“Isla? As in, club girl, Isla?” Smoke asks.
The way he says it ruffles Garrett. He removes his hand from beneath mine and leans forward. “Watch your tone when you talk about her, yeah?”
“Easy, tiger,” Smoke says. “I’m just surprised and was checking we were talking about the same person.”
“Last I heard, Isla had quit hanging around the club,” Wraith says.
“She had,” I confirm. “And we’re gonna have our work cut out for us, convincing her to come with us next weekend for the club anniversary.”
I wonder how much of Isla’s story I should tell them. Though, I guess Grudge and Catfish have already seen some of it. “She left to work on herself,” I continue. “Would be good if all of you and your old ladies could respect that.”
Wraith raises an eyebrow. “I’ll ask Raven to keep it tight, but I can’t make any promises. Isla was a bitch to Raven. Tried to get between us.”
“That’s all we can ask for,” I say. “Trust me when I say, Isla is living with all the decisions she shouldn’t have made. We want to find a way for her to fit in too.”
“Then, let’s vote on that,” Grudge says. “Because, if we’re honest with ourselves, we’re all part of the reason she’s gone.”
There’s a moment of pause as everyone considers their vote. I can only imagine what’s going through each of my brothers’ minds. Memories of themselves with Isla. Reflecting on what they have now with their old ladies. Wondering if Grudge is correct.
Slowly, hands begin to raise again.
And when the vote passes, Garrett is the one to takemyhand.
31
SHADE
“She’s gonna freak out,” Kai says as he pulls on a clean black shirt. He rolls the sleeves up, and I’m such a sucker for his arms that it’s hard to keep my hands off him.
“More or less thanyouare?” I ask as I pull my cut over my denim shirt. We told Isla to get dressed up because we’re taking her out. She’ll have two options: Option one, we take her out to a restaurant in town. Or two, we take her to the clubhouse to celebrate the club anniversary.
His brow furrows as he stops and looks at me. “I’m not freaking out.”
“Wild, you’re freaking out. You got what you wanted, and now, you’re doing that thing where you imagine a million worst-case scenarios. Yeah, Isla is probably going to freak out. But it won’t be anything we can’t talk her down from or out of, if we explain the reasons why we did it.”
I didn’t want her to overthink. I didn’t want her panicking over what to wear. I wanted her to decide what she felt good in, first. I also told her to wait over at her place so I could go pick her up like a proper fucking date, seeing as all we’ve done so far iseat the food she’s cooked, fucked her seven ways to Sunday, and helped her with some DIY over at her house. We’ve never even left the road we live on together.
He shakes his head at me. “Youare the master of overthinking.”
I shrug. “Or maybe we can admit we both do it, and in this instance, you need to listen to me because I’m not freaking out.”
The front door slams, and there’s the happy shout of Isla’s “hello!” up the stairs.
Hearing her voice overrides my frustration that she didn’t let me collect her, and we smile at one another. “We’ll be down in a second, Sunbeam,” I shout.
“You’re right,” Kai says. “I feel like I’m gonna puke.”
I laugh at that. “You’re not.”
“What if she says no?”
“The chances of one of us reading this wrong is low. The chances we both are is practically zero.”
Kai tugs his hair back off his face and ties it up in a messy bun at the back of his neck. “You’re not counting right. There’s a fifty-fifty chance of us being wrong individually. Multiply that together, it means there’s a twenty-five percent of us both being wrong.”
I pull on my rings, the large letterXand a skull, wondering how he did the math so quick, then realize that I love him more every single day.
“Marry me,” I say suddenly.
