Page 95 of Property of Necro
Sweat beads on the back of my neck.
Coffin fidgets.
Mama shoves five mini quiches in his maw allat once.
Damn. She’s stunning.
Flushed cheeks, hair flying in the breeze. All those sun-kissed freckles and those damn eyes. They follow me everywhere. In my dreams. Into the shower, when I jerk off thinking about her. When I’m down here working or busy in my lab.
Coffin paces.
Then the cursing comes.
And the rage.
It never fails.
I reach into the desk drawer, twist open the jar of edibles, and offer him one.
He slaps my hand away. “No!”
Keepin’ a close eye on the screen and him, I address my stubborn brother. “Coffin. You need to calm down. You’ve already added nine new jars to the trophy case. You have the brothers runnin’ all over on fuckin’ goose chases to clean up your messes. You haven’t been smart about it. For fuck’s sake, you kidnapped a woman in a Walmart parking lot in broad daylight.”
Yeah. That happened.
If you’re shocked, trust me, I was, too. Who in the hell does that?
“So?” He sniffs, notching his chin at me with far too much bravado.
“We only have so much protection, you dumbass. I can’t keep the police out of Kings Cursed if you piss off the wrong ones. Not everyone can be paid off. Not everyone is already on one of the payrolls. You know that.” As much as it might not seem like it at times, Coffin is actually smart.He knows what this could cost us, not only as a club, but emotionally and shit. I don’t wanna see him behind bars. We deal with that enough, given our chosen lifestyle. That’s why we live where we do. It’s safe, and it’ll continue to be that way if he doesn’t fuck it up. We’ve never asked him not to do what he does and have always supported him, even embracing his particular needs. A little goddamn common sense would go a long way here. Sheesh.
“I don’t care,” he throws back like a petulant child.
Christ. He’s a pain in the balls.
Inhaling a long, long, long breath, I hold it a beat and exhale just as long before replying with logic. “Listen. I get it. But if you end up in prison, what the hell are we supposed to do? What’s Sola gonna do?”
The entire club would be devastated.
Coffin throws his arms up as if he doesn’t know or care.
“We were gifted this town for a reason,” I explain. “Don’t fuck up a good thing ‘cause your heart’s sore.”
The asshole glares at me. “My heart isn’t fuckin’ sore. It’s gone. It doesn’t exist anymore. It’s there.” Coffin jabs two fingers at the computer screen where Sola sits at a picnic table next to a group of kids in baseball uniforms. She looks both sad and a little happy, eating a vanilla ice cream cone dipped in rainbow sprinkles.
“She likes vanilla and sprinkles,” Mama notes aloud. “I’ll be sure to buy some for when she comes home.”
“She’s never coming home!” Coffin roars, throwing his arms wide before aggressively tucking them across his chest.
Christ almighty, why do I always have to be the voice of reason around here?
“Give it time,” I soothe, summoning my innermost kindergarten teacher. “It’s only been three weeks.”
“That’s too long!”
“You spent one day with her,” I reason.
“I know, and it’s not enough.”
