She lets go of my hand and doesn't drop her eyes.
Dakota takes the Lone Star Phantom's handing her. "One, Dakota. Only one. You've got a run in the morning."
She sips it with the patience of a woman who's been negotiating with her father over beer since she could walk.
"Welcome to the Saints, Spur," she says. "Try not to get yourself killed. You’re one of the pretty ones."
Dakota walks off, a shit-eating grin on her face. She heads straight over to the bar, and her mother locks eyes with her.
Jolene looks back at me for a split second, then back at her daughter. I can’t read the look that passes between them.
Something like a warning. Something like tenderness. Something like a woman watching her own mirror walk across the room and wishing the mirror didn't have to learn what she's learned.
I catch it anyway. I catch all of it—the grin, the mother's eyes, the shape of the air between them. A man who's spent his life reading bulls reads a room the same way.
Dakota takes a stool at the bar next to Rogue.
Leans her elbow on the wood. Laughs at something he says—a real laugh, loud and unbothered, the kind of laugh that doesn't care who in the room is listening. I'm listening.
I shouldn't be listening.
I know I shouldn't be listening and I can't make myself stop.
She tips her Lone Star back and takes a long swallow.
The silver buckle at her hip catches the clubhouse light, and I find myself doing math I have no business doing—how old she was when she won it, how many does she have on a shelf at home, whether her daddy put the first one on her or whether she earned it before he was paying attention.
She turns on the stool, catches me watching and doesn't look away. Hell, she holds my eyes across the clubhouse for three full seconds.
Then she raises her beer. An inch. A toast. For me.
My mouth goes dry.
Ten seconds ago I promised myself I wasn't going to look at her.
I'm looking at her.
I'mstilllooking at her when the hand lands on my shoulder.
Phantom.
I haven't turned around. My back's to him. He knows. I know he knows. I don't even have to look at him to know it.
"Spur."
One word. Quiet.
I turn.
Phantom's face isn't angry.
That's what surprises me.
I've just been caught by my president having a thought I have no business having about his daughter, and his face isn't angry.
His face is sad.
He shakes his head. Once. Small.
