“Sorry, Chief, I’m already taken,” I said, unable to stop the snide comeback. The condescending tone he used was like dangling a New York strip in front of a starved lion. He was pushing my buttons, and I was responding in turn, even though I knew it would only bring more trouble.
“Glad to see you still have your sense of humor,” he said with a smug tone. He started to talk again, but the words were lost as the door to The Hut opened and Drew came bursting in with Slater and Jedd on his heels. “...So we hauled your delinquent brother to jail.”
Kenny followed them in next, all the eyes on me as the door slammed home behind them.
“Can you repeat that, Chief?”
“Tate assaulted a police officer. He’s in real trouble, and as his guardian—”
“I’ll be right there.”
I’m not sure how I managed to hang up the phone, but the weight of it brought it down to my side as I met Drew’s eyes across the room. All the promises and reassurances I’d been fed since I’d seen the little assholes in the cemetery came floating to the forefront of my mind.
I broke eye contact first, mine moving to my phone in my hand and up to Deeks, who looked as though he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Two sets of loyalties and he had no idea which side he needed to come down on. I wasn’t going to force him to go against his brothers in the middle of The Hut, so I did the only thing I could. I walked away toward the room that I shared with Drew. I needed to get my hoodie, shoes and bag so I could bail my fifteen-year-old brother out of jail.
I should have known he wouldn’t just leave me alone to collect my thoughts and not do anything I’d come to regret. It was Drew, after all. He didn’t know anything about timing or sensitivity when it came to him wanting his own way.
Following me until I started picking up my shoes, he blocked the doorway completely, his intense stare practically burning holes into my back until he found the nerve to speak.
“Ayda, talk to me.”
“Not now, Drew.” I tripped over a pair of work boots and cussed up a storm as I stumbled into the dresser and stubbed my toe. Even the shocking pain that started in my bone and radiated outwards wasn’t enough to distract me from my emotions. My free hand pushed my hair back from my facebefore I knocked all the clean laundry aside to pull the first warm thing I could find from it.
“Now is as good a time as any.”
“Not really. I have to go and bail my kid brother out of jail while that smug bastard, Sutton, lectures me and threatens to call CPS. So, no, now is not as good a time as any.” I pulled the sweater over my head and yanked it right off again as the club patch winked at the world from my chest. I dug deeper and found something a little more neutral and tried to ignore the man who was staring daggers at me.
He took a step forward, stopping and obviously sensing the big do-not-approach barrier I’d put around myself, but he was unable to stop the soft, frustrated sigh that left his lips. “You know I have no idea how to handle this, or you, or… any of it, right now. I know you’re blaming me, but we need to talk about this.”
“You promised me, Drew,” I said, turning to face him as I pulled my leg up behind me and slipped on one of my sneakers. “You had so much to say in the way of reassurance. Now, when I need you, you’re speechless. Thank you for that pearl of wisdom.”
His sudden burst of sarcastic laughter caught me off guard. “I never once claimed to hold any pearls of wisdom, Ayda. What I did promise you was that he wouldn’t get hurt. He didn’t get hurt. Jedd was right there. We were all right there, ready and waiting. We didn’t know Tate was going to switch up the plans, smack the chief of police, and run.”
It was my turn to offer a humorless laugh. Pulling on my other shoe and spinning around in a circle, I found myself running out of steam, and both of my hands raised to my face, the heels of them pushing into my eyes as I tried to gather mythoughts. “You don’t get it, do you? This is hurting him, Drew. This will go on his record. This has the ability to take the offers of a scholarship off the table. The kid can play ball. He has a natural talent, and he has the world in his hands.”
I held my hands out in front of me for a moment before dropping them to my sides and shaking my head. I was wrong. This wasn’t Drew’s fault. It had never been. It was all on me. I’d agreed when I’d known better.
“I have to go.”
“I’ll make sure this doesn’t affect his future. I’m not going to let this go on any record of his, despite what you think. There are ways around all that shit. Just let me come with you, and we can talk about this on the way there. Don’t shut me out now.”
“Sutton would just love that,” I said, pushing my hands on my hips. “Please, tell me what happened? Why was Sutton even there?”
“I wish I knew. Pure chance? A tip-off? He’s tailing us more than we ever figured? He got there at the wrong time. Jedd was about to dive in and pull Tate away from those kids. I was ready. Everything was going okay. Then fucking Sutton just appeared from nowhere, and whether you choose to see this right now or not, your little brother had a stroke of genius. He stood his ground to help the club out. He went beyond what I asked him to do, what I believed he would do. Was I naïve as fuck to think he would listen to me and not act like a cowboy? No shit. Did I have any damn clue that he was going to try and knock Sutton out to distract him away from the rest of us, so we could pick up one of those kid’s cuts that he threw to the ground? No way in hell. If I could have gotten to him, I would have, but me jumping in between Tate and the chiefwould have just turned a bonfire into a fucking inferno, and we both know it.”
“What the hell do those shitty, rip-off cuts have to do with anything? And why the hell would Tate hit Sutton to distract from them? Jesus, if you say to prove they’re not real, I’m going to lose my shit, Drew.”
“Lose your shit with who? Me? Because I didn’t ask Tate to get any damn leather off of anyone’s back for me. That was his choice to make,” he answered with a little more force, the agitation in his voice becoming more and more evident as he ignored my question completely.
“Right. That tells me all I need to know then.” I grabbed my bag and headed to the door, stopping when I felt him follow me. “Just don’t, Drew. Let me go and do this. Let me cool off and talk to Tate. If you’re with me, it’s only going to turn into a bigger fight, and I can’t do that with you right now. Go tell the rest of the boys what you found out and just leave me be.”
His hand reached up to grab the top of my arm, spinning me halfway around to look at him, leaving me with no option but to stare up at the obvious hurt and anger he was wearing on his face. “Is that what you really want?” he whispered, the muscles in his jaw twitching as he waited.
Is that what I wanted? No. It wasn’t. But the battle I was about to face with Sutton couldn’t be won with him at my side. Sutton loathed him and now me, and if I continued to argue with him, I would make a fool of myself. What I wanted was to go back four hours and call the whole thing off. I didn’t have that option, though. All I had was how I felt then and there and the destruction it was whipping up inside of me. When I had Tate out of jail, I was pretty sure there wasa chance I could be a little more objective. I just needed to get out of The Hut. I needed to breathe.
“I need to get my brother. Please respect that.”
Drew released me instantly, his hands dropping down by his sides before he gave me a short, sharp nod, and I saw the shadows that used to live there return once again.
