Ask me how I knew.
We warmed up with some lazy combinations, dancing around each other for a while. Nash was one of the best boxers in the club, but I wasn’t bad either. I lacked his power and I wasn’t the fastest, but I had one major skill: I didn’t go down easy. And I sure as fuck didn’t stay down. Nash could deck me as hard as he liked, I’d still get up and do it all a thousand times over.
As it was, he didn’t get that many jabs on me. Perhaps he was tired, or maybe I was faster than I thought.
Either way, we were both sweating buckets when he finally called time on our friendly bout. “See?” He clapped me on the shoulder. “You fucking needed that.”
I had knuckle-shaped bruises forming on my ribs, but I couldn’t disagree. My fists throbbed and my lungs burned, but every punch I’d caught my brother with had felt so fuckinggood. “Thanks, brother.”
Nash grinned. “You’re welcome. Just cos you’re a quiet fucker, don’t think we don’t see you.”
“I don’t think that.”
Nash made a disbelieving sound and embraced me. Then he stepped aside and jabbed his thumb across the yard. “You’ve got company.”
“Hmm?”
Nash smirked and hopped out of the ring, tipping a nod to the lone figure reclining on a picnic bench, watching us from a far enough distance that I couldn’t see his face.
Folk. He was home, and I’d been so caught up in the fight that I hadn’t heard his bike come in.
It felt like a reward for taking Nash’s fists. For not getting snarled up in Lauren’s bullshit.
And for surviving twenty-four hours without him.
I ducked out of the ring. The yard was busy with brothers shooting the shit under the summer sky, smoke from the fire pits thick in the air. I wove through them until I reached the bench. Folk sat up to meet me and the heat in his lunar gaze hooked me in.
No greeting formed on my lips. I just stared, and he stared back, something unsaid smouldering between us. Something Ihadto say, so we didn’t stand here all fucking night when I needed so much more.
No one I could see was paying us any attention. Couldn’t say I’d have done anything different if they were.
Pulse stampeding in my ears, I held out my hand. “Come home with me?”
19
FOLK
We left the compounds on our bikes and rode to the house on Bassett Avenue. Decoy’s hog was an old V-Rod. It looked good between his thick thighs, but I could tell he had no emotional attachment to it.
The Rebel Kings were odd like that. For an organisation that revolved around motorbikes, half the council seemed indifferent to them. Decoy, Mateo, Alexei.
Me.
You’re not on the council.
And I still hadn’t decided if that would change. Hadn’t thought about it. Instead, I’d spent every second I hadn’t been immersed in other things thinking about this. Abouthim. And what would happen if I ever got him alone again. Where I’d been the last twenty-four hours, it had been too easy to believe I’d never get the chance. But if war had taught me one thing, it was that fatalism didn’t have to be permanent.
We parked outside his house. Decoy yanked his helmet off, his hair still damp and mussed from sparring with Nash, his jaw rugged with a day’s more growth than when I’d seen him last.
One day.
One night.
How did it feel like a month?
Somewhere in my brain, common sense told me it was because I’d carried feelings for this man for longer than I’d owned the bike I sat on. But common sense was a world away from how I felt right now. I was the master at maintaining my composure, but as Decoy stepped closer, dizziness rocked me. The good kind that melted the stress and violence I’d lived through to get here.
I ditched my helmet and slid from my bike. Decoy was a foot away and I thought he might reach for me, but he glanced at the security cameras and changed his mind.
