She blew on the liquid in the mug cupped between her hands, her eyes searching mine as she looked for answers where I didn’t want to give any.
“You not having a cuppa?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Don’t drink the stuff.”
One eyebrow lifted very slightly before she controlled it again. And I remembered the hours we’d spent drinking coffee in little cafés to stay out of the rain.
“Beer is better.” I tried to lighten my voice.
“Hmmm,” Sophie murmured through the mouthful of latte, and I watched her throat move as she swallowed it. “You just going to stand there and watch me then?”
“Maybe.”
Silence. Both of us, now. Each watching each other. Neither of us saying anything. Sophie stared at me over her coffee, a storm now in that grey. And that meant she was dealingwith something. Some sort of internal conflict. I wished I knew what that was. I wish she knew what mine was.
Out in the bar of theDog on the Tyne, there were twenty or so bike clubs. Any one of them could have turned. None of us really knew, despite our threats and our intelligence. Collectively they outnumbered us, and that was dangerous. And here I was having coffee with a woman in the clubhouse kitchen instead of out there watching. Listening. Ready to strike at the earliest sign that shit was going down.
“How long have you been back?” I asked eventually.
“Three, maybe four months now.”
That long. She’d been under my nose for months. And all it had taken was one order from Indie to go to one of my most hated places. She’d always wanted to be a doctor. She’d declined so many parties just to sit at home in those books. Like a few hours of letting her hair down would have made a difference. I’d sometimes been jealous, watching her pore over the textbooks in front of her when I could barely fucking read, let alone understood the shit she read.
The door beside me squeaked suddenly. Both of us started.
“Reap. There you are…” Indie’s voice trailed away, his eyes fixing on Sophie, then on me. “Word?”
I nodded, smiled at Sophie, and followed him out into the corridor.
“Who’s that?”
“Sophie.”
Indie’s eyebrows furrowed. A flash of familiarity, but not sticking around long enough for him to grasp.
“An old friend.”
“And what is yourold frienddoing here?”
“That I don’t really know.”
“She really shouldn’t be here.”
“I know,” I answered.
Indie’s head turned back to the door.
“DCI Mercer’s daughter,” he said. Not to me. Just into space. But I knew he’d finally made the connection.
“Yeah,” I muttered, even though it hadn’t required an answer.
“What is she doing here, Reap?” Indie asked again, his eyes on me, piercing.
And now Indie wasn’t questioning Sophie’s intentions but mine.
“She stitched me up in the hospital last week. Guess I couldn’t let the past stay where it was, so I went back to see her.”
Indie nodded. Not angry. Thoughtful. And I knew, no matter how pissed he was at a copper’s daughter in our clubhouse, he also understood. Emmie had changed him. In some ways, he was more ruthless. More protective than ever of us, of her, and of the club and its interests. But he saw life through a different lens now that she was in it. And none of us knew whether that was always a good thing.
