"For sure."
He saluted me, which made me roll my eyes, and as I watched him go, my cell buzzed but I called out, "There’s a party tonight, North. You’re welcome to join us."
He grinned. "I’ll be there."
Nodding at him, I glanced at the Caller ID and smiled. "Hey, babe. Everything okay?"
"Your dog just pissed on the rug. Again."
I grimaced. "Fuck." I didn’t fail to notice the ‘your’ there, either. When he was cute, Fraction was our dog. Whenever he disobeyed, he was mine.
"Yeah. Fuck. You’re gonna have to fix this, Storm. He won’t stop doing it! This reminds me of why little things are so annoying."
Despite myself, I had to laugh. "Little things?"
"Yeah. Humans, animals. Why didn’t we just adopt an older dog? One who knew not to piss on rugs?"
"I don’t think they come preprogrammed."
"Ya think?" She huffed. "Couldn’t you and Cyan have picked a small one? One that didn’t pee a fountain every time he goes to the bathroom?"
"She picked Fraction, not me." I paused. "You ready for tonight?"
"As ready as I’ll ever be," was her retort. She didn’t sound all that excited, and before disappointment could hit me, she growled, "Fraction! Don’t you dare—"
She was distracted.
Good.
I’d prefer that to her being nervous.
It was the first party she’d be attending at the clubhouse in years. Hell, it was my first party as Prez seeing as I’d avoided all the others, but August was approaching, and I had to start integrating better. I’d accepted that before North had informed me that the old guard Sinners were hovering in the background.
Scratching my jaw, I listened to her bark at the dog, before I said, "Just shove him in the yard."
"I can’t. Cyan lets him back in."
"She loves him."
Keira groaned.
I grinned, but conceded, "I’ll work on training him some more over the weekend. It’s been crazy this week what with signing on the dotted line and getting started on construction with the diner expansion."
"I can’t believe you bought the lot next door because I suggested it," she said, but it wasn’t the words, it was her tone that had me arching my brow at my potted asplenium.
"Are you running?"
"No, I’m scrubbing the rug," she grumbled.
"Ah. Why wouldn’t I have listened to you? You showed me the accounts, showed me statistics… you’re right. The diner does need expanding. Fred and Wilma were Flintstones. They didn’t move with the times."
"How long have you been waiting to use that pun?"
"Since I learned their names."
A soft laugh escaped her, but she confirmed, "MC says Cyan can sleep over so I’m yours all night long."
"That sounds good to me. I knew I got Digger to be my Enforcer for a reason."
"What? Because I’d trust MC to be our babysitter?"
"Well, yeah, and you’re friends now."
"True. We are." I heard the smile in her voice.
"Shame she isn’t coming to the party."
"She’s coming to the BBQ tomorrow."
"Are things okay between her and Digger?"
"Oh, yeah. He’s very supportive. He reminds me of you, actually. You never used to get mad at me for not wanting to go to those parties."
"You meet the right woman the parties are only fun if you go together."
"I’m sure you didn’t used to be this romantic."
"Well, I never said I wasn’t a dumbass before."
It took losing her to recognize that I had to get my head out of my ass. But of all the shit my mom had accused me of, being a fucking idiot wasn’t on my list of shortcomings. Now I had my second chance, I wasn’t going to mess things up.
North was right—I was a man who could appreciate that people weren’t perfect, they made mistakes, but how they went about fixing them defined them more than the mistake ever could.
She tutted. "I don’t like it when you call yourself names."
"It’s all good, baby girl."
"No, it isn’t. We need to work on your self-esteem."
I grinned a little. "Same as Cyan? You gonna tell me I don’t need to wear makeup to look pretty? And that short skirts won’t make me feel better about myself?"
A laugh escaped her. "Shut up, you. Anyway, I can’t make your self-esteem better until August."
That robbed the breath from me. "Does that mean what I think it does?"
Her laughter turned sultry. "It does."
A growl rumbled from my parted lips. "I’m gonna make you come so hard, baby girl."
"You’ll probably last two seconds," she teased, but I heard her shaky breath. "I want to see that too though. Want to see you shatter into a million pieces just so I can put you back together again."
My dick started throbbing. "Fuck," I rasped, leaning over, then rocking back. Neither position helped. "I wanna bend you over this desk so bad—"
She sighed. "August."
"The eighth," I told her quietly.
"The eighth. It’s gonna be a good day."
"Yeah." I cleared my throat. "Do you think MC would look after Cyan again? For two nights, maybe? Saw this place called Corkscrew Falls—"
"Just happened to see, huh?"
Sheepishly, I smiled. "Well, you know. I might have googled it."
She snickered. "I can ask."
"It’s beautiful. I think you’d love it. We can spend the night there. It’s less than two hours away so we’re close by in case of an emergency, but… what do you think?"
"I think I’d love that," she confirmed, her contentedness whispering down the line.
A knock sounded at the door, and for a second, I thought it was someone outside my office, but it wasn’t.
"Coming!" Keira called out. "Two seconds, honey," she told me, which made me smile. I heard the click of the lock, took in the sound of the door opening as she called out, "MaryCat, I told you to come around the back—"
The undeniable sound of someone pumping a shotgun came down the line.
There was a thudding noise, and the sounds of footsteps boomed in my ears. One pair, three. Five. Shit.
Jerking to my feet, I snarled, "Who the fuck is that? What’s going on?"
I didn’t expect an answer because I thought Keira had dropped her phone, but someone must have snagged it, because a purr whispered in my ear. "Guess who?"
Kendra.
"What do you want?" I spat.
"I think you know the answer to that."
Then, she disconnected the call.
Thirty-Eight
Storm
PAST
"Let go of me," I snarled as my brothers pinned me in place.
Even Maverick was in on it—they’d hauled in his help while he was on leave.