Chapter 29 #2
Past the half wall, the main room is filling.
Maggie promised dinner, which means everyone showed up because refusing Maggie's dinner is a fundamentally unsafe activity.
Sloane and Knox sit at the long table, Sloane shifting in her chair every few minutes, one hand on her belly.
Candace sits beside Malachi, her hand on his arm.
Victor and Olivia are at the far end of the table, Olivia's gold necklace catching the light.
Kyle stands by the pool table with Rider.
Frankie's near the back door, a beer in her hand, and Arden's a few feet away leaning against the wall.
Amelia hovers near the kitchen until Candace waves her to a seat.
James and Maggie are in the kitchen that's filled with the sound of plates and the smell of something with rosemary.
Ruby is on the couch past the half wall.
She was supposed to be invisible, but she's the opposite of invisible.
She's surrounded by Sloane, Darla, and Candace with Rowan in her arms. Ruby's holding the baby like the baby is the most important thing she's ever been given while simultaneously providing a running commentary on the Greg operation to an audience of three women who are crying with laughter.
"His FACE," Ruby says. "When Malachi said it the second time. His face did a thing that I need preserved in a museum. Someone tell me Knox has a camera in that room."
"Knox has cameras everywhere," Sloane says. "I'll get the footage."
"I want it framed and mounted above our bed. I want to fall asleep every night looking at East's face processing the death of his own name."
"East's fucking face is not going up in our room," I say from the wall.
Ruby stops mid-sentence. Her mouth stays open. She looks at me. Looks at Sloane. Looks back at me. "You said our room."
"Yeah."
"I said our bed. You said our room." Her eyes go wide. "Did we just move in together? Right now? In this room? In front of everyone? Is that what just happened? Because if that's what just happened, this is the best day of my entire life and I need someone to mark the time."
"Seven-fourteen," Knox says without looking up from his phone.
"SEVEN-FOURTEEN. The Greg operation AND a cohabitation agreement on the same day. Someone write this down. This needs to be documented. This is historic."
East crosses the room. He stands in front of the couch, arms crossed, looking down at the woman holding his daughter while roasting him.
"You," he says.
"Me?" Ruby looks up with the expression of a woman who could not possibly be involved in a club-wide conspiracy. "I've been sitting here the whole time, Greg. I don't know what you're talking about."
"You put him up to this. Nash wouldn't rename a man unless a woman told him to."
"Nash is a fully autonomous individual capable of making his own decisions."
"Nash didn't make a single autonomous decision from the moment he met you. Nash's autonomy died the day you stole a fry off his plate. You are the puppet master, and the entire club is dancing on your strings."
"That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me." Ruby's eyes fill. "Greg, I'm touched."
"My name is EAST."
Rowan starts fussing. East's face softens immediately. He reaches down, takes the baby from Ruby's arms, and settles her against his chest. His hand cradles her head. The transition from outrage to tenderness takes half a second.
"Fine," he says to the baby. "Daddy's name is Greg now. Your Uncle Nash decided. Your Aunt Ruby orchestrated. This is the world you were born into. I'm sorry."
Ruby's face splits into a grin aimed at me across the room.
I'm at the wall. My post. The place I've watched every room from for years.
She grins at me from the couch. Full wattage.
The grin hits low in my gut, and my eyes drop to the neckline of her top before I catch myself.
There's lace underneath. The black lace she told me about at the door, pressed against her skin, waiting.
I hold her gaze. My mouth pulls.
Maggie's rosemary chicken fills the tables.
Plates are passed. Conversations overlap.
Lawrence and Raine arrive at six-thirty, Raine carrying bread she baked this morning.
Lawrence shakes hands around the room in pressed khakis.
Raine finds Maggie in the kitchen, and within four minutes the two of them are plating food side by side as if they've been doing it for years.
Every seat is taken. Babies are passed between arms. The goat wanders beneath the tables. Kyle feeds him scraps from his plate while pretending he isn't.
"Hey Nasty, bring me a beer," Ruby calls across the room.
I push off the wall. Grab a beer from the cooler. Cross the room and set it in front of her.
Kyle looks up. "Nasty?"
"Nickname," Ruby says. "Based on his personality."
"His personality is nasty?"
