Chapter Eleven

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Levee

“How’d it go?” Huck asked as Alaric, Kylo, Coast, and I made our way into the kitchen.

Eddie had been and gone, judging by the array of plates sitting on the counter with aluminum foil on top. Though Mackie had climbed down off of his cage, found his way up the island, and was trying to punch holes in said foil while muttering under his breath to himself.

“Oh, give the poor bird some food already,” Kylo said, moving over to the island to find some pasta. He grabbed some, the bird, and brought both back to the cage.

“It was good,” I told Huck. “Riff and Coach scored more than we did. But you said we don’t have that many requests right now anyway,” I said.

“Did you drop them off?” he asked.

Back in the day, the club used to keep the guns at the clubhouse. Once the older guys started settling down and having kids, though, they seemed to want to put as much distance between themselves and the guns as possible.

No one wanted to get locked up. But I imagined that was double so for a parent.

So for a while now, we’d been storing the guns in a facility that had been secured thanks to our hacker friend Arty getting into the system and creating a fake account with fake names and IDs. There was one of those refillable gift cards on the account to pay it with.

We even took care to put magnetic fake plates on our cars, and wear baseball caps down low over our faces before we got anywhere near the locked gates where we had to stop to punch in a code.

From there, we wore gloves and made sure never to leave anything personal in the unit.

Nothing would ever trace back to us if someone came snooping around.

“Yep. Everything went to plan,” I assured him. “You can ask Donovan,” I added, waving over toward where he was loading up a plate since we’d been up and on the road at the crack of dawn without getting a chance to eat.

“I trust you, Lev,” Huck said, brows furrowing. “You’ve been here long enough to know how to do shit right. Know being in charge isn’t your thing, but I wouldn’t let you be in this club if I didn’t know you could step up when you need to.”

“The fucker wouldn’t even let us stop to get coffee,” Coast said, throwing an arm around my shoulder in what would have just been a friendly gesture, but the fucker closed his forearm around my neck until he started to cut off air.

It was a situation that led to a mild scuffle, some bets from our brothers, and good-natured laughter from both of us when we were done.

“How’s your uncle doing?” Huck asked when we were all done and sitting around the table to eat.

To that, I sighed.

“That good, huh?” Huck asked, shaking his head.

“I’m just glad his new chair arrives today,” I said. “There’s no way he can easily wheel himself around with his hand all fucked up like that.”

I also got him a fucking bread slicer for my own peace of mind. I’d actually spent the whole ride back to Golden Glades after the event looking at various shit that was created solely for the purpose of keeping the elderly independent and safe for as long as possible.

I had everything from a device to open the pull tabs on soda or soup cans to a recliner with a lift saved in a wishlist for if or when they became necessary.

Normally, I would have just bought it all and put it in his place. You know, if he was anyone else than my stubborn-ass Uncle Will, who was going to be throwing enough of a fit about the electric wheelchair.

Baby steps, I guess.

Besides, for once, I was actually starting to look forward to my visits to my old apartment building.

Even all my uncle’s ranting and raving about what a piece of shit my old man was, and how I hadn’t fallen far from that tree, didn’t bother me at all.

Mostly because I wasn’t even listening. I was too busy thinking about how quickly I could wrap up my usual cleaning and stocking and maybe catch some alone time with a certain pretty brown-eyed neighbor of his.

“You’re heading over there?” Coast asked, looking disappointed.

“You have York, Kylo, and Velle to party with,” I reminded him, knowing his mind was on what girls to invite to the club to hang now that work was done for the day. Or likely the next week or so.

“What am I missing?” Huck asked, looking between us.

“Don’t you know the look of a man hung up on a woman by now?” Donovan asked the president, shaking his head. “Seems to be happening over and over ‘round here.”

“It’s—“ I started, not sure what I was about to say.

“They all claim it’s Not like that ,” Huck said. “Until it is. What? She live over by your uncle?”

“Across the hall,” I confirmed.

“She some kind of cartel princess?” Huck asked. “An assassin for the Russian mob? On the run from a loanshark ex?”

“She’s just an artist.”

“Does she draw naked portraits of us?” he asked, lips twitching.

“Not that I’ve seen so far. And I’ve offered to model for one,” I admitted, getting a chuckle out of him.

Wherever the conversation might have been going after that got derailed by the loud, indignant scream of a child from over in Huck’s house.

“That’s my cue,” he said. “You,” he said, looking at Coast. “No skinny dipping until after eleven when there’s no chance of my kids looking out the window to see. We’ve had to have a conversation about nipple piercings already once this month.”

