Chapter 3 #2
“What’d she say?” I ask him, not being able to hide the shitty smirk from my face, this time.
“That I have equivalent odds of fucking her or her brother.”
“I mean, that’s not a no,” Collins quips, forcing me to laugh louder.
I can’t help myself this time. “She’s just saying if the situation were dire enough…”
“Fuck you guys.”
“I warned you.” I look at him, shrugging, trying to control myself.
“How’d you know anyway?”
“Cause her personality is Caroline’s, but Ash was her dad.
” I feel like that explains it enough. Am I trying to scare them away from her, maybe?
Glancing back at her, she’s still dancing, only several men are now circling her as if she were prey…
if only they had any idea. “And that should scare all of you.” When I look at all of them, they’re just staring at me now.
“What? She broke my nose when I was 16.”
“What?” Matthews stares, stunned.
“Punched me in the face so hard she broke my damn nose.”
“How old was she?”
“12, maybe.” I laugh, remembering the situation. “Then told me to stop being a fucking pussy when I got upset about it.”
Collins laughs louder now. “I may be a little in love with her.”
His joke shouldn’t bother me, but it does. When he looks at me, he tilts his head, still laughing, but curiosity lines his face as he looks back at me.
Great.
“It’s so fucking weird that you know them like that,” Matthews says, looking at me, questioning me, and it should worry me, but fuck it, it doesn’t.
“Why? We were kids.”
“Yeah, but you grew up with them; you seem to have been over there a lot. You just think there’d be some sort of loyalty there.”
It’s true; I was. I spent more time at their house than I did at my own.
Ash and Caroline always treated me as if I were one of theirs…
the good and the bad, they were more like parents to me than my own were.
But Matthews isn’t the first one to question me about it.
To be curious about how, if that was my childhood, how I ended up as a cop.
“Again, we were kids. I know more about what goes on in the MC now than I did before.” I smile, thinking back to those times.
“They were all better parents than most I’ve seen.
They shielded their kids from all the bad that went down.
” I’m only slightly lying, but in all honesty, we never saw a single thing until we were 15, and even that was an accident.
Before that, we knew what Ash did, but only because we had eavesdropped.
“You’ve seen his rap sheet, right?” Matthews rolls his eyes.
“Now I have.”
“And the shit we know he did, but could never prove it.”
“Again, now I do.”
“Okay, if you say so.” He rolls his eyes before storming over to the bar..
“Don’t worry, bro. He’s just pissed cause she turned him down.” Collins tells me.
I laugh, nodding my head. “Oh, I know.”
“But I can’t even imagine what being in that house would be like.”
I laugh, nodding my head. “It was… happy.”
“What?”
“Not all the time, obviously. But enough to count. It was full of love, and they were happy.”
“That’s wild.” He laughs. “I mean, everyone said how they were, but I guess I’ve never believed people who live like that can be…” he trails off as if he doesn’t know how to finish the sentence.
“Obnoxiously in love?” I ask, making him laugh as he nods his head. “Oh, they were, for the 16 years I knew them, they were.”
“I’m glad that fucking bitch left.” Matthews mumbles as he walks back over to the table, amusing all of us again.
As the group continues to talk, I sit trying to figure out how I’m going to leave the table with no one noticing.
Walking up to the bar, I motion to the bartender for the tab.
“Leaving already?” Collins calls from behind me. I can hear the suspicion is his voice.
“Huh?” I pause. “Yeah, already stayed way longer than I meant to. Got to get up early.”
He eyes me for a second as my tab’s sat down in front of me, but I don’t feel like I can deal with it yet.
“Sure, you’re not gonna go meet up with a redhead?”
“What?” I look at him before looking over to my tab, signing it.
“Man, I get it. She’s hot as hell.” I know I’m doing a poor job of hiding my emotions. He gives me the same expression as earlier when I couldn’t suppress my jealousy over what he was saying.
Nodding his head as if to tell me he can read me like a book, he looks past me, ordering his drink. Finishing up, I’m leaving, walking past him as he whispers. “It’s cool. Tell me, don’t tell me. Either way, I won’t say a word. But hypothetically, if you were, you need to be real fucking careful.”
“Please, I’m not that stupid.” Obviously, that’s a lie. “Me of all people, I’d end up with a three-inch gash in my throat.”
“As long as you know the stakes.”
“I’m not…” I trail off, but we’re both aware how full of shit I am.
“I believe you.” He says it, but we both know he doesn’t mean it. “Go do whatever’s not fucking the president of the biker gang’s baby sister.”
Club. It’s so second nature to correct people when they say it I’ve had to train myself over the years to stop. Now, I do it only internally.
“Oh, wait, but that’s not even the kicker, is it?” he laughs, shaking his head. “Go do what’s not fucking the president of the biker gang and who also was your childhood bestie’s sister.”
If anyone else at that table said anything about knowing what’s going on, I would worry, but I know I can trust Collins. For some reason, he’s always had my back.
“Cover for me?” Crinkling my nose, not really admitting to anything.
“Of course.” Taking his drink from the bartender as I start to walk away. “Oh, Eli!” he calls out after me. “Should I be on the lookout for your body tomorrow?”
Flipping him off, making him laugh, and nods his head.
Walking towards my truck, I keep my on constant looking out as Collins’s words repeat through my head.
Like I told Drew before, if Z finds out, he will kill me.
Not because he holds such bizarre ideals about his sister, but because it’s me.
He won’t wait for any sort of explanation; there’s still so much he doesn’t know.
To Z, I’m a cop first, and because we were best friends second, and the only reason being a cop is first is because, just like I told Ash before he died, Z sees my joining the force as the biggest betrayal.
* * *
Pulling up in the driveway, I don’t see her car, or any car for that matter. I don’t see her waiting for me on the porch either, and I internally panic.
Maybe this was a setup the entire time.
Maybe she’s tying up loose ends for her brother.
Or maybe she was just toying with me in the bar; maybe we aren’t on the same page.
Walking down the hallway and into my bedroom. Flipping on the bathroom light, stopping at the mirror and sigh with disappointment.
“What?” comes from behind me.