Chapter 5
Trigger
It’s hot inside the clubhouse, and condensation fogs the windows.
Too many people are crammed inside, with more trying to force their way through the crowd toward the bar.
It’s busy, even for a Friday night. The windows are wide open to let air through, but it doesn’t help much.
Heat still clings to the building from the long Southern day outside, clinging damply to my skin beneath my cut.
Somewhere beyond the parking lot, cicadas scream so loudly they almost drown out the old rock music crackling through the speakers.
For the first time all week, there’s no rain, no thunder, just a strange, heavy stillness hanging over everything.
It’s the kind of muggy heat that makes people restless.
There’s the kind of charged energy in the room tonight that tells me things could go one of two ways.
The smell of liquor, smoke, and sweat hangs in the air.
Laughter and music fill the room, but there’s an undercurrent of danger, territorial dudes flexing their muscles, club bunnies teetering around in too-high heels, pitting them against each other, walking red flags to bulls.
We ignore their advances because there’s only one woman who’s holding our attention these days.
I sit back on the leather couch, which crackles and sticks to my skin, near the pool table, a cold beer balanced against my knee.
Chief leans against the bar, reading something on the phone with that calm, unreadable expression he wears whenever he’s trying not to react, which means he’s definitely hiding something.
Dash notices too. “Oh, look at that,” he drawls from the armchair beside me. “Chief’s pretending he’s not blushing like a lovestruck teenager again.”
“I’m not grinning. I do not blush.”
“Tell that to your face.”
Shadow snorts quietly from the other side of the table, where he’s cleaning one of his guns, piece by piece, with slow, careful movements.
“Thought you said this wasn’t serious,” Dash continues.
Chief doesn’t even look up. “Thought you said you’d shut the fuck up.” But he still throws the phone down on the table in front of us, as if to prove that he doesn’t care.
Dash shrugs, swigging his beer. “The night is young.”
The phone buzzes against the table. Every head turns instantly.
Dash points aggressively at each of us, even though he’s just as bad. “See? This is becoming a problem.”
I grab the phone before anybody else can touch it.
Sadie’s name glows bright across the screen.
Something possessive twists inside me. Mine.
The thought hits so hard, and instinctively, it pisses me off.
Because what the fuck is that? We don’t know this woman.
We’ve never met her. Hell, technically, she still thinks she’s texting some other fucking dude.
And yet, somehow, every night this week has ended with all four of us sitting around, waiting for her next message.
She texts us all differently now, without realizing it.
Dash gets the playful teasing. Chief gets the softer conversations.
Shadow gets the deeper shit late at night.
Me? I get the dangerous messages. The dirty ones.
The ones that make my pulse kick harder every damn time my phone lights up.
Then, there are the funny, unguarded ones, the ones that are totally and uniquely her, like the one sitting on the screen now.
I forgot to tell you, Owen saw a motorcycle today and yelled THUNDER BIKE so loudly that an old woman almost crashed her shopping cart. I think I might have a wannabe biker on my hands. He used to be obsessed with garbage trucks.
A laugh escapes me before I can stop it.
I love it that her kid is obsessed with motorcycles.
I want to fess up, to tell her that we’re—that I’m—not the man she thinks I am.
I want her to want me, not this gym prick she thinks she’s messaging.
I can’t ask for his name outright without giving us away, but she’s said enough to make me think she believes we’re one of the gym rats who use the local fitness center.
Some asshole with glamour muscles and no personality, someone she even seems to know isn’t right, if her messages hinting at how different he is are anything to go by.
But every time I start to fess up, I stop myself.
What if it stops her from messaging? I can’t stand the thought of not talking to her anymore.
I just need a way to meet her, to confess face-to-face, to show her that I’m the man for her.
Dash leans over, trying to read the screen. “What’d she say?”
“Nothing.” I twist, lifting the phone out of reach.
“If you’re sexting again, you gotta share.”
“Shut up.”
I type back quickly.
Kid’s got good taste.
I sit back with a grin, waiting on her reply.
“There it is,” Dash says dramatically. “Trigger’s emotionally attached.” Chief frowns, but doesn’t share his thoughts.
“Eat shit.”
Shadow slides bullets carefully into the magazine in his hands. “You are.”
