Chapter 4
Hellfire
Ipulled back into the club compound and looked around as I got off my bike.
Most everyone was beginning to get home from work and the parking lot was filling with bikes and cars.
Spending the day with my parents had melted the tension from my shoulders.
Even though I had business to take care of, I was ready to take on the feisty brunette who tied me into knots with one glance.
The gravel crunched under my heels as I walked. Eyeing The Bunker, I decided this was a good time to speak to Kit. It was best to get everything out in the open. I’d shocked her this morning with that kiss, but I needed to explain to her why I’d finally shown my interest.
A sound had me turning my head and my brows shot up as I saw Jordan unloading groceries from the trunk of her car. I adjusted course and stopped next to her. "Let me help you."
She let out a yelp and turned, clearly startled. "Sorry! I didn’t hear you."
A grin spread over my face. "No?"
She gave me a guilty smile. "I was going through a checklist in my head. Sort of distracted me."
"What checklist?"
"Which groceries go to who." She tossed me another smile as I started loading bags into my arms. "Those are for Seek. If you could please drop them off at her place?"
"Of course. You put them in order and I’ll go drop them off to everyone."
"Thanks, Hell," she said. "You’re so sweet."
I laughed and shook my head. Girls had been saying that to me since I was in middle school. As if I wasn’t a typical teenage boy, and now a grown man, who had a raging libido and dirty mind. My mother had just taught me manners. Somehow, they’d stuck.
Making my way up the stairs with each family’s groceries allowed me the time to figure out what I was going to say to Kit.
Last night was one of her nights off, so I knew she’d be spending the day cleaning The Bunker.
She was incredibly dedicated to the club in her own way.
She loved it just as much as the rest of us, since she’d been raised here.
"Is that it?" I asked Jordan when I came down from the last trip.
"That’s all," she confirmed. "Thanks so much for your help."
"Nice of you to get everyone’s groceries."
She shrugged. "I just picked everything up on my way home."
Frowning, I looked around. "Where’s Ricochet? Didn’t he go with you today?" It was Lock’s orders that none of the women go anywhere alone right now. Smart, since The Italians proved they weren’t above taking our families.
"He did," she replied, "but Smoke pulled him away as soon as we got back. He needed some help putting something together. Ricochet promised to come back and help. Smoke looked so excited I didn’t have the heart to ask them to help with the groceries first."
My cell dinged in my pocket and I pulled it out and grinned down at the picture of a crib that Smoke texted me. I showed it to Jordan and she clapped her hands together.
"It’s so pretty! They chose a good one."
Looking up, I greeted Ricochet as he hurried across the parking lot. "Work’s done, Asshole," I joked. "Now you owe me."
Ricochet groaned and gave Jordan a mock frown. "You couldn’t have waited?"
"The ice cream couldn’t wait," she shot back. "I should have let you give Seek her melted strawberry ice cream. It would have been fun to watch."
Ricochet chuckled. "Who likes strawberry anyway?"
"She’s been eating it with pickles," Jordan said with a grimace.
We both looked at her in horror. "No way?" I asked. "Isn’t that some sort of crime?"
"What? Like the Ice Cream Police will come for her?"
"There should be such a thing." I gave a mock shudder.
She laughed. "I don’t know what it is about pregnancy that makes you eat weird things, but it does, I guess."
The door to The Bunker slammed shut, drawing my attention. I didn’t see who’d gone in, but I knew it had to be Kit. "Well, I’ll see you two later."
"Bye," Jordan told me, her eyes twinkling with amusement.
I got the distinct impression she knew exactly why I wanted to leave. Giving her a suspicious look, I resumed making my way toward our bar.
"Shit!"
"Would you quit dropping it?" Butcher bellowed.
"I didn’t fucking drop it! You pulled it out of my damn hands," Toxic shot back.
Stopping, I watched as they argued over a car engine block. It was on the ground as the two bickered back and forth. Sometimes they reminded me of an old married couple. "Whatcha got there?" I asked, walking up.
"Fixing up that old Camaro sitting in the back lot," Toxic said, bumping the block with his boot.
"I had no idea you could rebuild cars, Toxic."
The man shrugged. "As long as I can get this block over there without this asshole breaking shit, I can."
"Why use a lift when we can get a workout in?" Butcher said in a mocking tone.
Bending, I grunted as I heaved the block up into my arms.
"Whoa, whoa," Toxic yelped. "That’s at least two hundred and seventy pounds," he muttered after he realized I wasn’t having any trouble holding it.
"Show me where you want it."
"Thank fuck," Butcher said. "I was getting sick of hauling shit back and forth. It’ll get done a lot quicker with Hell around."
Chuckling, I followed them over to where they had everything they’d need set up. "Chose a bad time to do this," I told them. "It’s hot as fuck out here."
"I’m building a temporary shed over it," Toxic told me. "It’ll give us some shade at least."
Setting the block down, I frowned. "Is there anything you can’t do?"
Toxic winked at me, but Butcher was already shoving me back toward the area where they had the truck and trailer parked. They were filled with all the spare parts the pair would need to rebuild the car.
"What made you decide to do this?" I asked.
"Lock asked us to," Butcher said.
I hid my grin. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that Lockout was keeping them busy while he figured out what to do about The Italians. The last thing he needed was these two underfoot, causing trouble while we were surrounded by enemies.
