,” I said, letting out a huff of a laugh as I made my way back down to the first floor, looking around the empty space and suddenly feeling like I needed to fill it.
A couch, coffee table, some lamps so I didn’t have to use the overhead lights, a nice TV.
And, of course, a coffee maker and a mug for the kitchen.
Just the bare essentials I’d need to feel comfortable if I needed a break from the clubhouse and all the craziness there. A place to unwind. I wasn’t going to move in or anything. Even if I was suddenly imagining how I would decorate the primary bedroom.
Maybe I would do just one more quick errand to the home improvement store for some paint, drop off the supplies at my house, then head back to the clubhouse to debrief McCoy about my suspicions that Rue wasn’t in bed with the competition.
With any luck, McCoy would tell me to keep investigating. Then I’d get the excuse to keep visiting the shop. And the time to disappear for hours to work on my house without anyone getting suspicious.
Just until Huck came back.
Then I was going to fess up.
Well, to the house.
Not the fact that I wanted to fuck the woman who may or may not be working directly with our competitors.
That shit was something I was going to play close to my vest.