Chapter Eight

CHAPTER EIGHT

Callow

"You're milking the fuck out of this," Nave said, shaking his head at Perish as one of the club girls ran off to go get some oil to massage his shoulders with.

"Hey, it's not my fault they're such caretakers by nature," Perish said as he sipped the iced coffee drink one of the girls had made for him. "Who am I to deny them the chance to do what comes natural to them?"

"I'm gonna call it now," Nave shot back. "You're gonna end up with a girl who doesn't have a caretaking bone in her body."

"Take that back," Perish said, shooting him small eyes.

"And who thinks your obsession with the lawn is ridiculous," he added.

"Curb appeal is important," Perish insisted, sitting up straighter.

"Yeah, if you're planning on selling a house," Nave agreed. "Pretty sure we don't need the neighborhood to give a shit what our grounds look like."

"It's good to take pride in things," Perish said as one of the girls came back with baby oil. "Isn't that right?" he asked her as he got to his feet and slung an arm around her shoulders before leading her off.

"Was that Fallon I heard when I came in?" I asked.

Feeling antsy, I'd tagged along with the twins when they'd gone to the gym, figuring it would be a good outlet for the frustration that had been clinging to me like a second skin since I'd kissed Sabrina at her car on the street.

"Yeah, he was on his way out," Nave said.

"Anything new to report?" I asked.

We'd hit a brick wall about the ambush. Even with a sketch to pass around, no one had seen the guy. Or if they had, they weren't talking.

Bon and his guys had come up just as blank, but demanded we let them know when we knew something because their guy had been on death's door for days and was going to have permanent damage to deal with for the rest of his life.

"Nah, man. He's reaching out to other crews in the state and even out of state, but so far… nothing."

Which meant we also didn't know if we were the targets at all, or if it was the other club.

Either way, Fallon was going to want revenge for it. You couldn't just shoot men from his club and walk away from it. He might not have been a bloodthirsty leader. But he cared about the reputation of the club.

People couldn't just take shots at us.

And as much as a part of me was happy with shit being calm at the club, with most of my violent days being behind me, the other part—the part that had made me really fucking good at my job in the service—was itching for some action, for some skull-cracking.

I felt like life would always be a balancing act for me between those two parts of myself. Though as the years went on, I felt like I got further and further away from the young kid who had too much anger stored in his body, threatening to implode from the inside out if I didn't find some other outlet for it.

Maturity and all that shit, I guess.

"We'll find ‘em," I said, shrugging. "We always do."

As far as I knew, there were no enemies of this club who were just… walking around out there, worry-free.

I mean, there was the one rival club in town. The Vultures. Fallon's wife, Danny's, old crew. But while they'd taken a bit of a cut out of our business, they'd been minding their own business since. Likely knowing that going up against a club like ours on our turf with our allies all around wouldn't be a good move.

But aside from them, we were pretty much on good terms with all the other organizations in the area, from the mob to the loansharks, cartel, and even the independent contract men and women.

So unless someone was trying to break into the area, my money was on them being from out of town.

But until I had orders saying otherwise, it wasn't my place to try to track it down. I was strictly on guard duty at the clubhouse with Sully and the prospects. The guys who were out there tracking down leads were the ones with deeper ties to the town and other syndicates.

Which meant I just got to hang out in the glass room or walk the grounds, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious.

And it left a fuckuva lot of time to just be with my thoughts.

All of them seemed to circle right back to Sabrina.

I hadn't had the heart to tell her that, clearly, Daphne had been the one to message me from her phone, then delete the evidence of it. There was no other logical explanation for it.

She'd been dealing with a lot from that kid the past few weeks. I didn't want to pile on.

Hell, I wanted to send the damn kid a thank-you card or some shit. Because that had been the best date I'd ever been on in my life. Not that most of my interactions with women would be classified as "dates," but still.

When she'd been able to get some time to herself, to let loose and stop worrying about Daphne and work shit, Sabrina was surprisingly laid-back.

