Page 28 of Ride or Dies

“That’s enough,” I snapped. “The Bradshaws are doing what they’ve always done—helping us. I know Sue and Levi have been coming by to check on you.”

“Always sticking their noses in my business.” Mom crossed her arms, looking more like a little kid in time-out than a mother.

“You can’t stay here right now.” I tried another tactic. “It’s not safe.”

“And why is that?” Mom tilted her head, eyes glittering with something I didn’t want to put a name to. “What did you do?”

“She didn’t do anything,” Tucker cut into the conversation again. “Some people are just assholes.”

“Look,” I said. “Think of it like a vacation, okay? This is a high-end facility. Celebrities go there to dry out.”

“A vacation where I can’t drink and everyone tells me I’m a fuckup doesn’t sound like much of a vacation to me.”

Time to treat her like the kid she was behaving like. “If you go to rehab, follow all the rules, and finish the program, I’ll buy you that Gucci purse you want.”

She looked at me, considering, and then said, “Shoes too.”

“Fine. Shoes too,” I agreed. “But you have to complete the program and not break any of their rules.”

“Whatever.”

She wasn’t happy, but I didn’t care about that. She would be safe. And maybe she’d actually stay sober this time. Not forever, because I’d learned a long time ago not to hope for that, but maybe long enough for us to have a couple good days together.

“Car’s here,” Tucker said a few minutes later.

After letting the driver know that she’d get a tip at the rehab center and that my mom couldn’t offer her more money, I put Mom in the car and watched it drive away.

“Thank you,” I said quietly, not looking over at Tucker.

“For what?”

“For not thinking I’m a horrible daughter for not taking her there myself.”

He made an amused sound. “Evie, you’re a hundred times the daughter that woman deserves. Most people would’ve just cut her out of their lives for good, but you bought her a house and paid all the bills…hired a housekeeper.”

“I’m sorry she made that crack about you dropping out of school.” I turned toward him. “You’re still the smartest person I know.”

He grinned at me. “Don’t worry about it. I like handling the tech stuff for the club.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, he added, “Speaking of the club, we should probably head back there. It’s still the safest place for you—Levi wasn’t happy about you wanting to stay here last night.” He winked. “But I’ll bet he’s glad he caved on it.”

I rolled my eyes like I didn’t care, even though I knew I was blushing. I’d been conflicted enough about liking both Tucker and Mason. Now, if Tucker was right and Levi hadn’t been just wanting to get off last night but actually liked me, I had one more guy to throw into the mix. Except Tucker insisted I didn’t need to choose because they wanted to share me.

Share me.

And now that Mom was taken care of and I was going back to the clubhouse, I couldn’t put off thinking about it any longer.

On the back of Tucker’s bike, with my arms wrapped around his middle and the scent of his leather cut filling my nose, it was easy to think we could make this work, but I didn’t want to make my decision based on that. Even though there were times when Mason and Tucker had been decent to me, there were more memories of times they’d joined in with Levi to torment me. And I would be lying if I said they’d never made me cry.

But we were all grown now, and I felt a lot more comfortable standing up for myself. And if they already wanted to be with me enough that they were talking about ways to make it happen, I had to think that they’d listen to me if I called them out about being jerks. Plus, Jenna’s response to me telling her about what happened between her brothers and me made me believe that it wouldn’t hurt our friendship or her relationship with them.

As we pulled up to the gate of the clubhouse, Tucker stiffened. I peeked around him to see what was wrong. Everything I’d been running through in my head vanished, and I stared at the chaos around the main house. My grip on Tucker tightened as he raced through the now-open gate and up to where men were standing by their bikes, gesturing wildly and shouting.

“Judge!” Tucker yelled as he turned off his bike. “What the hell is going on here?!”

“Fucking Cobras,” Judge spat out. “Cowards hit a bunch of our guys when they were helping Junkyard’s old lady clear out her parents’ house.”

“Who’s hurt?”

The tension in Tucker’s voice was my first clue that someone I cared about could be on that list.

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