Coast saluted him, waited for him to leave, then declared, “We’ll do strip poker inside until then.”

“I doubt the club girls know how to play poker,” Velle said, coming down the stairs still pulling a shirt on, looking like he hadn’t slept in days. I realized then that while Velle had a knack for getting to know all of us pretty well, often without us even realizing we were spilling our guts to him, we knew almost nothing about him.

“Yeah, that’s the point,” Coast said with a grin as he shoved the rest of his food in his mouth.

At the corner of the table, Mackie was gripping the bars of his cage and hanging down toward Kylo—who he’d rightfully decided was the club sucker when it came to sneaking him food—who immediately ripped off a piece of bread and handed it to the bird.

“I’m always down for poker,” Kylo said as York came in from the backyard, a large plate in his hands after likely having dropped off food for the tortoise.

“We’re playing poker?” he asked.

“Once the girls get here,” Coast confirmed. “Gonna start making some calls,” he added as he got up to put his plate in the dishwasher. “Sure you don’t wanna hang?” he asked me.

“Nah. Rather have some alone time with Jade. Been cock-blocked twice by my uncle.”

“Good luck to you, man,” he said, already reaching for his phone.

“You ever want someone to talk to about her…” Velle invited as he loaded up a plate.

“And find out I have some long-buried mommy issues and anxious attachment or whatever shit I heard you talking to Candy about? I’ll pass,” I said, getting a smile out of him. “I got my pep talk from Teddy already,” I added.

“Can’t get a read on that man,” Velle admitted. “There’s… something going on with his need to get the guys of this club to get their heads outta their asses and commit to their women. But I can’t put my finger on it.”

“Well, good luck with that, man,” I said, clamping him on the shoulder on my way toward the door, wanting to make sure I made it to the building before the delivery window, not wanting my stubborn-ass uncle to refuse delivery or some shit like that.

—

“What do you want?” Uncle Will greeted me, shooting small eyes at me as I moved into his apartment to find him in his chair waiting for something in the microwave.

“Got a delivery coming for you in a few minutes,” I told him.

“Don’t need nothing from you.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that before,” I agreed, hanging back near the door, pretending I was waiting for the delivery guys when I was really just listening to hear if Jade was in or not. “Any idea what happened to Jade’s whiteboard?” I asked.

“Her what?”

“The board on her door? It’s gone.”

“Probably some little shits stole it,” he said, shrugging it off.

That was possible.

Just seemed unlikely that it would have been up for over a month only to be stolen now. That said, the paint on the door was chipped where it had been hanging, so who knows.

“What are you waiting for?”

“Your new electric wheelchair. I ordered it weeks ago. Timing is good now, though, with your hand.”

“I’m managing,” he insisted, but I saw that spark of interest in his eyes, no matter how much he tried to squash it.

“And now you can do more than manage,” I said. “And I’ll run the cord under the rug to near your recliner, so you can charge it when you’re sitting there.”

I got a harumph at that but he sat up a bit straighter in his chair at the prospect.

“Speaking of, I’m gonna run a vacuum real quick,” I said, hearing nothing but silence from Jade’s apartment, and feeling kind of silly for standing there listening.

With that, I got to cleaning as much as quickly as I could as my uncle ate his food sitting in his wheelchair in the kitchen. Uncharacteristically out of my way to let me get things ready for the delivery.

By the time I was somewhat satisfied about the state of the apartment, the delivery arrived. It was an unexpectedly lengthy visit where they actually helped my uncle into the chair, showed him how to use it, made adjustments, and made sure he didn’t have any questions before they finally packed up and headed out.

“You sure you got it?” I asked as he zoomed over to the living room, narrowly missing running into the TV dinner table he used as an end table by his recliner.

“Not a fucking idiot,” he said.

I figured that it was pretty idiot-proof, so I didn’t bother going over anything again, just made sure the plug was easily accessible, then made my way out of the door.

Then three feet across the hall.

I knocked, wishing she still had the whiteboard so I could leave a note to text me since it didn’t seem like she was home.

But then I heard the slide of the locks and watched the door slide open.

Maybe if I’d hesitated for just a moment, I would see that she looked even more haunted than the last time I’d seen her, that the dark circles under her eyes had intensified, that she looked pale and shrunken into herself.

I didn’t hesitate, though.

I ducked low, grabbing the backs of her knees, and lifting her up off of her feet.

Then walked both of us into her apartment.