Sully was right about her being wound too tightly, but most of that seemed to surround a job she didn't love and a daughter who was really testing her parental boundaries. Once she was in an atmosphere where she was free just to be a person, not an employee or mom, she was fun and funny.

The stories of her teenage antics were hilarious as a fellow former teen deviant, but a bit worrisome as an adult who could see all the ways those situations could have gone sideways. And when it was my turn to speak, she sat and listened aptly, asking questions, clearly wanting to get to know me as a person more.

That, I had to admit, was something new.

I spent a lot of time with women. Especially since joining the club. But as often as I'd hung out with some of the regular club girls, had even taken them to bed on more than one occasion, I'd never had one of them sit and try to get to know me.

No one asked me what my favorite childhood movie was— The Sandlot —or the first song I'd ever danced with a girl to— I Wanna Know —or even what adult experience made me look at my parents differently—when loss, fear, and anger had made me understand how his time in the service had turned my father hard.

I'd learned shit about myself through Sabrina's questions that I'd never known before. It was a new experience for someone who thought they'd seen and done just about everything already.

Maybe it was that depth of connection that had me following her out to her car, had me reaching for her, and pulling her in for that kiss.

Fuck, that kiss.

That was the kind of kiss that warranted its own dramatic, slow-building musical score. Then the camera would pan out as my hands started to roam in decidedly not-appropriate-for-screen places.

I'd been seconds away from doing exactly what I said. Dragging her down an alley and easing the tension that had been building within the both of us.

Just the memory of the way her body practically trembled with the intensity of her need had my cock starting to stiffen right there in the damn common room at the clubhouse.

"Do I want to know what you're doing?" I asked as Sully came walking out of the garage with spray paint and a measuring tape.

"Picking out the best spot for the hot tub," he said.

"The one Fallon and Brooks haven't approved yet?" Nave asked.

"They will. They know they want it too," he declared with a nod.

"Out of curiosity," I said, eyeing the bright orange cap on the can of spray paint, "are you planning to use that on the lawn?"

"On Perish's precious lawn?" Nave added for emphasis.

"It'll… wash off," Sully said, sounding unsure.

"I would suggest showing it to Fallon and Brooks then cutting the lawn before he sees it," I said, thinking of the absolute shit-fit Perish had one day when he'd realized Sully had orchestrated a water balloon fight in the yard, leaving tiny bits of multicolored balloons all through the grass. And that shit could be easily picked up.

"Good plan," Sully said as he made his way out the back door.

"So no more stalking from a certain young girl?" Nave asked.

"Think the shootout scared her off," I said. I was only partially lying. It scared her off for herself. But it somehow made her want to set me up with her mother.

"Probably good since you eye-fuck her mother when she's not looking."

Maybe I should have objected to that. But he was right. And what did it matter if he knew that?

"Ran into her at She's Bean Around the other night," I told him, finding that I actually wanted to talk about it. That wasn't exactly like me. But then again, neither was this newfound interest I had in a woman.

"Yeah? How'd that go?"

"Good," I said.

"Yet you haven't seen her again?"

"She has work and a kid."

"She has work and a nearly grown kid so she can't see you for coffee or dinner again?" Nave asked, dubious. "Sounds more like your ass is too chickenshit to initiate," he said, slapping my shoulder as he moved past me. "Nut-up, Callow. Can't get shit in life if you don't shoot your shots when they come up."

I didn't expect to get life advice from someone young enough to be my kid brother.

That said, Nave was a bit of a mystery. At least to me. He was a legacy kid, with his old man having been a really important member of the club in his day. Yet when he was old enough, he grabbed his bike and a backpack and hit the road.

For fucking years.

Even though he knew he could have easily just come back at any point to prospect and become a patched member of the club.

I didn't know many specifics of his time on the road. Save for him meeting Voss on his travels when Voss had saved his life. And that the two had been best friends ever since.

Since he came back, he was an ever-present member of the club, but just about as bit of a mystery to me as the newer prospects.

Maybe he'd had a lot more experiences with women in his years away than I'd had. Anything was possible.

And, fuck, he was right.

