“Okay,” she agreed, giving him a grateful smile. “Oh, um… I couldn’t grab anything…”
“Just give us a list. I’ll have someone pick whatever you need up from your apartment or office.”
“Thanks, Fal,” she said, giving him one of her soft smiles.
Beside her, Duke put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned over into him and he pressed a quick kiss to her temple.
That, I reminded myself, was why I couldn’t touch her.
She was their sweet golden girl.
And every one of them would think a guy like me would dull her shine.
“Anything else you need from me?” I asked, forcing my gaze away from Gracie.
“As much information as you have about Cameron and your former crew that you can remember. It’ll help Junior narrow shit down.”
“I’ll get on that,” I said, moving away.
The meeting wound down from there, with Brooks giving out guard shifts to some members and recon tasks to others before Fallon reminded everyone that lockdown meant no outsiders and parties before dismissing everyone.
“Alright, pretty princess,” Sully said, moving to lean on the bar beside Gracie in his ridiculous Hawaiian shirt with a cactus print. He had a spiral notebook and one of those pens the rich kids had in school where you could click down different individual colors.
“Hey, Sul,” she said, finishing off the drink Pagan made her.
I just barely fought back the urge to grab him by the back of the neck and drag him away from her.
He wasn’t even flirting.
He was happily taken.
He was just like that.
But there was no reasoning with my jealousy.
“I’m on Gracie’s Goods duty,” he told her, flipping with a flourish to an empty page and scrawling her name across the header line. “So, what do you need me to pick up?”
I forced myself to walk away, to go into my own room, to grab a notebook, and get to my own list writing.
And I tried really fucking hard not to think how nice it was going to be to have Gracie around the clubhouse for the foreseeable future.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Gracie
I expected Fallon, Uncle Reign, or my father to object to me staying at the clubhouse.
Sure, there’d been times when we were really young that we sometimes sheltered at the clubhouse during uncertain times. But as a whole, the guys always wanted us up at Hailstorm.
I got it from a logistical standpoint. If we were at the clubhouse, they had to split their focus between protecting us and neutralizing a threat.
Then there was the whole plausible deniability thing. If we were at the compound, we would genuinely be able to say we had no idea what was going on with the club if the law got involved. We couldn’t say that if we were at the clubhouse.
So it was a happy surprise when Fallon, my dad, and my uncle had no objections to me crashing at the clubhouse.
I imagine if I waited any longer to ask, someone would have come up with a list of reasons it was a bad idea. Catching them off-guard when their minds were racing worked in my favor.
And, of course, the reason I wanted to stay was because of Perish.
