I started to giggle. God help me, I couldn’t stop myself. My hand rose to cover my mouth and muffle the sound as I looked at the four of them, but I was still going as I tried to respond. “I love y’all, but come on. You know me better that that. There’re no drugs.”
“Not even the weed?” Rusty asked. “Cuz you’re in one of them crazy moods.”
“Not even an ibuprofen or nicotine. Just caffeine and a better attitude,” I promised, and crossed my heart with my fingers.
Janette shook her head and elbowed Rusty before she stepped forward to sweep me into her arms. “I told him you were smarter than that.” Then she lowered her voice so only I could hear her. “I want all the details when the old coot ain’t listening.”
Rusty made a noise in the back of his throat and headed back to the kitchen, effectively dismissing the impromptu intervention and sending all of us back to work.
“Just tell me one thing,” Sam said, a tray in her hand as she leaned into Janette and me. “Tell me it wasn’t the hog-riding, coffee guzzler.”
“Jesus, am I that transparent?” They looked at one another and I waved my arms, dismissing the question. “Don’t answer that, and if you’re talking about Deeks…” I mouthed the last words with complete exaggeration because I could feel his eyes on us. “Complete stud.”
Sam rolled her eyes at me and took off out the doors, leaving me with Janette. “You sure about this, honey?”
“About what?”
She gave me a knowing look. When she said she’d mentally adopted us all as her kids, well, I was starting to see that she took that quite literally, and her intuition was right on the money. She didn’t need to ask who, or why, or even how; she’d already figured most of it out.
“Baby, there’s only one reason a man can get under your skin like that,” she said, her hand landing on my shoulder. “Because you want him there.”
She was right, of course. I’d wanted Drew there all along, which was why I’d been so antagonistic. Thinking back to our first meeting, I’d done so much to let him in when I could have easily shut him off, or even better, out. I wasn’t really sure whether whatever this was between us was a good thing or not, and the truth was, I didn’t care. I was happy. I was happy in a way I didn’t even know I could be. The content feeling of absolute assuredness that I was carrying around with me couldn’t have been put there by anyone else, and I knew that to my very bones.
Drew wasn’t a saint, and God knows, neither was I. We all made mistakes and decisions we weren’t proud of. Sometimes we were pulled down a path we never would have gone down without it being instigated by someone else. I didn’t know if Iwould ever have truly seen Drew if I hadn’t been forced into his life the way I had. It was just, under all of the anger and violence, I had seen a man that called to me. He and I were kindred spirits, and when you got past the bullshit, he was someone worth knowing. As hokey as it sounded, he made my soul sing when I’d believed it to be crushed.
I wasn’t a damsel that needed saving, and he wasn’t looking to have someone pick up the pieces. We both knew what we were, but it was the acceptance that had been the first undeniable magnet. No pity, no feeling sorry for one another. We just were.
I’d gotten back to work after my conversation with Janette with no less enthusiasm. Nothing was going to spoil the mood I was in, and even when the food mart left a message on my machine to say they didn’t need me, I chose to look on the bright side and considered visiting The Hut. The thought of losing more hours sat in my stomach like a lead weight. I was barely going to manage to pay the mortgage and utilities for the month, but there was nothing I could do about it, and seeing Drew seemed like the perfect distraction.
I went home to change after my shift. Tate wasn’t there, which meant he was out with Sloane. I knew they’d been banned from seeing one another, but I wasn’t going to be the one to enforce that. I was his sister, and though I sometimes came down hard on him in some aspects, his love life was up to him. I refused to be the negative force there when I was just finding my own feet in that area.
By the time I climbed out of my car at The Hut, I was forcing myself to calm down, and even made myself wait for Deeks to show up before going inside. It was only when we headed towards the bar that my stomach flipped withuncertainty. There was a huge part of me that knew Drew felt something for me in the same soul-shaking capacity that I felt for him. But, there was his track record to consider, too. He’d just been through Hell and back and I was pretty sure that some of what happened last night had been down to shock. I suddenly wasn’t sure which Drew I would be dealing with.
I looked toward his office with my hand covering the hurricane in my gut, and as inexplicable as it was, the storm clouds receded, leaving me the feeling of hope that had brought me to the club in the first place.
“There it is,” Deeks whispered.
“There’s what?”
“The sunshine on your face. You lost it for a second there.”
I smiled and patted him on the arm. He was wiser than anyone gave him credit for, and the more time I spent with him, the more I enjoyed his company. He was just as formidable as Drew was in his own way. He had strength and power that he kept leashed inside of him, but any man would be a fool to underestimate him. He was loyal, and he loved every one of his pack to a fault. How could I not love and respect a man like that?
“Okay, that look you’re giving me is freaking me out. I’m going to grab a beer, and you’re going to go and talk to your boy.”
“He’s not mine.” Not in the sense he meant, anyway.
“I think we both know that’s bullshit, kid.”
Bumping my elbow with his, Deeks took off in the opposite direction, shooting compliments off to the girls as he went. I watched as he headed towards a cooler in the corner of the room, leaving me standing in the middle of it, trying to find the courage to approach Drew.
Chapter Forty
Drew
The confines of the van were really starting to piss me off, and the roads just seemed never ending. I was shuffling back and forth in my seat, one foot resting over my knee for a while, then down again, then back up again, then down…
I couldn’t shake the memory of last night, no matter what the day was throwing at me to make me forget. I wasn’t sure what the future held, and at that point, any future at all that didn’t involve me being thrown off the edge of a cliff with a brick strapped to my ankle seemed almost impossible anyway. But I did know one thing, and that was that Ayda Hanagan had gotten under my skin and I had no desire to drag her out. In fact, all I could think of, as the van bounced down the road and my head bobbed about while I stared out of the windows blankly, was finding ways to imbed her in there even more.
