Page 17 of Toxic

“I was fucking hungry,” I snapped.

“You bought her groceries. By the way, Priest said you owe him two hundred bucks.”

“Two hundred-” I snatched the receipt out of his hand and scowled at it. “Jesus, shit has gotten expensive.”

“That’s because you usually only eat out,” Ricochet teased.

I gave him a grim look. “Just because you have Jordan and Gwen cooking for you doesn’t mean the rest of us have women to do the same.”

“Gwenny hardly ever cooks for me,” Ricochet argued.

“Uh huh,” I said, unconvinced. “If Jordan works late your sister invites you over so you don’t starve.”

“We’re not talking about me right now,” he said, folding his arms over his chest. “We’re talking about- Hey.”

I looked up at him and followed his gaze to where Billie was standing, looking confused. “You’re up.” I glanced at my watch. She had thirty more minutes, but I doubted I’d get her to take them.

“Sorry if we were being too loud,” Ricochet said. He shot me a shit-eating grin as he crossed the room to Billie. “I’m Ricochet.”

“It’s…nice…to meet you.” She shook his hand, looking perplexed that there was another man in her small kitchen.

It took all my self-control not to rip my brother away from her. He was just trying to piss me off by holding her hand for too long. The fucker was head over boots for Jordan. There was zero way he’d move in on another woman. Didn’t mean he wasn’t going to yank my chain as much as he could.

“I should get back to the clubhouse,” Ricochet said. “Nice meeting you.” He gave me another malicious grin as he walked out the door.

Fucker.

“Ricochet was just dropping off some groceries.”

“This is too much,” she gasped, coming over to look at everything in the bags. “I couldn’t eat all this even if I had months.”

“Don’t worry,” I told her, “we’ll help. You want to head over to the hospital?”

“Yeah,” she said, looking dazed. Her eyes dropped down to my naked chest and widened.

I liked the way she was staring at me. I may have made my pecs dance a bit, just to wake her up. The way her eyes darted away and her cheeks took on a rosy hue told me it’d worked.“Good. Why don’t you go put your boots on, and I’ll make you some sandwiches to take.”

“Okay.” She turned and walked off without another word.

She was on auto-pilot and I knew she’d be forgetting things like feeding herself if I wasn’t pushing it on her.

“I’ll put the rest of the food away,” Butcher said.

“Thanks,” I said as I started making six huge sandwiches. Two would be for her, the rest for us, though I doubt she would eat both. She’d barely eaten anything at breakfast. I was determined to fix that.

When she came back out with her boots on, I grabbed the keys off the counter. “Come on, I’ll drive you.”

“Oh no,” she said, shaking her head. “I can drive myself.”

“Nope,” I told her, holding the door open.

She gave me a confused look as she walked out of the house. I glanced over at Butcher. “There’s sandwiches there for you. Toss me two of those.”

He grabbed the bags and tossed them my way. “See you in a bit.”

“You good here alone?” I asked. “I can have Ricochet wait ‘til I get back.”

He gave me a grim smile. “Those fuckers come sneaking around here while you’re gone and you’ll never even know it.”

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