Callum looked slightly pissed.
And slightly was exaggerating.
He looked livid.
I felt a delicious shiver run through me as I said, “Yes. At least, I’m hoping that one of them does.”
“The one that looks like he wants to slit me open from throat to dick, pull out my entrails, and strangle me with them?” he guessed.
I snickered and waved at the men.
There were six of them in total.
“The one in the middle that looks like Thor,” I confirmed.
My Thoralike started forward, heading toward us with purposeful strides. His long, angry steps were causing little billows of dust to follow in his wake.
“I’m not sure you got the memo,” Anderson whispered. “But you’re his.”
Was I?
I kind of thought it might be heading there.
But shit, I didn’t want to go and assume anything.
You know what they said about people who assume.
An ass out of u and me and all that jazz.
His eyes took me in from head to toe, and I could’ve sworn I started to see steam rolling out of his ears.
He finally arrived, and I couldn’t stop myself.
I took two steps forward and threw myself into his arms.
I think I stunned him, too, because it took him a few seconds to recover and wrap those muscled biceps around me and squeeze.
Not lightly, either.
I squeaked and threw my head back with laughter. “You made it!”
“I did,” he confirmed, his eyes going to Anderson.
That’s when I finally realized my mistake.
“Oh.” I paused. “Callum, this is my brother, Anderson. Anderson, this is my… Callum.”
Callum’s arm tightened around my body before he let me go and offered his hand to Anderson.
I knew what Callum saw. A big, barrel-chested, dark-skinned man that didn’t resemble me in the slightest.
Anderson’s father and my father weren’t the same. The same went for my sister Abby’s father. Abby, Anderson, and I all had different dads.
But we all shared the same beautiful mother, who was now happily married to her fourth husband, Darrow.
Darrow had been with my mom now for going on eighteen years, and he was more my dad than my biological father was.
“Well hello, Iris’s Callum.” Anderson smiled. “Nice to meet you. I haven’t heard a fuckin’ thing about you.”
I snorted. “That’s because you work too much, loser.”
Callum chuckled as he said, “These are some of my brothers, club and biological. Haggard’s on the left, then Bram, Easton, Price, and Tide.”
“Or.” I paused. “Thief, Reaper, Easton, Trinket, Rook and Shine.”
The last one I pointed at Callum ‘Shine’ Crow.
“Crows.” He paused. “Are you the Murder Brothers I keep hearing about on the motorcycle race circuit?”
“One and the same.” Callum shrugged. “I didn’t know that she raced until we had a conversation over lunch a few days ago.”
Anderson jerked his head. “Well, come watch us slum it up in our cars. Nice to meet you all.”
Just as he said that, three women walked up, walking between the men.
The two younger girls went on either side of Haggard, and the older one went to Bram.
Bram didn’t throw his arm around the woman that came up to him, and I could tell that the action cost him.
Haggard threw his arms around both of the younger ones.
“I’m Sophia.” The young woman on the right held out her hand to me. “Haggard belongs to me.”
Haggard being the eldest of the group.
Damn, they would make some pretty babies.
“I’m Haggard’s daughter, and this is my best friend,” the other one said. “Oh yeah. My name is Clem. Clementine.”
I smiled. “It’s nice to meet you, Sophia and Clem.”
I didn’t comment on the awkwardness of being best friends with your dad’s wife.
I had a feeling there was a story there, and that I would need to ask Callum about it.
“Well, Clementine,” Anderson said, his eyes assessing her. “Have you ever been in a race car before?”
I burst out laughing when every single man stiffened.
“Stop.” I punched him in the side. “You’re not helping.”
Anderson shrugged and jerked his head toward the tracks. “I think we have about twenty minutes. You ready?”
Was I ever.
I looked away from Anderson and into Callum’s eyes.
He was looking down at me with an odd expression on his face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked curiously.
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
• • •
SHINE
“Nothing is wrong with you, my ass.” Clem bumped me with her shoulder. “You were so mad that you practically ran across the parking lot toward her. You were pissed as hell until you realized he was her brother.”
She was right.
I was.
In fact, I was so upset that at first, I didn’t realize I was marching across the parking lot until I was nearly to them.
Anderson definitely wasn’t what I expected.
“Maybe.” I paused. “Maybe not.”
We all watched, leaning against the chain-link fence, as the cars lined up at the starting line.
I didn’t know which one Iris was in yet, but I was sure that I would find her soon.
“Guy doesn’t look like some geek,” Haggard rumbled from my side.
I looked over at him. “Yeah, I didn’t think so, either. He looks more like some MMA fighter ready to bash people’s heads in than some computer tech millionaire. I swear to God, I saw my life flash before my eyes before I headed toward them. Yet, for her, I was willing to do it.”
“You have a thing for her,” Bram’s wife, Dorcas, teased.
I looked over at Dorcas, who was really starting to get on my fucking nerves lately. But not because what she was saying wasn’t true. Because it was.
Technically, I supposed, it wasn’t the messenger it was the message, that was annoying me.
I didn’t like that she was right.
Dorcas and Bram were married during my time spent in bootcamp.
Honestly, when I first met Dorcas, I’d hated her on the spot. Mostly because when I’d left, Bram had been dating his high school sweetheart, Mimi. I’d loved Mimi. Then, while I’d been gone to bootcamp, then AIT—advanced individual training—which had taken a total of eighteen months, something had happened to the point where Mimi and Bram had broken up. Oh, and Bram and Dorcas had gotten together and married.
And, over the last ten years that Dorcas and Bram had been married, I’d grown to like her enough to tolerate her annoying ways, but lately, she’d just been extra… argumentative.
Or pushy.
Hell, I didn’t know what at this point.
What I did know was that Bram and Dorcas were fighting a lot, and I didn’t need to be in the middle of their fights to know that Dorcas was usually always in the right.
“He has a thing for her, that’s obvious, Dorcas.” Clem rolled her eyes. “That’s why we came here tonight.”
“Oh, I thought it was because y’all were wanting to watch them race?” Dorcas shrugged.