Britta
By the next afternoon, my apartment felt less like my apartment and more like some strange mix between a biker safe house and the world’s least relaxing recovery center.
Tempi was there.
Twister was there.
Rev, Wheels, and Magnum were there too.
And Swift, of course, was right where he always was now—close enough that if I turned my head, I could find him without trying.
The guys had spread out through the living room, boots on my floor, voices low, all of them somehow managing to be both relaxed and ready for a fight at the same time.Twister was leaning against the far wall like he owned it.Wheels had taken over one end of the couch, talking to Rev about something under his breath.Magnum stood by the window for a while, then paced toward the TV and back again, like sitting still offended him personally.
Tempi and I had escaped to the kitchen.
Or at least that was how I looked at it.
Because as much as I was getting used to bikers taking up space around me, there was still something about a whole room full of patched men that made my apartment feel approximately seventy-five percent smaller.
Tempi leaned one hip against the counter and looked me over while I stood by the coffee maker, pretending I was only focused on making coffee and not on the fact that Swift was ten feet away in my living room, looking like trouble wrapped in broad shoulders and dark denim.
“You good?”Tempi asked.
I glanced at her over my shoulder.“Physically or mentally?”
She snorted.“Let’s start with physically since that answer is probably less unhinged.”
I rolled my shoulder slowly, testing the dull ache there.“I’m okay,” I said.“Sore.Tired.Mildly offended that being shot didn’t magically make me more interesting in a mysterious, glamorous way.”
Tempi laughed.“Girl, you already are interesting.Getting shot just made your week shittier.”
That was fair.
I grabbed two mugs from the cabinet and set them down with my good hand.“I’m fine,” I added, quieter this time.“I mean… I’m as fine as someone can be when her friend’s bar got torched, she got shot, and then the hot biker living in her apartment got shot at outside her building.”
Tempi’s brows rose.“Oh-ho.Look at you just dropping the phrasehot bikerin there like that.”
I groaned and reached for the coffee pods.“Don’t start.”
“Oh, I am absolutely starting,” she said, grinning.“Because I have eyeballs, Britta.And I have been watching the two of you dance around each other for days now.”
I shoved a pod into the machine harder than necessary.“There is no dancing.”
Tempi let out a laugh that said she thought I was a liar.“Uh-huh.”
I turned and pointed at her.“There is not.”
“Then why are your ears turning red?”
I slapped a hand over one ear automatically, which only made her laugh harder.“Tempi.”
“Britta.”
I narrowed my eyes at her.
She just crossed her arms and leaned more comfortably against the counter, fully settling in like she’d just been given premium gossip and intended to enjoy every second of it.“You have your own biker now,” she sing-songed.
“No.”
