Chapter Six
Perish
“Was that Luca Grassi pulling out of the lot?” I asked as I came in from the backyard, where I’d been doing a deep watering of a struggling patch of new grass in the high-traffic area around the new pool.
It was hard to keep things growing there with all the damn chemicals trailing down everyone’s bodies.
But no one wanted to walk on sparse grass and dirt on the way back from swimming.
“Yeah,” Rune, the older of the twins, said. “Came in to talk to Fallon.”
“Did they find out anything new?”
“Doesn’t sound like it. But he wanted to reassure Fallon that they’re pulling out all the stops. Think he’s worried about the club being pissed about one of the girls being at risk. Especially since Gracie has several events booked at their venue over the summer.”
My stomach knotted at the idea of her at risk. It was almost strong enough to distract me from the way her name conjured up images I thought I’d finally started to put behind me.
“Think Fallon is pissed?” I asked, making a beeline to the bar. If I kept trying to mask the sudden attraction I felt toward Gracie, I was going to quickly develop a damn problem.
“No, but the mob guys are just as protective of their women as we are, so they’re worried. Speaking of, don’t plan any parties next Saturday.”
“Why not?”
“The girls are doing a sleepover here.”
Fuck.
Great.
Maybe I needed to lock myself in my room all night. Or, better yet, get a hotel room. Stab myself in the leg and spend the night in the hospital. Anything to not be close to her when she was at the club.
“Why here?”
“Layna said everyone’s places are too small to fit everyone. I think they just want to steal our liquor to pre-game and walk to Chaz’s from here.”
“And you’re going to let them?”
“Let them what?” Rune asked, brows drawing together over his dark eyes.
“Go out to the bar drunk.” What if their defenses were low? What if men decided to take advantage of that fact?
To that, Rune’s lips curved up, making two dimples wedge deep into his cheeks. “Have you met my cousins? We can’t stop them from doing shit.”
“Yeah, but what if some shitheads get ideas?”
“Clearly, you were not forced to be their human punching bags when they were doing martial arts training,” he said. “Trust me, they can take care of themselves. Especially in a group.”
“But there was just a drive-by. Aren’t they at risk?”
Rune’s head cocked to the side, curiosity piqued. “Fallon said we weren’t doing a lockdown.”
“But he said to be aware.”
“Think he accepts this isn’t about us. Or least of all, the girls. Unless you got a reason to think otherwise.”
“No. Just… want them to be safe.”
“Knowing Layna, she will rope Spike and Cain into escorting them.”
A rumble started deep in my throat that sounded a lot like a growl, but I managed to catch it early enough and play it off by clearing my throat.
The fuck was that?
Jealousy?
That Spike and Cain would go have fun with the girls? With Gracie? So what? She was as off-limits to them as she was to me. Nothing was going to happen.
Nothing except them getting to share in her smiles, her laugh, her joy.
While I sat home and tried to tamp down my borderline absurd level of interest in the one woman I couldn’t touch.
“Where are they?”
“Who?”
“Spike and Cain.”
I suddenly wanted to make them scrub all the club bathrooms. With a toothbrush.
“At Redemption. Or Chaz’s. With my brother. They’re trying to pick up some girls to bring back here to party.”
My grunt was the only response to that. Which, unfortunately, only managed to get more interest from Rune.
I didn’t know much about the guy. Hell, I got the impression that even their cousins didn’t know a lot about these grown twins. Apparently, when they were of age, they went to Puerto Rico to visit family. Then stayed for years. Doing fuck-knows what.
I got the feeling, though, that Rune was the kind of man who, in his previous life before joining this club, was in some sort of position of power. He was always watching, always seeming to see shit no one else noticed.
“Since when aren’t you chomping at the bit to party?”
“Who said I wasn’t?”
“Your face.”
“I’m down to party,” I said with a shrug.
“Word to the wise. If you want people to believe you, you might want to try to sound like you mean it.”
With that, though, he made his way out front, leaving me alone with my moody-ass thoughts.
I threw back my drink, then took my damn self into the cleaning supply closet and gathered up supplies.
I’d officially graduated past the prospect phase.
I was fully patched in. But during the prospecting phase, I’d found a certain kind of catharsis through the menial tasks the other members of the club made us carry out: sweeping, mopping, dusting, scrubbing.
They let your body work through excess energy and your mind drift away.
I needed the distraction.
So I cleaned until my fingertips ached and my skin felt dried out from the chemicals.
Just as I was getting out of the shower, I heard the high-pitched laughs of women in the common room before someone put on music that thrummed through the whole clubhouse.
The party, it seemed, had arrived.
I knew the guys would start to talk if I stayed my ass in my room. And I couldn’t risk any of them coming to the conclusion that after I saved Gracie, I suddenly changed.
So I got dressed and made my way out.
The prospects had scored at the bars. There were enough girls for each of the guys… and then some.
While I was able to see that they were all pretty in their own way, I didn’t feel that familiar biological urge to go over, to chat one up, to get her to the point where she was interested in going to bed with me.
So I poured myself a drink and orbited the party without singling any women out to talk to.
I played beer pong. I shot pool. I hung around the hot tub without getting in with the girls. Then when the party made its way back inside and got a little calmer, more intimate, I slid out from under a redhead who tried to sit on my lap.
“Where are you going, man?” Croft asked as I made my way toward the door.
“Walk.”
“Weren’t you supposed to be staying off the street?” Rune asked. They knew it wasn’t their place to police me. That was for Fallon or Brooks, neither of whom were around.
“I’ll be fine,” I said, shrugging. “Don’t worry. If anyone asks, I’ll tell ‘em you tried to stop me,” I said, ripping the door open, then moving outside.
I sucked in a deep breath that didn’t smell like beer, booze, or women’s perfume.
I usually liked that shit.
Now, the chemical scents of the perfume gave me a headache.
I tried not to let myself think how much I would prefer the coconut smell that clung to Gracie’s skin.
God, I was fucking hopeless.
I moved down the front yard, barely even noticing the grass that had been my obsession for years now, and took off down the sidewalk to walk toward the center of Navesink Bank.
But that wasn’t enough.
So I kept walking.
And walking.
And trying like hell not to think.
At all.
But especially about her.
I damn near got to that point, too, as I circled back through town.
Until someone plowed right into me, kicking up the intoxicating scent of coconut as a startled little “Oh!” escaped Gracie’s lips.
Fuck.