I glare at him. He doesn’t even bother looking up—annoying bastard.
Warm night air drifts through the swinging doors, carrying the smell of grilling burgers.
The bright spotlights make late-night grilling a frequent occurrence on dry nights, and the prospects set up the grills earlier on.
A motorcycle roars past outside, the sound vibrating through the floorboards.
I wonder if I can use motorcycles as an opening into my confession, because the longer this goes on, the less I like letting her think she’s texting Gym Bro.
My phone buzzes again.
Also, I’m starting to think you don’t actually sleep.
Dash grabs another beer from the cooler. “Tell her you sleep beautifully. Like a princess.”
“Why are you like this?”
He shrugs, twisting the beer cap, which pops off and clatters to the ground. “No parental supervision.”
Chief finally sets his whiskey down and holds out his hand toward me. “Lemme see.”
I hesitate half a second too long. Everybody notices.
Dash whistles loudly. “Oh, he’s jealous. Trigger doesn’t want to share his toys.”
“I’m not jealous.”
“Then why are you holding the phone like it contains state secrets?”
I flip him off but hand the phone to Chief anyway. His eyes move slowly across the messages. Then there it is again. That tiny almost-smile. Bastard. He types something before I can stop him then shows me the phone.
Maybe you just keep me awake.
The room quiets slightly because that’s the thing about Chief, he doesn’t flirt often, but when he does he can be smooth.
She’s probably picturing some dude with one of those ASMR growl voices.
It bugs me that she wouldn’t be far off with that guess either.
Chief calmly tosses the phone back toward me. Sadie’s reply comes immediately.
She sends a blushing emoji, followed by:
Would that sound as good coming from your lips? Or are you only this smooth over text?
Something hot and ugly twists through my chest again because suddenly, I don’t like Chief getting the softer, flirtatious replies.
I don’t like the idea of Dash making her laugh too much.
I don’t like how Shadow somehow gets her talking about real shit in the middle of the night.
I want to be that for her, to know all of her.
This whole thing started as entertainment, but now I’m starting to feel territorial, and the others know it.
My phone buzzes again.
Which side of your personality am I speaking with tonight? Or are the boys there helping you again?
Every man in the room freezes. Dash slowly lowers his beer. “Well now.”
Chief’s eyes narrow slightly. Shadow finally looks up from the gun in his hands.
“She’ll figure it out soon, if she hasn’t already.
” We all glance toward him. He shrugs once.
“The way she answers changes depending on who’s texting.
I think she knows there’s more than one of us texting, she just doesn’t know how to ask. ”
He’s right; somehow, that makes this feel even more dangerous.
I stare at the screen. Because technically, Sadie shouldn’t know she’s speaking to more than one guy, and even though she’s still playing along that it’s the gym prick, she clearly knows something’s up.
Over the last few days, we’ve slipped. We use different speech patterns, different energy levels, and different reply times, and it’s becoming very fucking clear that Sadie notices.
Dash grins slowly. “Tell her.”
“No.”
“Coward.”
Chief folds his arms across his chest. “Don’t lie to her.”
“Oh, now morality matters?” Dash asks.
“She’ll figure it out eventually.”
The ‘eventually’ hangs strangely in the air because none of us has stopped this.
We should have realized it was a case of mistaken identity as soon as we did.
Yet, I don’t think any of us wants to stop.
Dash is right, we should come clean, it’s better to be honest rather than her finding out later.
Even if we aren’t directly lying, we’re hiding the truth, and I have a feeling that will be the same thing to Sadie. Yet…
I type carefully.
Which side do you want it to be?
The response comes immediately.
Can’t I like all of you?
Dash’s grin spreads slowly across his face. “Oh, she’s perfect.”
The phone buzzes again.
Maybe your friends are helping you reply? One of you is nicer than the others, almost shy.
Dash leans back in his seat, “That must be me.”
Another message appears.
One of you definitely thinks he’s funnier than he actually is.
We all crack up laughing at that. “She speaks the truth,” I say, slapping Dash on the back.
Dash clutches his chest. “She must be talking about one of you. I’m hilarious.”
And one of you definitely likes bossing people around.
Chief takes a slow drink of whiskey without reacting. Smug bastard.
And one of you… is well…