Page 69 of Wolf

“Likefuck.”

Jax turned to look at us three with upturned eyebrows as we all simultaneously shothimdown.

“Sorry, brother.” Hunter chuckled, getting up from his seat to slap Jax on the shoulder. “But one of you is bad enough. I don’t need Adair to turn intoyou,too.”

“Looks like I’ve got a free afternoon, then,” Jax grumbled. He shook off Hunter’s hand, propped his own onto the back of the sofa where Ash was sitting, and leaned over it. “You wanna keep me company,darlin’?”

My eyes, on pure instinct, cut over to the bar where Lamb was putting drinks away, and I swore to God, I saw Lamb turn away the second my head moved. I stared at him a while longer, but he didn’tglanceback.

“Get lost, Jax,” I growled at him as Ash continued to remain silent, content to just stare at him unfazed. “Where’s your new bum buddyanyway?”

“Pretty’s at school.” Jax sighed like a sad, lovesick school girl. Ever since Hunter had gotten hitched to Mallory, his time had been filled up with her, the adorable little rug rat, and trying to get his hands on his own garage. All in all, Jax had been a little neglected recently, and so he’d become more attached to Pretty while trying to get his claws into Mint, too, though Mint was having noneofit.

“School?” Mallory wondered, tilting her head to the side in question, her long red hair falling over part of the couchcushion.

“Yeah, he went back to get his GED. He’s at the local college over inRedwood.”

“Good for him.” Mallory beamed, nodding her head. “I’d like to go back to school and finish my degreeeventually,too.”

“You’ll get there,” Hunter said, coming around to the back of her seat and squeezing her shoulders. “But right now, you’ve got somewhere to be, and I’ve got to get down to thegarage.”

Somewhere to beagain? Howsuspicious.

I didn’t dig. I could pretty much figure out what was going on. Instead, I worked on prying my phone out of Adair’s small hands in exchange for a kiss, which I knew worked on the little flirt, before passing him off to hisuncle.

Hunter lifted Adair into his arms, and despite the year Adair had been around, I still hadn’t gotten used to their shocking contrast. Where Adair’s hair was blond and curly like his father’s, Hunter’s was a dark, almost black-brown. It reminded me of when I was first told Noble and Hunter had been related and had laughed in their faces indisbelief.

I missedNoble.

I sighed, moving on from the thought, as I noticed Hunter and Mallory had made it to the door and Jax had also managed to catch his girl of the week as she stumbled down from hisbedroom.

“You’re close.” Ash’s voice caught me. She was staring straight into my face behind her sunglasses, a bottle of rum tucked under her arm. “I never thought you wouldsettle.”

“I couldn’t run forever, Ash.” I cut her a look, but Ash turned her head away to gaze out the window. I shook my head. “That night,” I broached instead, my eyes scanning her for a reaction. There was none. “What did you talk to Wolfabout?”

Wolf hadn’t said anything to me once he’d come to bed the other night, and he was gone before I woke up in the morning and every morning since, so I hadn’t had the chance to push the topic. I had told him to go easy on her, but I had no idea what he had asked, and from what I heard, Ash had gone back to her room without really talking to anyone once she came backinside.

It had been a week since then, and despite Ash being on house arrest in the club because the Black Jacks were targeting her, I hadn’t managed to get anything out of her, either; her drinking, anti-social behavior, and pure stubbornness had made it difficult to talk aboutanything.

As Ash pulled the bottle to her mouth, I knew we again weren’t going to getanywhere.

I grunted, rising from the couch and walking away before I chose to punch her for pissing me off. I expected her to follow me as I headed toward the other side of the room, but after one look in the direction of the bar, where Lamb had just finished putting the stock away and was staring at the empty space where the rum was supposed to be, she sank back down into the couch and hooked one leg over the other, content to drift off intospace.

So instead, I made my way past Lamb as his eyes turned and landed on the back of Ash’s head. I paid him no mind as I made my way to the office doorway, hearing Wolf’s gruff voice on the other sideofit.

I reached for the door handle but stopped when I heard another voice on theotherside.

“You can’t go,” Kay’s voicesnapped.

She sounded angry, which forced my handtostop.

“Kay—” Wolf began, but Kay was on him like ahound.

“No, Wolf, you listen to me, and you listen to me good.” I heard a bang and figured it was Kay slamming her hands down like she always did when angered. “I didn’t want to say this to you, Wolf, because I know how much you idolized Roscoe and because I had hoped you wouldn’t be the sameashim.”

“Where are yougoingwith—”

“Roscoe wasn’t a good man, Wolf,” Kay interrupted. I could feel the tension rise on the other side of the door, knowing, even without seeing, the confusion and no doubt shock that would be showing on Wolf’s face. I could hear the pained softening of Kay’s voice as she broke the heavy silence. “Roscoe was an amazing president. One of, if not the best president in the club’s history. He was dedicated, always there for the club, and always ready to take the fall to protect one of his brothers. But all the qualities that made him a good president ruined him as a husband and father. Where he was a hero in lockup for the club, he was a husband who had abandoned his wife and children. A man who never turned up to his daughter’s school plays and a father who was never home for dinner.” I could hear the torn-up emotion in Kay’s throat because I could feel it building up in my own. I hadn’t known Roscoe, but I had known of the legend, of the amazing man who all the brothers had looked up to. Wolf the most. And to hear him being torn down like that, I could almost hear Wolf’s heartbreaking.

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