"In a grumpy way. A won't-smile-at-parties way." She pops the cap and takes a sip. Her eyes find mine over the rim. The look lasts one second too long.
Kyle shrugs and goes back to feeding the goat. Nasty Nash Jr. chews the scrap from Kyle's fingers. Neither Kyle nor anyone else at this table connects the name on the goat to the name Ruby just called me across a room full of people who watched her hold that goat at a baby shower three months ago.
I do. Ruby knows I do. Her mouth pulls against the bottle.
Across the room, Ruby slides into the empty chair beside Olivia.
She leans in, elbows on the table, and says something that makes Olivia's bright blue eyes widen before softening.
Olivia tilts her head and answers. Ruby nods.
Asks another question, her voice so low I can only read the shape of it on her lips.
Olivia's fingers drift to the gold necklace at her throat, turning the pendant while she talks.
Ruby's eyes follow the movement, then lift back to Olivia's face.
She doesn't interrupt or deflect with a joke.
She sits with her hands folded on the table and absorbs whatever Olivia is telling her the way she absorbs a client's story before she picks up the machine.
Olivia laughs at something Ruby says. Full, unguarded.
Victor watches from two seats away. His posture hasn't changed, but his eyes track the conversation the way mine track Ruby's.
When Olivia reaches across the table and squeezes Ruby's hand, Victor's jaw relaxes by a degree.
His woman, speaking freely, is choosing to share.
The dynamic holding without a word from him.
Ruby glances at me across the room. The look is quick, warm, and different from the usual provocation. Softer. Whatever Olivia told her is sitting in her chest.
I push off the wall. Then I cross the room, lean down behind her chair, and press my mouth to her ear. "Hallway. Now."
Her breath catches. She stands without a word. I take her hand and walk her past the kitchen, down the short hallway, to the empty office at the end. Her fingers tighten around mine.
"Thank you," she says. Her back lands against the office door as her eyes find mine.
"For what?" My hand finds her hip. My thumb traces the strip of skin between her jeans and the hem of her top.
"For Greg. For replacing every piece of clothing he took from me with the public destruction of his identity." She reaches up, her fingers curling into the collar of my shirt. "That's not a prank, Nash. That's a love language."
"It's a correction." My hand slides under the back of her top. Her skin is warm. My fingers drag up her spine and find the clasp of her bra.
"It's a love language, and you know it. The fact that you won't call it that is part of the love language." Her breath catches as my fingers trace the lace edge across her back. Her other hand hooks into my belt loop. "I told you I was wearing pretty things underneath."
"I heard." I pull her hips against mine. Both hands on her ass, gripping, lifting her onto her toes. My mouth finds the side of her neck. She tilts her head to give me room.
"Lacy things. The kind that cost more than the jeans.
" Her voice is losing its composure. My teeth graze her neck, and her fingers tighten on my collar.
"I bought them this morning. While I was replacing the last of what East destroyed.
The entire time I was picking out lace, I was thinking about you taking it off. "
"Ruby."
"You promised me every surface of this clubhouse." She glances at the desk behind me. "This is a surface."
I lock the door. Lift her onto the desk in one motion.
She wraps her legs around me and pulls me between them as her mouth finds mine.
Ruby's already working my shirt buttons from the bottom up.
Her fingers spread across my stomach, nails dragging down my abs, and my cock pushes hard against my jeans.
I pull her top over her head. The lace is black. Sheer. Her nipples press against the fabric, dark and hard, visible through the mesh. I drag my thumb across one and watch her stomach contract.
"Worth the money?" she asks.
"Worth every dollar." I unclip the bra with one hand. The lace falls away and I take her breast in my mouth, sucking her nipple between my lips before flicking it with my tongue. Her head drops back. Her fingers dig into my hair. The moan she makes vibrates through her closed lips.
"Quiet," I say against her skin.
"You're sucking on my nipple and telling me to be quiet. Those are conflicting instructions, Nash."
I bite down gently. She gasps, her hips bucking forward, then grinds her center against the bulge in my jeans.
The friction makes me groan against her breast. I switch to the other side, pulling her nipple into my mouth, sucking harder.
My hand squeezes the breast I just left, rolling the wet nipple between my fingers. Her thighs shake around my waist.