Page 127 of Smooth Sailing

Whenever he’d hear a man bitch about a moody woman, he didn’t get it. Like, that man didn’t have emotions too, and show them? Like a woman was supposed to float through life singing, smiling and twirling like fucking Sleeping Beauty?

Sure, it sucked when his ma got pissy.

Though, she didn’t like it much when he did either.

Also the day before, Hugger felt a weird warmth hit his gut at witnessing how Di let Big Petey look after her.

The man was a brother’s brother. When it came to his Club, Pete was not skimpy with his experience or wisdom.

But he was a woman’s man in the sense he set himself up as dad, uncle or grandpa to every female he met in order to offer them what they needed.

Hugger reckoned that was a father who only had one daughter. If you were a good man, and Big Petey was the best, that’s just what happened when you made a girl.

So Pete was in his element with Di.

In fact, the last few days, Big Petey had seemed more himself, and more content, than he had in a long time.

It went further though, because Hugger knew Di sensed it, and she gave him that.

Because she was Di.

All about giving.

Late in the afternoon, they got news from Scott that Maddy and her family were safe and settled.

Scott also shared Imran, Esad, and Esad’s boys were proving hard to find, and in the raid they conducted on the house where the suspected activity was happening, they discovered it had been cleared out. Though, there was evidence of recent occupancy, and it was not the kind of evidence that pointed at a nuclear family living there.

They believed they also discovered Maddy’s crime scene, and what they found there indicated it was the scene of many other crimes, so they had a lot to process.

All that was moving forward, which was good, just not very fast, which was expected.

The last thing about the day before was Hugger had let Di con him into sleeping beside her again.

Truth, it didn’t take much.

And she copped to what she was doing right away.

All she said was, “Warning, incoming emotional manipulation.” She then made her pretty green eyes all soft and sweet and begged, “Please don’t make me sleep alone tonight.”

Yep, that was it.

Again, it didn’t take much.

Now, Maddy was gone and life was going to go back to normal for Diana. Although they were keeping her covered, with Maddy out of the picture, the Babics had no beef with Diana, so no reason to fuck with her.

Armitage was a different story. But Hugger guessed you didn’t make it far, even in the criminal world, by wasting your time and resources on someone who mildly inconvenienced you.

That meant they’d likely find out soon there was no reason for Hugger to be in Phoenix anymore, except to be with Diana.

It also meant there was nothing in the way of them exploring what they had either.

This made Hugger uneasy.

He had his Club. A job he did so he could do his bit for the Club, but he couldn’t say he liked it. What he could say was that it passed the time. He had a house he didn’t give a shit about. A bank account that was healthy, because he rarely spent any money.

And that was it.

Di had friends, family, a job she did that she dug and a stylish pad that had her stamp all over it. They were having dinner with her father that night and she was having cocktails with her friends on Friday. This meant she had more social engagements in one week than Hugger had in the last six months. And the only one he had was a Chaos hog roast, so that was about the entire brotherhood and their family, he could go or skip it, it didn’t matter, so it wasn’t about Hugger.

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