She turned her head to the side and laughed. “Progress. I’ll never think of that word the same way again.”
I reached across the table and grabbed her hand. “Lex. There’s no pressure here. I’m trying to take care of you.”
She closed her eyes, dipped her chin, and exhaled. When she met my gaze again, she was smiling. “Simone said you’d do that.”
Turnabout was fair play most of the time, but I shot her some side-eye. “You told Simone?”
“Better than your sister, wouldn’t you say?”
That made my stomach lurch. “Yeah. Jesus, we have too many mutuals, Lex.”
She squeezed my hand. “You don’t believe that.”
“You’re right. All of us being so tight-knit hasn’t been a problem before—”
She shook her head. “It isn’t now, either. It just feels different because we’re changing things.”
Reflexively, I asked, “Are we, though?”
Our server came back with Alexandra’s iced tea, and we let go of each other’s hand.
Alexandra picked up her chopsticks. “I don’t want to sabotage anything right out of the gate, but it’s something that worries me. What happens if we don’t work out?”
That was a no-brainer.
“I move.”
Her brows furrowed. “That’s extreme.”
“I said you had a little something to do with my willingness to move… but, it pretty much all had to do with you.”
“That’s crazy, Tee.”
I shook my head. “Everywhere I go, there are reminders of you. Even when I was helping Steel and the Devil Lancers rebuild their clubhouse. It’s on the northside - a part of town that has nothing to do with you - and those assholes came back with shakes from the Dreamette.”
She shot me a dry look. “And that sent you over the edge?”
I chuckled. “No, but it never stopped. I’d tell them to hit a place I knew you didn’t like, which just reminded me of how strong your opinions are. I can’t be in that town and not think of you… and it’s fuckin’ torture.”
“That almost sounds obsessive.”
“It feels that way, and I figure the only way out… is out. So, yeah, if for some fucked-up reason this doesn’t work with us, I’ll move.”
Her gaze shifted to her plate, where she was swirling her chopsticks in a circular pattern. “That makes me sad.”
I downed the rest of my beer and set the glass at the end of the table. “Alexandra, we’re borrowing trouble here for no good reason.”
Her hazel eyes met mine and the alarm there made me brace. “There is good reason, Raff. I care too much about you to mess this up.”
I twisted my hand up on the table. “And there you go. We agree about that. We’re more mature now… you more than me, I’m sure, but seeing as neither of us wants to fuck this up, then we aren’t going to fuck it up. Seriously, we’re worrying about something that hasn’t happened yet, and if I have anything to say about it, it isn’t going to happen.”
“You can’t predict the future.”
“Yeah, Ican. Cal said he’d kick my ass until I wished I didn’t have an ass for him to kick if I hurt you. I have to imagine the other brothers will pile right on if I did something shitty to you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Dad is so extra about me.”
I leaned forward. “He should be.”
