As Saint wasn’t here, I stole his snack and returned to my seat.
Mateo was listening to Nash through the cab’s radio.
He glanced at me and the open foil parcel in my hands. “Hungry?” he mouthed.
I shrugged and ate the first sausage roll in two bites.
Mateo grinned and picked up the radio receiver. “Yeah, yeah, I got it. Out.”
Nash was still talking.
Mateo turned the radio off. “Did you eat mine too?”
“As if. They’re safe behind the bananas. You want them?”
“Not yet. Did you check out the bed? You can sleep while I drive.”
“Not why I’m here, amigo.”
My terrible Spanish accent sent Mateo’s eyes rolling around the world and back. Then his expression sobered. “What’s up with Saint?”
“I don’t know.”
He cut me a hard stare. “Is this one of those things you do know but you can’t tell me because Camconfidedin you and shit?”
“Nope. I really don’t know. Cam called and asked me to jump on. He didn’t say why beyond that he wasn’t letting Saint go.”
Mateo refocused on the road a moment, hawk-eyeing an SUV as it passed us and signalled to move back into the slow lane. “Not today, dickweed.”
He sped up, closing the gap between us and the brothers in front. The SUV moved on and Mateo turned back to me. “He’d have to have a limb hanging off for Cam to keep him down. The others thought he was late because they were banging.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t that.”
“I said the others, not me. Cam already told me Saint don’t like fucking at the clubhouse.”
“Did he? When?”
“The other day. After the Russian came.”
When Cam had dragged Mateo away to the bar. Couldn’t deny I’d stayed put in the chapel and watched them drink together through the window. Cam and Mateo weren’t particularly close. They loved and trusted each other as much as any man on the council, but there was something inside Mateo that resisted Cam’s warmth and empathy, and Cam had learned to leave him be.
Had that changed?
Had I missed something?
Or had Cam seen what I had in church that night?
“Hey.” Mateo tapped his fist on my shoulder. “Don’t fall asleep with your mouth full.”
I jolted back to the present and blew him a middle finger kiss. “I’m not asleep.”
“What are you daydreaming about then? Anything nice?”
No. But I wasn’t about to admit that I’d been fixating on the horror I’d seen flood Mateo’s amber eyes that night. He was more open with me than he was with anyone, but it was all relative. There was still a huge part of Mateo that kept everyone—even me—at arm’s length, and I respected that. How could I not when I had so many horrible secrets of my own?
Except, they weren’t secrets anymore, not from him, and the balance between us felt suddenly off. I pictured the glittery hairband I’d shoved in my sock drawer. The woman from Porth Luck Cam still insisted was a gold star lesbian. Shit that was easy to forget about when his lips were hot on my bare skin, his cock grinding against mine, slow and sweet.
Didn’t make it less real, though. He was hiding something. Maybe lots of somethings. And I didn’t care what they were, I just wanted to know.
