Page 18 of The Wild Charge

“Not–” He swallowed again, jaw tightening, blue eyes flaring with outward frustration. “Not usually.”

“I’m sorry. Here. I’ll turn it off.” Ian snapped his fingers and smoothed his face. “How can I help you, sweetheart?”

Tenny glared at him a long moment, then turned his face away. “Fuck it,” he muttered, and surged to his feet.

“Wait, wait.”

He paused with his hand on the door handle.

Ian knew he had to say the right thing, or he’d lose him. Which wouldn’t matter, really. He had a busy day ahead of him. He could say, at most, that he owed this young man nothing more than a bit of kindness, thanks to him showing up at just the right moment and incapacitating Luis Cantrell and his goons.

But truthfully, he’d come to look on all these Dog boys as his scruffy, unapologetic family. One he never had to pretend around.

Speaking of…He noticed the fresh top and bottom rockers on his cut now that Tenny’s back was to him. The running black dog in the center.

“Congratulations,” he said, and hoped he sounded sincere – sincerity was a skill he was still mastering, beneath Alec’s patient, loving gaze most of the time.

Tenny paused, and half-turned back.

“Your cut,” Ian explained. “You’ve patched in, I see. Congratulations.”

A hesitation.

“You certainly make a worthier addition than Aidan.”

Slowly, Tenny turned around to face him, shoulders pressed back against the door, face carefully blank.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Ian continued. “I’m quite fond of him, and he is pleasant to look at. But. We both know he isn’t the brains of that operation.”

A pause. Then a slow, smirking smile dawned. “He’s useless.”

“Being pretty has its uses.” Ian smiled – he tried to make it a normal smile, and not a lascivious or secretive one. “Won’t you sit down and tell me why you’ve come?”

After a moment’s deliberation, Tenny did so, resuming his old pose, though his expression wasn’t nearly as carefully guarded. “How did you get involved with the club?”

“They wanted to move up in the world. Kenneth is a proud man, but he knows the advantages of having a wealthy sponsor and ally.”

“No,” Tenny said. “How?”

Ian didn’t ask for clarification. He took a breath, chest suddenly a bit tight. “I was very old friends with Kev – with Tango. Once. The resurgence of a mutual – acquaintance – brought us back into the same circle. A relationship with the club developed organically from there.”

Tenny looked skeptical – angrily so. “Walsh said you go to Christmas dinners. Thanksgivings, that sort of thing.”

“I do.”

“Why?” He’d gone huffy, frustrated. His fingers tapped again, a frantic rhythm. “Why would Ghost – why would the club – make a place for someone like – likeyou?”

The penny dropped. Ian reminded himself that nothing this very angry, very repressed young man said was an actual, personal insult to himself, but the venting of someone frightened and struggling.

He knew the feeling well.

“Why would they let a gay man hang around with them, you mean.”

His jaw worked, his eyes very bright. “MCs don’t allow–”

Ian held up a hand, silencing him. He debated with himself a moment, because though he’d finally managed to confess his past to Alec, it had taken over a year, and involved a good bit of wine, a near breakup, and more than a few tears on both their parts; even a double homicide. Good riddance tothem. He’d not talked about it to anyone since: everyone he might have confided in already knew all the horrid details.

The pain was still there, when he probed the memories – but it was the old, faded pain of a long-healed scar, and not the fresh, hot pain of an abscess waiting to burst.

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