“Come and check in now and then, but we’ll wait in my car if it gets too cold.”
“That fucking cage,” he murmured, unexpectedly reaching out to cup the back of my head, as his lips pressed against my forehead. Wow. Why was that so sweet and sexy? Ugh. He was destroying all my boundaries, crashing over them with kindness and sweetness, and just the right amount of snarkiness. Damn him.
“Okay, VP, lead the way.”
I watched him leave, waving a few other bikers in that direction as they parked up and looked around them.
“Babe, huh?”
I groaned again. “It’s not a thing. He just… he calls me it like a… Oh shut up.”
Chapter Fifteen
Harley kept trying toapologise, and I get it, he was feeling bad about what he said, but that’s the thing with people. They’ll be assholes, then apologise because they want to feel better about themselves, and it doesn’t undo a fucking thing. I knew now what he thought of me, as in not good enough for V. Not decent enough to treat her right. Not smart enough to understand that she’s healing, and doesn’t need more bad shit in her life.
“How were they when they got here?”
I groaned, because the fucker wouldn’t stop talking at me.
“He was a jittery mess, and she was telling him to calm the fuck down.” I sipped some of the shit coffee I’d grabbed from the machine, and Harley sighed.
“I get that you’re pissed at me, and I’ll do anything I can to fix that, brother. I spoke out of turn, and I’m sorry. I protected her, because she’s vulnerable right now, but that wasn’t fair to you. I know you’re not a predator, or an asshole, okay? I’m a dick for making you think that’s how I see you. It isn’t. I don’t dobusiness with guys like that, and I sure as hell don’t invite them into a partnership.”
Fuck me. I glanced at the clock on the wall, and how the fuck was it not even eight in the fucking morning yet?
“Look, keep your apologies, because I can’t help feeling it’s only to make yourself feel better. You don’t have a decent opinion of me, and I know that now. Why you invited me into your business is beyond me, but I don’t see it working out.”
Harley gaped at me as I stood up. “Oh come on, man. This is just a misunderstanding. The work thing was going really well.”
I shrugged, feeling belligerent and childish.
“Guess you’ll just have to tell your clients you accidentally partnered up with a cunt, but he’s gone, yeah?” I started walking out. Why was I waiting around for a President who I barely liked most days, with a VP I’d finally realised didn’t even like me, and with a club that hadn’t really accepted me? Was there anywhere that I actually fit in? If not here, and not at the OG chapter, then where?
V and Caroline were sitting in her cage, giggling over Nixie, and I groaned. I wanted to get the hell out of here, but that meant ousting Caroline, and going inside the hospital was going to be a struggle for her. I couldn’t just fucking dump her here, no matter how pissed I was at Harley. It wasn’t her fault her man was being a dick.
I tapped on V’s window, but she was already lowering it to speak to me.
“Everything okay in there?”
I shrugged, because I didn’t have any updates, did I?
“Just wanted to grab Nixie, and I’ll make my way home. You guys can hang or whatever.”
V glanced at Caroline, and pushed her door open suddenly enough that it cracked against my knee, and pain blossomed down my leg, as I cursed and hopped back.
“Fuck!”
“Oh god, I’m sorry. Jesus, I was… I should have been more careful.”
I cupped a hand over the throbbing kneecap as I glared up at her.
“Seriously? How the fuck am I gonna walk home like this? It’s like you just had to scupper my fucking plans!”
I ignored the gasp from Caroline, because the woman who mattered was the one facing me right now, a deep frown creasing her forehead.
“What happened in there?”
Fucking smart, right? Too fucking smart.
