“Don’t take it personally,” Sage told me. “Bryce might be going through man-opause or something. He’s been a little bitch since his pregnant wife told him to back the hell off and stop hovering.”
I let out a small laugh. “So he’s peen-MS-ing?”
“Oh, I love that!” Sage clapped.
“Fuck me,” Marco grunted under his breath, his alarmed gaze darting between me and Sage. “And now there are two of them.”
Sage’s grin grew even wider as she looked at me and winked. “Something tells me we’re going to have a lot of fun.”
“Did we ever get this building tornado proofed?” Bryce asked Linc. “Something tells me we’re gonna need it.”
Roxanne rubbed her palms together, a mischievous gleam in her eye as she declared, “It’s been a while since one of these boys has gone ass-over-elbow for a woman. Things are about to get really interesting.”
My gaze shifted to West, confusion crinkling my brow. “But we aren’t—”
West spoke over me, like his friends’ misconceptions of what we really were didn’t bother him in the slightest. “Linc, need a meeting if you’ve got the time,” he told his boss.
Linc’s eyes darted to me for just a second before returning to his man. He inclined his chin. “You need a team?”
“A team for what?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.
“That’s their call. I can handle this on my own.”
“Handle what?” Something was happening that I didn’t understand, but I had a sneaking suspicion it was about me.
“Oh, we’re definitely in,” Marco said with a rumble.
“Hell yeah,” Bryce agreed.
Yep. Something was definitely happening.
Linc gave a single nod of his head. “All right. I’ll call in Dalton and Cord. Meeting in ten in the conference room.”
With that, he turned and walked off, the others following after him.
“What the hell just happened?” I asked to no one in particular.
West turned to me, placing his large hands on my shoulders and twisting me around to face him. “I have to meet with the guys, but it shouldn’t take long,” he said, like I hadn’t just heard them make plans to do that very thing. “I want you to stay here with Rox until I get back.”
What the hell?
“West, if this involves me—”
“Don’t worry about her,” Sage asserted, swinging her arm over my shoulders and forcing me a step back. “She and I are going to do a little lady’s lunch.” Her attention came to me. “You been to Evergreen diner yet?” I hadn’t been anywhere but West’s house, and now here, for the past three days so I shook my head in silent reply. “Perfect. You’re going to love it.”
West’s features twisted up with uncertainty, and I found myself suddenly wanting to put him at ease. Reaching out, I placed my hand on his forearm and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “It’ll be fine,” I said softly.
It took a few seconds, but he finally relented on a nod. “All right. But stay close to Sage the whole time. Got it?”
“But what if I have to pee?” I didn’t actually foresee that being any kind of issue, but I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to mess with him.
“Then you both need to pee,” he stated firmly, his expression telling me he wasn’t fucking around.
I gave him a jaunty salute. “Sir, yes sir. She pees, I pee. And vice versa.”
He shook his head, muttering, “Pain in my ass,” under his breath, but I knew he didn’t really mean it, because it was obvious right then that he was trying his hardest not to smile. “I’ll see you in a little while, yeah?”
“Yeah, okay.”
He paused for a moment and I could have sworn he was about to kiss me. My heart began to giddy-up in my chest, excited flutters filling my belly. My brain was trying to set off a warning siren, but my body was in the process of hog-tying it and slapping duct tape over its mouth to keep it quiet. I wanted him to kiss me, I realized with growing trepidation. I wanted it so damn badly, I wouldn’t have done a single thing to stop it if he’d leaned in and pressed those full lips to mine.
But . . . he didn’t. Instead, he turned and headed in the direction the other men had just left, and I tried to tell myself it was for the best. That it had just been a momentary lapse in judgement.
But I was full of shit.
Eighteen
West
It didn’t take long for the rest of the guys to arrive, and in a matter of minutes, every man who worked at Alpha Omega was gathered around the conference room table. We’d even conferenced in our man, Trent, who’d relocated to Oregon to be with the woman he loved, and was now setting up shop and expanding the AO name out on the West Coast.
Once everyone was settled, Lincoln spoke up from his place at the head of the table. “All right. Now that everyone’s here, start from the beginning.”
I did just that. I’d already filled the guys in on how I’d come to meet Stella Ryan in the first place, but I went deeper this time, telling them everything I’d found out over the past few days about the con the patriarch of the Ryan family had pulled on Grady O’Brien, and how he was now out for blood, as well as what he felt he was owed.
“I’ve heard rumors about O’Brien,” Lincoln said gruffly. “He’s not known for being the brightest tool in the shed.”
“He’s a straight up dumb-ass,” Trent added, his disembodied voice coming through the speakerphone. “Worked a job a couple years back that had me crossing his path. The guy’s pretty much the black sheep of the family. Only reason he’s got any clout is because his uncle’s a big player, basically runs shit over there on the East Coast, but the nephew’s a fuck-up, and there isn’t one person in that family who doesn’t know it. He’s an embarrassment; it’s no wonder he got taken by your girl’s old man.”
Linc’s shrewd gaze came to me. “So how do you want to play this?”
I let Trent’s intel sink in as my mind tripped over all the ways I could go about handling this situation. “I think I want to set up a meet.”
“With Grady?” Bryce asked. “You think he’d be receptive to anything you have to say?”
“Not with Grady,” I answered. “I’ve done a little digging on my own, and he’s one of the smallest fish in that particular pond. I want a meet with his uncle. If I play this right, let him know Stella and her whole family are under our protection, I think we can reach an understanding.”
There were certain perks that came with this job. Alpha Omega might have set up shop in a small town in the middle of nowhere, but we had a reputation that spanned the entire country, and we had that reputation for a reason. If you were smart, you did everything you could to stay out of our crosshairs.
“I’ll make some calls, see what I can do,” Lincoln said. “But you’re not going alone. I want Hunter and Xander at your back.” He paused to run his eyes over everyone at the table. “That work for everyone here?”