Page 8 of Nave
“SWAT to outlaw biker,” I observed. “Explain that career trajectory.”
“Was straight as an arrow my whole fucking career. Till I saw some shit going down that rubbed me the wrong way. Went to report it to my superiors, and I got canned. You could say there was some serious disillusionment after that. But there weren’t a lot of jobs that utilized my skills and provided the adrenaline fix I was used to outside of law enforcement that wanted nothing to do with me anymore.”
“So you started working for the bad guys,” Sully concluded.
“Except, as fucked as it is, I don’t think the bad guys are as bad as they kept trying to drill into our heads that they were.”
I could see why Fallon liked him. Ex-SWAT meant he knew weapons, could stay cool in a crisis, and had a decent amount of hand-to-hand training.
If there was one thing I could say about both Reign and Fallon’s choices for club members, it was that they liked to pepper in crazy fucks—like Pagan, Dezi, and Spike—among other calmer, more experienced men like Edison, Callow, Sully, and Cain.
“So, why a biker?” I asked. It was our job to get various answers out of these guys to double-check that they’d be a good fit for the club. Even if it always felt a little invasive to question these guys.
“Honestly? I missed the sense of brotherhood I had when on SWAT. I think I’ve been searching for that ever since. Worked on my own for a year or two. But it never felt right. This,” he said, gesturing around, “seems like what I’ve been searching for.”
“Now that we got that shit out of the way,” Sully said, “let’s get you a drink.”
“I take it you got a woman,” Cain said, smirking down at Sully’s shirt as they started to move away.
“See? I told her the message would be loud and clear,” Sully called back to us.
“Well, I like Spike,” Dezi said, unsurprisingly, before moving off.
I liked them both.
More and more, as the night went on, and they seemed to effortlessly meld in with the club, the girls, and even the princesses.
Hell, Spike even carefully extracted himself when Layna put an arm around him when they won a round of beer pong.
And Cain guided Gracie to the couch then got her a coffee when the Jello shots hit her faster than she’d anticipated.
I’d just dropped down on a chair, finding I was kind of over the party, but knowing I couldn’t be antisocial and go back to my room.
I was still sitting there when I heard my name called, soft and unsure.
“Nave?”
For reasons I couldn’t understand, the sound of her voice had my stomach flipping—almost like something in me recognized her, even though her voice wasn’t ringing a bell.
Except, of course, it did.
I knew it the second she stepped forward to stand near my chair.
And there she was.
A part of my past walking into my present.
She still looked like the same girl she’d been: the golden long bob with the fringe bangs, the blue-gray eyes, the same oval face with the high cheekbones and gently rounded jaw, the generous, and naturally reddish lips.
Gorgeous as she ever was.
But some of it was hidden beneath layers of exhaustion. And, perhaps more prominently, fear.
“Lolly.”
Across the room, stunned into wide-eyed, uncharacteristic silence, was Dezi.
His gaze slid from me, to Lolly, then back to me again.
