“Don’t turn my words around on me, counselor.”
“What do I have to do to get your tongue in my mouth?” she asked just as I took a swig of coke.
I nearly choked on a laugh, slapping my chest as I tried to catch my breath. “Fuck, T, next time warn a guy.”
She smiled. “It was just a question, Cash.”
“A calculated one.”
“Perhaps.”
“What do you want, baby?”
“I want you.”
“But why?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh my god, you’re not one of those guys who needs his ego stroked twenty-four-seven, are you?”
“Have you metme?”
“Okay, then. What do you mean, why? Outside of Daisy, you’re my best friend. I can talk to you about anything.”
This was true. And that friendship had been cultivated over years of closeness in proximity and a natural gravitational pull toward each other.
“I understand that, Teagan, but you need to think about this really hard. If we start this, we have some serious obstacles.”
“My dad, your dad, Daisy, I get it.”
“No, baby, it’s not just your dad, my dad, Daisy. It’s the club, the ramifications if this goes tits up, all of it. It’s a big deal. And I’m not starting this if it’s not a long-term, committed kind of thing.”
She bit her lip. “Well, I already know it’s forever. Don’t you?”
“Baby, you just informed me last night you and I were gonna be a ‘thing.’ You wanna give me more than a minute to process that information?”
She wrinkled her nose as she pulled her knees up to her chest. “Well, I was done waiting for you to make the first move.”
I reached over and squeezed one of her knees. “You’ve just gotta give me some time to process. I’ve always seen you as club family, so looking at you in a romantic light is a bit of a mindfuck, I need a minute to get my bearings. I want to make sure I handle you with care, so this has to be right, honey.”
“It is right.”
“Well, I’d like to take things slow. For your sake.”
“How slow?”
“Well, that’s one of the things we’re going to talk about today.”
She nodded. “Okay. I definitely think we should keep things on the downlow for the moment.”
“Agreed.”
“But then I want to do everything.”
“Me too, honey, but once this becomes physical, I’m a little afraid it’ll show on your face.”
She scoffed. “You make it sound like I’ll have cartoon hearts floating around my head.”
“I’m serious, Teagan. The guys in the club might be dumb, but they’re not stupid. And the last person who needs to know is your dad if you’re hell bent on keeping it from him.”
