Page 50 of Bullet

I don’t know if Lynette will ever agree to something more than a sort of friendship, a relationship as a bodyguard of sorts, or as a client because I’m part of the club. I don’t know if I have any right to ask her for more.

Opposites might attract, as some of the men in the club have proved, finding love against seemingly impossible odds, but just because I’ve watched it happen to guys in my own club doesn’t mean it’ll work out for me.

What can I really offer her? How long would it be before we found out just how wrong we are for each other? We might have a few things in common, but it truly is just a few. If it ever started, could it last? Would momentary happiness be worth the pain when it ended, as it probably would?

I don’t have an answer for that.

I have answers to fuck all lately, and it’s starting to drive me nuts.

All I can do is vow that I’ll have my priorities in order. First, the club will come for Harold, then, I’ll come for Lynette.

Romantically. The wooing stuff that Willa mentioned. The sweet stuff.

Not the way I did last night.

I mean, fuck, if it’s right, maybe I could do both, but if it ever happens again, there’s zero chance that I’m going to let Lynette walk away unsatisfied again.

Chapter 13

Lynette

“Ifail to see the appeal of that car. It’s tiny and looks like it’s made out of nothing more than tin.” I turn away from the window where I was doing the big sister spy stink-eye until the classic sixties muscle car turned left at the stop sign a few houses down and disappeared out of sight.

“It’s worth somewhere around a hundred grand.”

Bullet’s hand hovers, outstretched, near my back, but he quickly drops it as I stalk past him. My heels slap against the hardwood. I have twenty thousand things I need to get done today. It’s not that I don’t appreciate Bullet’s company this morning, but I find it hard to think when he’s around.

“You’d think for that much money you’d get a few safety features, like airbags.”

“It has air conditioning and seatbelts. For the year, it’s about as good as it gets.” Bullet follows me back into my new home office. I was safely ensconced in there until I came out to say goodbye to Willa and watch her climb into Atlas’s death trap.

He slides a record from its sleeve—I notice the sleeve says Bach, and I wonder for a moment which of the club members this classical record belongs to—and puts it on the turntable in my office. The record player rests on the far end of the room. Willa practically drooled over the vintage wood and chrome and the matching large brown speakers when we got here and found it.

“I thought the point of not taking Willa to school on a motorcycle was to draw as little attention as possible. If you say people love those cars, won’t everyone be staring?”

“They might.” He shrugs, lifting the needle and setting it into place. He flips a few switches and turns the volume down. The static crackle hums for a second before the music, with a fair amount of static in it too, starts to play. “It’s not like it doesn’t rumble and purr louder than most cages, but that’s what it is. A cage. You can only ask a man to go so far.”

“Why can’t Atlas use Willa’s car?”

“You’d have to ask him. He likes his car. Next to his bike, the Mustang is his baby. Out of all of us, he’s notorious for hating cages the most. I’d count it as a win.”

“Should have just used the bike, then. What difference does it make?”

He tries not to give me a look I’m coming to recognize as the famous Bullet glower. I pretend not to see it, just so I can maintain my stern composure.

It was explained by Ella, what being on the back of a bike means. It’s more than just getting a ride. It’s like being claimed. She made sure she counseled and cautioned us yesterday.

I haven’t stopped thinking, sinfully, my emotions dark and twisted and not in line with my brain at all, what it would be like to ride on the back of Bullet’s bike.

“They’ll be fine.” He crosses his arms over his chest, testing his t-shirt’s seams. “Speed limit in town isn’t more than thirty-five miles an hour all the way there and back. Atlas is careful. He’s not a stunter and the car speaks for itself. He’s not gonna goout racing anyone just to prove something. Willa’s safety is his first priority. I think he needs this. It takes him out of his head.”

It’s hard for all of us. Just not as hard as I expected it would be. Being here and falling into this life has been almost unnaturally easy, but then, it’s only been one day.

The hardest part is going to be sharing such a small space with Bullet. It’s inevitable that we’ll brush up against each other. Probably literally.

I was vastly unprepared for a lot of things, but most of all for the absolute starvation. It’s like I’m in withdrawal going without something I never had in the first place, as per my own fucking rules.

I’m willing to shut up about the Mustang and its decided lack of safety, at least for now. I’ve trusted the club this far, and to keep harping on it will only make me sound ungrateful, which I’m definitely not.

---