I had no right to sit around pining for the woman when she was one text or phone call away. I was being a chickenshit by waiting for her to come to me.

Besides, if she'd found out that her kid was who had set up the encounter, she might be too embarrassed to reach out first.

I checked my phone to make sure she hadn't texted before making my way outside to look for Sully. Because if there was one man I knew who could give me advice on womenkind as a whole, it was the Hawaiian-shirt-wearing, rom-com-watching, girls-night-tagger-alonger, ex-military biker with a hot tub obsession.

"I think a partial wall would be a nice addition to the hot tub," he declared as I approached.

"No one is going to be okay with you fucking chicks in the hot tub, man," I shot back.

"It's full of chemicals," he said, shrugging it off. "What's up? You're all furrowed," he said, glancing at me.

"I have a question."

"Regarding a certain raven-haired beauty?" he asked as he leaned down to create even more lines on the ground around the square that already represented the hot tub.

"Yeah."

"What's the question?" he asked. "Smaller is better here, right? Forces things to get… cozy."

"Depends on how many women you want to have in there with you," I said, shrugging.

"Right you are, right you are," he said, creating another fucking rectangle. Perish was going to have a conniption. "So, what's the problem with the hot mom?"

"We had a, er, date," I admitted. "Sort of."

"Sort of?" he asked, brow quirking up.

"We had coffee at She's Bean Around."

"Okay. And you want to ask her out again?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"But you don't want to be a fucking lame-ass who takes her out to dinner."

"That's about the way of it, yeah. She doesn't get much time away from work and the kid to just be a person. I want to do something fun and memorable. Let her unwind a bit."

"I'm assuming getting some shrooms and taking an erotic art class is off the table?" he asked.

I wanted to burst out laughing. But the fucker was serious.

"Yeah, how about I don't have to get the woman stoned to have fun?" I asked.

"Don't knock it, man. Alright. Well, no shrooms and art. So I'm guessing Molly and a rave are out too. How about… a nighttime kayak ride across the bay to one of those private sand bars?" he said. "It's private. You bring food and a blanket. Play some music on your phone. Get sweaty under the stars…"

"How… how the fuck do you come up with this shit?" I asked. Even if I'd been given a fucking year to come up with an idea, I'd never have come up with that.

"I am a man of many layers," he said, placing a hand dramatically over his heart to sell the joke. The thing was, though, that it was true.

When people looked at Sully, they saw a lot of surface. To be fair, he had a lot of surface to show. But there was a lot of shit underneath that. He just didn't often share that with anyone.

"This time of year, you shouldn't have to worry about anyone seeing you. Could pay off the local park rangers or cops if you're worried, though."

It was a great idea. Fun enough to make her feel young and carefree again. Tame enough not to have her worried that she was going to get locked up or some shit.

"Go on. Go invite the girl on the best date of her life. Just know, as you're post-coital and happy, it's all because of your friend Sully."

"Christ, man," I said, wincing. "That's an awful fucking thing to put in my head."

Sully's laugh followed me back into the clubhouse where I made my way into my room, pulling up the text, then stressing the fuck out of how to word the invite.

In the end, I kept it simple.

Got any plans for Thursday night?

I knew she said Fridays were for her friend Britney. And with such a small support system, I didn't want to cut into her time with her friend. Thursday night meant she still had work the next day, but, hey, who hadn't pulled off a lazy Friday at work now and again?

I expected not to get an answer until she was home from work, but my phone beeped almost instantly.

Not a damn thing. Got any ideas?

Anticipation sizzled across my nerve endings, making me feel as giddy as a fucking kid about to go on his first date.

Meet me at the clubhouse at seven. Dress in layers.

And, just like that, I had a second date.

As I spent the next few days preparing for it, my excitement only grew.

Until, finally, I saw her SUV's headlights turning into the driveway, where I had the kayak strapped to the top of the club SUV, the backseat set with a picnic basket and blanket, and my phone charged up and filled with mood playlists to use depending on the feeling of the date.

Nothing could have ruined it, I was sure.

Until, much later, the call came in, changing everything.