Shelly leans in and cups Sean’s face with her hand. “Don’t worry, he was only an eight pounder when he was born, thank Christ.”
I laugh in spite of myself. “Thank Christ,” I echo.
“Has he had his manners about him?” She narrows her eyes at Sean.
“Fuck, Ma,” he gripes, running a hand over his head. I stifle a giggle. It makes Sean seem so much more human and shows me the level of respect he has for his mother as he pushes her chair in when she sits. This big, bad outlaw biker at the mercy of this tiny, spunky woman?
“Just say the word, honey, and I’ll give him a smack,” Shelly says as I take a seat across from her. He pushes my chair in for me too and I laugh. I don’t doubt her for a second.
I look up at him. “Sometimes he remembers his manners,” I say with a grin.
Sean’s jaw falls slack and then his green eyes darken as he bends down and whispers the words “You’re fucking done for” into my neck.
“Boy, I tell you—” Shelly starts.
“He’s actually been quite a gentleman when it counts,” I tell her, stopping her just short of standing to smack him. There’s something just so real about this moment, as Shelly asks me to start finding the edge pieces for her puzzle. I oblige, as someone in a Hounds of Hell cut pulls Sean away to the table next to us.
“Who’s the new girl?” A middle-aged blonde woman drops into a chair at our table a few moments later as I find Shelly a few pieces she was missing and add them to the puzzle.
“Layla,” I answer, smiling at her.
“Maria,” she introduces herself as she pulls a cigarette out of a red case and lights it.
“Layla came withSean.” Shelly waggles her eyebrows at me. I smile at her; she’s clearly enamored with her son.
Maria eyes me up, but in a way that says she’s genuinely curious about me, not like she’s judging. “I’m like his aunt. Known him since he was ten and I was twenty-two.”
“Since long before his dad died,” Shelly adds. I nod, absorbing all the info about his dad and cataloguing it.
“Was his dad in the club too?” I ask, trying to appear nonchalant.
Shelly looks at me for a beat, almost like she’s wondering if she can trust me.
“He hasn’t said anything, I was just curious,” I add. “He’s kind of a closed book.”
Shelly and Maria lock eyes and I worry I’ve overstepped until they both start to laugh.
Maria takes a drag from her cigarette. “Go easy on him. You’re the first woman he’s ever brought around here, honey.”
Now it’s time for my mouth to fall open, becausewhat the hell?The first?
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Layla
“Ever?!” I ask.
“Ever.” Shelly smiles then gets back to her puzzle. “And yes, his dad was in the club. His name was Kurt.”
She takes her phone out and pulls up a photo. It’s a younger Sean in a Marine uniform standing next to a man who looks strikingly like him. Neither is smiling. Their eyes are menacing.
“May I?” I ask her. She nods and hands me the phone.
His dad had longer hair and I notice as his arm is draped over Sean’s shoulder that he also has the dagger cross tattooed on his finger, only his is an exact replica of Sean’s, chain and all.
“That was taken before Sean’s second tour overseas,” Shelly tells me. “Kurt died the way all of them hope to.” She doesn’t look up as she speaks, and I gently set her phone down as she places another puzzle piece in its home. “On the back of his bike.”
“How old was Sean when Kurt died?” I ask without thinking.
