I heard his chair scrape as he pushed it backward. “Is Sloane—?”
“She’s fine. At ease, soldier.” I let my head fall back on the headrest and looked up at the school. “I just feel better being here.”
He paused again. “For some strange reason, I feel better you being there, too.”
We ended the call not long after. I didn’t know why I’d called him, but something felt off with me, and I was trying to figure out what exactly I needed to make myself feel grounded again. If she hadn’t been working, I’d have gone straight to Ayda to talk it out. I was getting better at that. But Rusty’s was becoming her safe haven, despite the unease and paranoia she sometimes felt while there, and I didn’t want to drop more drama at her busy, working feet. Not without having something real and concrete to place there.
In the end, I found myself getting out of the van, shrugging my shoulders in my cut and walking along the streets that would lead me to the football field.
When I got there, it was empty. I couldn’t see any football players, no cheerleaders, and not a single staff member anywhere. All there was were green fields at my feet and blue skies up ahead. I made my way to the place where I’d first kissed Ayda and stared at the very spot where I’d first pushed her away when all I’d really wanted to do was pull her closer.
With my hands pushed deep into my jeans pockets, I got lost in the memory and found myself staring at the wall she’dbeen pressed against when I’d first found her. Her hands had been tugging the blonde lengths of her hair in frustration. Her eyes had been wild. And those lips…
Man, those lips.
I’d wanted to devour them the second I’d seen their gentle quivering as her uncertainty took over.
We’d had a lot of memories in a short space of time, and even though our very first kiss on the edge of this field hadn’t ended well that night, I couldn’t help feeling like that very first moment with her might just be one of my all-time favorites.
I let out a weighty sigh, almost forgetting where I was when I heard something behind me. Jacob Hove was walking out onto the grass at the other edge of the field, carrying a net bag over his shoulder and staring at his feet like he found his job the most boring job in the whole fucking world. I quickly ducked behind the wall, peering around the corner just enough that I could see him but he couldn’t see me. He dropped the bag to the grass and then bent at the knees as he started to open it, pulling out a load of shit and dropping it all to the ground carelessly.
I frowned as I watched him, simply because I hated the motherfucker. He’d had my girl before I had. No man took too kindly to that, no matter how much of a saint they were. And I definitely wasn’t a saint. Just a year ago, I’d have used Jacob’s face as a training bag for the fun of it… because I didn’t like the look of him, and nothing else.
That rumbling in my stomach stirred again.
That quiet whisper that sounded like revenge whistled in my ear.
No one would know if I walked over there and had a quiet word. No one would believe him that I’d been around, that theMC had been watching. That a hardcore club like the Hounds could and would enter a high school to hurt the new football coach for no good reason at all.
I was tempted.
Too tempted.
Until I saw Jacob’s head snap to the bleachers as someone called out to him. My eyes followed where he turned to look up, and the very second I saw a figure standing as arrogantly as I did, wearing a leather cut, with his hair and eyes hidden under a black baseball cap, my spine stiffened.
Jacob stood, planting his hands on his hips as he shouted something at the visitor in the bleachers.
The visitor didn’t respond verbally. Instead, he pointed at his wrist, signaling the time before he thumbed over his shoulder and gave Jacob a nod. Jacob saluted in return before he dropped back down to the ground and went back to organizing the small cones in size order.
I, however, was focusing all my attention on the leather cut.
And the moment the guy wearing it turned around and began to walk back up the steps, I was pretty fucking certain I forgot how to breathe.
Because as sure as I had a dick between my legs, there stood a rival MC member, walking away from me without a care in the world…
Without any knowledge of my presence…
Without any fear in his heart…
Without any worry about being in someone else’s territory.
With one very large, scary as shit Navarro Rifles patch on his back.
The Navs were in Babylon.
And Jacob Hove seemed to know them well.
The van practically spun into a parking space outside Rusty’s. The screeching of the tires had everyone sitting by a window looking out to the parking lot in one swift head snap. I barely waited for the engine to die before I jumped out of the seat, slammed the door and ran up the steps to the door, the leather edges of my cut flapping as I moved quickly.
