Page 37 of The MC's Surprise
Putting my hand to my chest, I fake reeled. “No… My own powers… used against me… I’ll never survive.”
She laughed and shoved me away playfully before allowing me to tug her over to the water station. She handed out cold bottles and ordered food to be delivered for the hard work we were doing. I was just taking another break and heading her way when a familiar voice caught me off guard.
“Justin!”
Spinning around, I felt my jaw drop. “Charlotte? What are you doing here?”
She sauntered over to me, a bright smile on her face. Even with the time I spent with Sierra, I still got butterflies when she smiled at me like that. Those butterflies were tempered, not as intense as before, with a heavy layer of confusion and guilt. She latched onto my arm like a barnacle, and a familiar warmth burned wherever she touched me.
“I heard about what you were doing on the news and thought I’d stop by after work. I don’t like it when you aren’t around all day. I missed you.”
21
Sierra
The crew weren’t the only ones to show up to help with the clean up. The firefighters had been a pleasant surprise, but what made me happiest were the regular people who stopped by on their lunch or after work to lend a hand. No one complained about working alongside bikers, and the guys were friendly and made conversation with everyone who stopped by.
I managed to sneak away from my relegated task of handing out water bottles at one point. We had to tear apart the existing playground, since it wasn’t safe for kids to play on, and we decided to do that first to get the big stuff out of the way. I wasn’t the kind of person to stand around letting others do the work, but with the pregnancy, I couldn’t go crazy. I didn’t want Vegas pouting me into submission again. That look was dangerous. Instead, I jumped in alongside one of the guys from the fire station, following behind him and putting all the screws and nails into a bag so they wouldn’t be a hazard in the future. It was a pretty easy task while still being important. We didn'twant kids stepping on rusty nails when this place was back up and running.
“So, are you part of the crew?” Aaron asked as he wrestled with the rusted bolts holding the swing set together.
I laughed, shaking my head and lifting the bag up to accept the next one. It was a little like I was trick or treating for rusty bolts. I snickered to myself before remembering Aaron asked me a question.
“No. The crew is a boys' club. No women. I’m just helping out. They’re good guys and they’ve been getting harassed for stuff they weren’t involved in. We made a plan to show the community what kind of crew they really are. I appreciate you guys showing up to lend a hand. It means a lot.”
He smiled down at me, the sun framing him from behind. “No problem. We like doing stuff like this. Ninety percent of our guys are volunteers, since the town's too small for a full station. We do it because we love our community and want it to be a safe place.”
I never thought about the fire station in town. It wasn’t like we had fires that often. But if they were all volunteers, that meant this town was full of white knights and I had to wonder if there was something in the water that made them that way. When I was in high school, I didn’t remember there being a ton of guys worth spending time with. What had changed since I left?
“You said your community outreach wasn’t very well attended,” I began, my mind whirring with ideas. “If you want, we can set something up with you and the crew to do together like this. That way, Kennedy will come and report, and you’ll have more hands to help.”
I waited for the automatic refusal or the discomfort at the idea of working with bikers. Cleaning up a park alongside them was one thing. Inviting them to the fire station was somethingelse entirely. But Aaron didn’t even flinch, smiling so wide a dimple popped up on his cheek. Another thing I wanted to know was if whatever was in the water was making the guys in town criminally good looking. While he wasn’t as handsome as Vegas, Aaron had a charm that would make a lot of women drool.
“That sounds great. We like to do an event with the local schools around this time of year. Let the kids explore the station and the trucks. Maybe your guys can help with that?”
I considered it while we worked, ideas running through my head on how to combine the two different groups.
“What about a safety carnival? You guys can show them fire safety, and the guys can show them bike safety, like wearing helmets and how to do hand signals or something. Add in things like games to play and parents and their kids will come in droves. And it’d go a long way in showing the community that the guys aren’t dangerous. They’re good with kids. I think there are six kids right now who belong to members of the crew, and they’re at the clubhouse all the time.”
“That sounds like fun,” Aaron nodded. “Our parking lot is pretty big. We can probably set up a little course for the kids to ride their bikes and practice things like following street signs and looking both ways. I’m pretty sure they did something like that when I was a kid. They handed out free helmets if you passed the course.”
Cute. I pulled out my phone, making a few notes on the possibilities. We were discussing how long it’d take to set something like that up when a familiar and unwelcome voice caught my attention. I whipped my head around, masking a grimace when Charlotte latched onto Vegas with a big smile. She wasn’t dressed to help clean up, with her tight pencil shirt and spindly heels. If I had to make a guess on why she was here, it was to get Vegas’s attention. I noticed at the casino that every once in a while, she’d touch him or flirt with him just enoughto keep him pining. I hated it then, and I hated it now. She was stringing him along, and from the look on his face, it still worked on him. He was so happy to see her and all the excitement I’d felt about the date we were supposed to go on tonight vanished at the reminder of what this really was. I was a layover to what he truly wanted.
“You okay?”
Aaron’s voice drew my attention away from the couple dancing around each other in the parking lot. I didn't want to watch them flirting. It was too hard. I liked Vegas way more than I should and I yelled at myself internally for forgetting for a second why I needed to keep things casual.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Is there someone I should talk to in order to set things up?”
“Is that your boyfriend?” he asked, glancing between me and where Vegas was basically fawning over Charlotte.
I scowled. I couldn’t help it. “No. We’re having a baby together, but we’re not… together.”
Aaron studied me dubiously. It was probably weird for someone to say they weren’t with their baby daddy in a small town like this. I just had to be that kind of failure, even with things like this.
I forced myself to smile, ignoring the ache in my chest and the urge to watch Vegas and Charlotte to see what he’d do with her. I wiggled my phone at Aaron, raising my eyebrows significantly.
“Oh, right. Why don’t I give you my number? You can text me with your ideas and I’ll set things up on my end. Sounds good?”
