I turned my back on Alexei and finished changing. I didn’t much care if he saw me naked, but I’d picked up early on in our working relationship that he didn’t want me to see him, and I was more than happy to give him space.
It felt good to be back in my board shorts and boots. I stashed my gear, pulled the anchor up, and started the boat engine, letting Alexei do his thing while I navigated us back to dry land, collecting plastic trash from the sea, fully ignoring his sardonic stare.
At the marina, Alexei gave me two updates: One that made my heart relax. Another that sent it sinking into my stomach.
Embry. He was gonna be okay.
But our bugs? Three of them weren’t working, which meant we had to do this all over again until we got what we came for.
I didn’t have much of a potty mouth, but seriously?
Fuck my life.
20
DECOY
Folk came home on his birthday. He’d been gone four days, but it felt like a month.
I watched him roll his bike to a stop and yank his helmet off, wondering when the switch had flipped inside me to make him front and centre of every non-Ivy related thought that passed through my brain.
Couldn’t lie, it was probably the first night he’d spent in my bed. The non-platonic moments we’d shared since had merely sealed the deal.
Folk hung his helmet and glanced around.
It was by chance that mine was the first face he saw. I was coming out of the clubhouse, answering Rubi’s call to dinner. With FolkandIvy not being around, I hadn’t felt much like eating, but Rubi was persuasive and I was glad of it. Without his charm, I’d have missed Folk shaking his hair out and sweeping the yard with his blue-moon gaze.
The way he seemed to relax when he found me and his lips turned up in a grin so handsome, I felt weak at the fucking knees.
He slid from his bike and started towards me.
I met him halfway. “Happy birthday.”
He laughed. “Who told you? Locke?”
“It’s on your ID. It’s me that processes new members.”
“That so? You didn’t say happy birthday to me last year.”
“I didn’t say anything to you last year. I was too intimidated by your presence.”
Folk stepped closer. “Intimidated? Really?”
I took a breath to respond, but the chapel door banged open before I could speak, and our brothers spilled into the yard—Rubi, Nash, River, and Locke.
Saint was a little behind them, but he bypassed Folk to greet Alexei who’d appeared on foot from literally nowhere.
Locke hugged Folk and held his phone up. Two identical boys were on the screen, waving. Too old to be Rocco’s kids, so I assumed they were Locke’s nephews.
They shouted toothy greetings.
Folk grinned and waved back.
Uncle Folk. It looked good on him.
“Come on, come on.” Rubi clapped him on the back. “These vegetables wait for no one.”
He hustled everyone back to the chapel. Inside we found Cam waiting with Liliana and balloons, and true to Rubi’s word, more vegetables than I’d ever seen.
