“Let her tell you, I have somewhere I need to be.” I get up pull out my keys and walk away.
Sooner or later, she is going to realize this is for the best. Fuck Vance Roderick if he thinks he can get close to hurting me, or her.
My head is a fucking mess, and I can’t afford to be worrying about this right now. She’s really upset behind the anger. Guilt is gnawing at my conscience about causing her to lose her job.
Maybe I did overreact, but I did it for her. Jesus, she’s making me stupid. I don’t like this feeling. I can’t stop picturing her when he fired her. She put on a brave face but her heart broke. I did that to her.
Fuck this. If this is what’s it like being in a relationship, I’m not sure I’m cut out for it.
I ride to the clubhouse faster than is legal because I’m already running late. Talon, Jefferson and Monroe are waiting with the van we’ll be using to load up once the ship clears customs.
It takes another hour to drive to the designated spot where we’re going wait for the call to come in.
Talon and I get out of the van and walk away so we can see the port. It’s dark and quiet where we’ve chosen to wait, only the lights from the buildings of the port in the distance and the low lights from the van illuminate where we are.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Nothing.”
“Doesn’t look like nothing, Prez. You were late.”
“I said it’s nothing.”
“I’m not saying it to piss you off,” Talon pulls out a cigarette and flips it between his lips, but he doesn’t light it. “If your mind is elsewhere, then you’d be better off being the one who waits in the van.”
“Since when do you give the orders?” I grate out.
“Since something is going on with you and I don’t want us to blow this. You’ve been saying for weeks this is how we get out from under King. For whatever reason your head isn’t in the game. And we can’t afford to fuck this up.”
We both turn to the van when the back door slides open. It’s Monroe getting out for a smoke, he’s texting with someone so isn’t listening. I like the guy, he’s a good brother, but he came from Sussex and as much as I don’t want to admit I’m still wary of him, I need to stay on my guard.
Talon is right, I’m not behaving the way I should. Cassie has got my head all fucked up. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve told myself not to get in too deep, or to let her mess with my head, it’s proving really fucking difficult.
I don’t have the same kind of relationship with her that Handlebar does. They talk, share shit, I’m not like that, not that guy who talks about his feelings but that doesn’t mean I’m not experiencing them.
Why am I letting her get to me? And why is the jealousy I felt so strongly when this all started fading away? It’s insane that all I can think is, at least she has him there to help her, to show what I did might have been fucked up, but I did it for her. The last thing I want is for him to smooth things over.
That is down to me to do. I don’t want Cassie to be mad at me. I hate the way she looked at me as she told me to leave.
Talon is right, I need to shake it off. For now at least. I can worry about how I’m going to fix shit with her once we’ve got the product off this ship and into our warehouse.
“I’m good,” I tell him. “I mean it. How much longer?” I check my watch.
“Singer is going to message when everything is past inspection and unloaded. We go in from the west side, it’s being moved to a specific container. We back up the van, get the stuff and get out.”
“What could possibly go wrong?” I mutter.
“Did you have to jinx shit?”
“Shut the fuck up,” I elbow his ribs making him flinch. “Everything is planned down to the last detail. Singer knows what he’s doing.”
“Yeah,” he looks away towards the port, to the ships coming in and out and the giant machinery lifting containers on and off them. We’ll blend right in with the vans moving around the roads down there.
“You talk to him about Marshall?” he asks.
“No, figured anything he wants to find out about that is up to him.”
I haven’t told Talon about the guy who gave us information on Marshall’s killer. Keeping shit from my VP is bad. Now isn’t the time to talk about it. If Singer is happy to move on from it, then so am I. Our involvement with that is over. It’s time to focus on this new partnership.
