Ty huffed. “She won’t.”
“What if she does?” Michael pushed him a little more. It was an insane plan, and he wasn’t about to do it.
Was he?
“Then I’ll be there for her when you leave. You won’t take her with you. You know that wouldn’t be good for her. Her whole life is here.”
“And what if I decide to live my life here?” He was being perverse, but he couldn’t stand the fact that Ty was so fucking confident. He’d never intended to stay in Bliss for so long. He’d gotten stuck in a routine, and now he had a potential exit plan.
Ty shrugged that concern off. “It’s Bliss. We learn to share.”
No one would think twice about them sharing Lucy here in Bliss. They would be accepted, and their kids wouldn’t be judged for their parents’ lifestyle.
He hadn’t just thought about having kids, hadn’t considered this insane plan. “Just like that? You know from what I can tell, we don’t exactly get along.”
“That’s because I haven’t tried with you. I get along with everyone. I’m a goddamn delight, and you would be lucky to have me for a partner. Hey, is it so terrible an idea to have someone around who can trade off mowing the lawn? Split the chores with? It works for a lot of people,” Ty replied.
Michael slammed the rest of his whiskey down and reached for his wallet. He slapped a twenty on the counter. “It won’t work for me. My answer is no.”
Because it couldn’t possibly be yes.
He started for the door.
“Think about it,” Ty yelled.
Think about having the only woman he’d wanted in years? Think about the fact that if he fucked up, Ty would be there to take care of Lucy? Think about how he could be warm for a while?
Yeah, he was pretty sure he wouldn’t think about anything else.
* * * *
Ty watched the door slam shut and sighed. Nothing was going the way he wanted tonight, but then what should he have expected? Michael was right. They didn’t get along. Michael had never taken to his sunny personality. Of course he hadn’t exactly tried.
Axl Rose was wailing again.
And then he wasn’t. The place went quiet, and he turned to see Sawyer standing there, the plug to the jukebox in his hand. “Fucker hasn’t figured out how to hack electricity yet.”
Sawyer met some interesting people here at Hell on Wheels. And by interesting Ty meant crazy and often deadly. “You know Cam Briggs has a background with this kind of thing. He could probably fix it for you. I’m sure you miss your daily dose of Skynyrd.”
Sawyer snorted and moved to the bar. “Gotta keep the assholes happy, man. If I don’t, they tend to try to stab me. Sometimes I wish my granddad had dreamed about opening an ice cream parlor or something.” He glanced down at the twenty. “Novack thinks a lot of this whiskey. I can buy two bottles for this. And somehow I don’t think the deputy is going to be racing over here to solve my GNR problem.”
Sawyer had issues with the Bliss County Sheriff’s Department. Hell on Wheels was technically on unincorporated land, but that didn’t mean the sheriff didn’t care about what happened here. Sawyer and Nate Wright had gotten off on the wrong foot, and Sawyer hadn’t done much to fix the problem. The fact that Sawyer had once been in an MC didn’t help Nate’s opinion. “You know you could tell him why you fell in with the Horde.”
At one point Sawyer had prospected for the motorcycle club that called themselves The Colorado Horde. He’d left when he’d done the job he’d needed to do. Sawyer glanced down at his left arm. Once it had been decorated with Horde tats. Now there was nothing but black ink. He often wondered if Sawyer had covered those tats instead of having them removed as a reminder of what he’d had to do.
“I don’t like to talk about it, and I don’t care what the sheriff thinks,” Sawyer said, picking up the whiskey bottle and putting it back on the shelf.
Stubborn man. “Well, then I suppose you get to listen to a whole lot of ‘Welcome to the Jungle.’ Hey, at least the place won’t sound like you pulled up a Supernatural playlist. The man brought you into the early nineties.”
That got a smirk from Sawyer. “Don’t hate on the Winchesters.”
It was something few people knew about Sawyer. He was a geek when it came to his entertainment choices. But then Ty had introduced him to sci-fi/fantasy a very long time ago. “Never. And I’ll ask around and see if I can get your jukebox back under your own control.”
“Thanks, man.” Sawyer picked up the pitcher of margaritas and poured himself one. It must be closing time because Sawyer rarely drank, and never on the job. “So I heard a little bit of what you and Novack talked about. You insane?”
He should have known he couldn’t hide this from Sawyer. “Aren’t you a little big and scary to be hiding in hallways eavesdropping on your friends.”
“Friend. I was only listening in on one friend and one dude I haven’t made my mind up about yet,” Sawyer corrected, taking a sip of the margarita and grimacing. “You should have told me it needed more tequila. And I was eavesdropping precisely because you are my friend. Also, I don’t call it eavesdropping. It’s called information gathering, and I gathered that you’re playing a dangerous game with Novack. Do you honestly think sharing Luce with him is going to work out? I thought we decided you were going to play it slow for a while.”
This was why he hadn’t particularly wanted Sawyer listening in. “That plan went to hell tonight.”
Sawyer frowned. “What happened?”
“I kind of lost it and kissed her.”
Sawyer nodded as though considering the problem. “Okay. Well, that was bound to happen. How did she respond?”
She’d melted in his arms. “It was perfect.”
Sawyer’s face screwed into a disgusted expression. “Ty, dude, can you pretend to be a little more manly? I’m getting a stomachache.”
“It’s not unmanly to have enjoyed the embrace of the woman I love,” he shot back. “Also, I want to point out to this whole damn town that I can’t be both some unmanly child in love and an overused manwhore at the same time. Everyone needs to pick their evil when it comes to me.”
“Already made my pick. Unmanly child in love. You’ve been that for damn near twenty years,” Sawyer replied. “The manwhore stuff was because you came home and Luce was firmly in my brother’s arms. Probably be married to him if he hadn’t been a stupid asshole and gotten himself thrown in jail.”
Which was precisely why Sawyer had gone into the Horde. He’d gone in to make sure his brother survived jail. “How’s Wes doing?”
“He’s got a job in Denver. He’s good. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t like to think about any of us. He wants his fresh start.” Though his face remained stoic, there was a softness to the words that let him know Sawyer ached from the loss of his brother.
He had a lot of problems with the way Wes had treated the people who’d loved him. “He never called Luce. She wouldn’t have known he was out if you hadn’t told her.”
“He’s got a new woman, one who doesn’t know his sad history. I haven’t even met her.”