Page 148 of Smooth Sailing

He caught me, of course.

He’d done that all my life.

I just didn’t know.

And when I did know, I either didn’t notice or didn’t give him credit for it.

That was about the time I got mascara all over his shiny, silvery-blue polo shirt.

Dad didn’t mind.

16

BEST THING I EVER DID

Hugger

When they returned to her pad that night, Di was definitely in another mood.

But this time, she wasn’t talking.

All the way home, up the elevator and into her place, she was silent.

Hugger stopped at her kitchen bar, threw her keys on it, and watched as she walked right to her bedroom, her movements stiff and jerky.

He saw the lights go on in there.

Hugger really wanted to call Joker, or Shy, Dutch or Jag and ask what to do when your woman just got emotionally gutted from belly to gullet. They’d all been through it, some worse than others, but they had.

He didn’t have time to do that.

As ever, he was on his own. This time, he was trying to figure out how to be there for her now.

After Di had her crying jag on her dad’s chest, there were only two further sticky moments during dinner.

The first came when Di took off to fix her face, leaving Hugger alone with Armitage.

The man didn’t beat around the bush.

“You the reason why I have bikers following me everywhere?”

In order to provide visible presence, his brothers had decided not to go stealthy, but it was still interesting Armitage noticed.

“Di was worried for your safety after you kicked Babic to the curb,” he explained. “So I got my brothers to give you some cover.”

That openly mollified him, the same with pleasing him, which Hugger thought was a shocker. Though, considering what it said was that his daughter was worried about him, it made sense.

“Are you in a Club?” Armitage asked.

“Yeah. Look it up. Chaos MC. We own and operate Ride Auto Supply Stores and our garage does custom builds. You can find an article in Wilde and Hay about our Club and builds. It’s still on their website. Also got a documentary about our history. It’s streaming. It’s called Blood, Guts and Brotherhood.”

“That’s forthcoming.”

“Got nothin’ to hide.”

Armitage glanced in the direction Di had gone, then came back to Hugger.

“You seem to care deeply for her.”

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