"Cool!" Sean came running up, followed by his mother. "What’s all this?"
"Parts to rebuild a car," Butcher told him. He pointed across the lawn that Rip and Priest kept carefully maintained. It was the reason they couldn’t just drive the parts over to where the car was parked in the back. Lock would have their balls if they ruined the spot he’d created for the families to hang out and the kids to play.
Later, they could drive the car out and around the compound, through the desert, back to the road, but taking the trailer through was a recipe for disaster.
It would end up getting stuck in the soft, silty, desert sand.
"Can I help?" Sean asked, looking between us and Gwen.
"Oh. Uh…" Gwen froze, her eyes on us in question. "I don’t know, Sean."
"Sure he can," Toxic said. "As long as it’s alright with you, Gwen."
"Yeah… I guess that’s okay," she replied with a smile. "Dinner is in two hours, though," she cautioned.
"We’ll make sure he makes it up on time," Butcher told her.
She nodded and walked away. The women had already learned that it was safe to leave their kids with these two.
If only they knew how dangerous these men really were, they might not feel so comfortable.
Or maybe they would because the lengths Toxic and Butcher would go to in order to protect these kids were immeasurable. It was the same for us all.
Sean tugged on my cut. "What’s up, Squirt?" I asked.
"Can I tell you a joke?"
"Sure."
"Two jokes!"
I laughed. "Okay. Two. Give ‘em to me."
"In the beginning there was nothing…then…Chuck Norris roundhouse kicked nothing and told it to get a job."
We all chuckled.
Sean’s face lit up at finding an appreciative audience for his jokes. "Mom didn’t think it was very funny." He made a face. "She didn’t even know who Chuck Norris was."
"What?" Toxic asked, horrified.
Sean nodded in a solemn manner. "Static showed me some of his movies."
Static was likely going to get a talking to from the overprotective Gwen. "What’s the second joke?" I asked.
Before he could answer, Priest’s daughters and Grace came running up. "Hi!" Caitlyn called out as they all approached.
"What are you doing?" Taylor asked with a scrunch of the nose as she eyed the pile of car parts.
"I was telling a joke," Sean informed them.
"Go on," Gabby said, folding her arms over her chest.
Sean took a deep breath, as though his next words were incredibly important. I shared an amused look with Toxic and Butcher. "Chuck Norris is tied up, unconscious, and being held hostage. Then he smiles to himself and thinks, "I’ve got them right where I want them."
Silence stretched out as Sean finished his joke and the little girls processed it. "That doesn’t make sense," Gabby declared. "If he’s unconscious, how is he thinking anything to himself?"
"It’s Chuck Norris," Sean said with a roll of his eyes. He gave us a pained look. One that said he knew girls just wouldn’t understand.
Just as the kids geared up to argue with each other, Butcher put a stop to it with a few simple words. "Makes sense to me."
Everyone stared at him for a few moments and I couldn’t help but shake my head. It was such a Butcher thing to say. Waving at the others, I walked away. "See you later."
Other than calling out a few hellos to my brothers and their families as I passed, I ignored everyone.
Normally, I had no problem helping wherever I was needed, but this time I needed to take some time to myself so I could speak with Kit.
I wasn’t about to let days pass with us not talking about that kiss.
I made it to the door of The Bunker without getting pulled into anything else. Breathing a sigh of relief, I shoved open the door. Kit’s head popped up from behind the bar. Eyes narrowing on her beautiful, dirt smudged face, I asked, "What are you doing back there?"
She disappeared behind the bar once more as I made my way across the room. "Cleaning the grout lines back here."
"You’ve got to be kidding me. That can’t be part of your job."
"Well, the cleaning crew doesn’t do it. Someone has to," she informed me.
I leaned over the bar top and stared down at her. She was on her hands and knees, scrubbing away with a toothbrush. "Get up, Kit."
Her head snapped up at the anger in my voice. "What?"
"Get off the floor."
She set the brush aside, wiped her hands on her jeans and stood up. A frown marred her pretty face and worry clouded her gray-blue eyes. "What’s wrong?"
"You shouldn’t be doing that shit. That’s the cleaning crew’s job." I made a mental note to talk to Riptide about sitting down with the owner of the cleaning service and Kit so that she could explain what she wanted done in the bar and how often. "It’s bullshit that you’re left doing their job."
She looked shocked. "I don’t mind-"
"I do."
That made her blink. "I like to be helpful, Hell-"
I cut her off again. "You’re plenty helpful without needing to crawl around on your hands and knees cleaning up the floors. I’ll take care of it."
"...thank you. I think." She gave me a tumultuous smile.
It wasn’t hard to see that she didn’t know what to do with me.
The moment I walked in and saw her it put me in a mood.
That mood had taken a downward swing once I realized what she was doing.
She wasn’t our servant. She wasn’t required to do half the shit she did around here.
She was organized and liked things to be clean and orderly.
That often meant she got stuck doing it because her standard was higher than other people’s.
"We need to talk," I told her. Realizing I snapped that at her, I tried to soften my tone. "About this morning."
Kit nodded and stood across the bar from me. "Okay." It took all my willpower not to grab her and pull her into my lap. Although that might be more effective than anything I was about to say. She was everything I wanted. Now, I just had to convince her of that.