Page 70 of Busted Dreams

Jonah scratched his eyebrow. “Look, I don’t have a problem with Angel or his dad. They seemed all right once I met them. But that whole club, reformed or not, carries some very bad memories for me. I’d rather not waste a perfectly good afternoon reliving my mother’s last years with me, or be around that idiot Reaper’s friends. It’s asking for trouble.”

“I get that. But you have to let go of that at some point. That all happened before Graves took over the club. And Angel’s assured me that none of Reaper’s friends are hanging around. We all know Reaper isn’t there.” His words were bloated with cryptic meaning.

One night at the cottage, we’d all agreed Reaper probably wasn’t a problem for anyone anymore, but that didn’t mean we would ever talk about it freely. That would be the height of stupidity, and we might have been young and naïve, but none of us were stupid.

“I have you now, so there’s really no point in adding anyone else to thisfamily.” Jonah twirled his finger to encompass him and Beck.

At hearing his words, Beck seemed to deflate. Sadness radiated from him as he and Jonah locked gazes. “I’m sorry you feel that way. If nothing else, I’d like you to go for me. You weren’t the only one who made mistakes, and I personally would like to rectify mine. It would mean something to me if my brother went with me.”

The heartfelt words seemed to catch Jonah off guard as he looked out the window, swallowing hard. I itched to reach out to him, provide some kind of comfort, but with Beck here, I wasn’t sure if my touch would be welcome.

In a way, Jonah was the complete opposite of me. I was trying so hard to distance myself from the family who raised me. He had this rare opportunity to add people who really cared to his. As scary as it was to try and make it on my own, it must be even more so to find out you now had people who could matter to you.

Because the ones who could do the most damage were the ones we loved the most. And letting someone in, that was giving them the ultimate leverage over your head. A person might as well hand them a gun and beg them not to fire.

Jonah took such a deep breath, his entire body quaked with his shaky exhale.

Fuck it.

I got up and walked to the other side of the booth, sliding in beside Jonah. He jerked back and gave me a startled look. Slowly, so not to frighten him, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders.

“I’m going with Beck. I would like you to come too,” I said quietly.

He never raised his arms to return the embrace, but he did relax. “Fine. If you two and the others are going, I can manage to make it through a couple of hours. Don’t expect me to have any fun, though.” Jonah’s tone made it very clear this was a favor to us as his friends and family. Not for the Devil’s Hands. And that was okay.

Our food was plopped onto the table right as I was letting go. Luckily, the waitress didn’t seem to think anything was out of the ordinary that I’d gone from one boy on one side of the table to the other. Or if she did, she kept it to herself.

For a second, Beck had an unreadable expression on his face, then wiped it clean with a smirk. “Eat up, baby bro. I have to get back to work this afternoon. Brady’s being a little bitch, and it would be easier not to give him a reason to talk to me.” Beck laughed and tossed a French fry at Jonah’s head.

Catching it in his mouth, Jonah replied, “The owner’s son? I didn’t realize he was back at the shop.”

“How do you even know the people at Tippy’s?” I asked while mixing my ketchup and ranch together for my fries. Jonah lifted a lip when he noticed what I was doing, but kept his comments to himself. Then there was Beck, who reached across the table and dipped his fry in my sauce.

“For being a large suburb of the city, it’s still a small town. And I remember him. Tippy’s isn’t too far from where I grew up, so we did shop there on occasion. That guy complained constantly about how dirty the place was and how he would never be a mechanic. He was so adamant and vocal that it stuck, even though I never knew him personally.”

“See. Like I said, Brady’s a little bitch. But he doesn’t have any real power, so it’s more of a nuisance than anything,” Beck said before he took a bite of his burger.

At that exact moment, the hostess was seating two guys at the booth behind Beck, and the one closest to us stopped to glare at us. His face turned so red, he could have given the ketchup a run for its money.

Jonah choked on his chicken tender while giving Beck a warning look.

“Aw, shit. He’s behind me, isn’t he,” he grumbled as he picked up his napkin and wiped his hands. Beck took his time before twisting in the seat. The creaking plastic of the material was too loud in the sudden silence.

This must have been Brady. A nerdy man, with a pinched face. He wasn’t even nerdy in the attractive way Jonah was. No, I could tell from his haughty expression he thought he was better than our entire table.

Beck had to work with this guy? How horrible.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work? We already have cars piling up, and we’ll be overrun on Saturday. If you can’t keep up with the workload, you won’t be able to leave in time for your family function.”

Curling his hands into fists, Beck dropped them to his lap and out of sight. “I’ve already told you Brady, I’ve asked for that day off. Well in advance. Your dad approved it weeks ago. I’m afraid you’ll have to get by without me.”

I was a bad person. And there was a good possibility I was going to go to Hell, because I instantly hated this man and wanted to document the ugliness that was so clear to see written on his skin. While he was so focused on Beck, I lifted my phone from the table and aimed it his way.

Photography was my thing. The way emotion could be captured in a still shot, when it was so easily missed in person, fascinated me. But today wasn’t about capturing emotion. It was about gathering enough evidence of this guy’s assholery. I’d say I learned a lesson from Jonah, but Brady looked about as dangerous as Beck’s discarded French fry.

“Sorry. If you don’t show, you lose your job. Dad already agreed everyone should be pulled in, regardless of time off approved or not.” Brady crossed his arms as if his final word was law.

Beck rose halfway out of his seat. “You don’t want to do that, Brady.”

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