Page 7 of Finding Jeremy
Gray took two steps forward when Jeremy started to puff up like he was about to argue with him. Didn’t matter that they’d only established their relationship a few days before Jeremy had left; Jeremy was his. It was high time he started to realize what that truly entailed, including how seriously Gray took his position as Daddy-Dom and all the protective instincts that went along with it. While Gray could admit to doing a fuckton of stupid shit in his life, including what he’d gotten locked up for, he wasn’t about to sit back and watch as Jeremy put his life on the line doing backflips on a machine that might not be up to the kind of track The Gauntlet took place on.
“How much are you short?” Haven asked.
“A hundred,” Jeremy replied. “That’s what I’d have made today if the gig didn’t get canceled.”
Haven made a little tsking sound and headed for the office. “Dude, between the help you’ve given me and the help you’ve given River, we owe you way more than that.”
“Yeah, but payday’s a week away and…”
“So?” Haven snapped. “This is my shop, remember, which means I can pay you early if you need me to, which you do. Not gonna lose you to stubbornness now that we finally have the chance to hang out and bullshit like normal people. Fuck that.”
Gray chuckled as a few things were slammed around in the office before Haven emerged with two fifties that he passed to Jeremy.
“Your old man would beat your ass if he knew that you were planning to risk your neck over a hundred dollars,” Grayson snarled as Jeremy tucked the bills in his wallet.
“Was just trying to keep my word,” Jeremy muttered.
“And I know he’d appreciate that,” Gray grumbled. “But sometimes shit happens that’s beyond your control. You have to know when to set pride aside and tell him that. Trust me when I say he’s not going to be pissed as long as you’re honest with him and explain the situation rather than try to come up with some harebrained way of trying to handle it by yourself. He’d have been far more upset if you’d gotten hurt.”
When Jeremy sighed and nodded, Gray knew he’d made his point and left it at that.
“You’re not gonna tell him, are you?” Jeremy asked as he headed for the SUV to help Haven with the bashed-in hood.
“No.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank me by never trying to hatch another scheme like that again,” Gray replied. “If you need help and you don’t want to go to your old man, then you come to me or Haven and let us put our heads together and help you, okay?”
When he nodded and averted his gaze, Gray was tempted to push for a verbal answer, but they weren’t at that place in their relationship yet. During his time away, Gray had taken the time to write up a few simple rules that he expected his boy to abide by, so they could discuss them together and clarify anything Jeremy had questions about. He also expected Jeremy to have worked on the list Gray had asked him to put together, the one detailing everything he wanted and needed in a Daddy-Dom, so they could make certain they were on the same page moving forward. When he’d first spoken with Chaos months before and asked his old friend’s permission to date his son, one of the oaths he’d sworn to the man was that he would always put Jeremy’s well-being above anything else and never toy with his emotions.
Old-fashioned?
Maybe.
But even among ex-outlaws there were lines you didn’t cross.
Chaos had given his blessing. Jeremy had consented to being his boy. Now that Jeremy had finished helping his friends on the fair circuit, it was high time to turn their desires into realities.
Chapter 4
(Jeremy)
By the time they reached the house after wrapping things up at the shop and finally getting the damned hood off the SUV only to discover that someone had sprayed some kind of white, foamy substance all over the engine and everything else, they were more than ready to pig out on some of the old man’s infamous barbeque. The look on Haven’s face when he’d seen it had left Jeremy glad he wasn’t the boss and didn’t have to describe the condition of the SUV to its owner, but he still felt bad for his best friend, as he knew how much he hated having to deal with people.
Still, he’d come a long way from the days of barring people from coming to the back and forcing them to deal with River if they had questions, problems or complaints. The underside of the hood had also revealed something pretty telling too. Someone had been hella pissed off at the owner. The kind ofpissed off that usually involved a messy breakup, court hearings, the dissolving of community property and one, if not both people looking for a brand-new residence.
All in all, not a good day for anyone though the sight beneath the hood had left Jeremy wondering what the owner of the SUV had done to piss someone off that badly. That was seriously next level diabolical. The foamy shit had bonded with the hood in places, like a weird, tacky sort of glue that had further hindered their efforts to get the damned thing open.
He and Haven had both lost a bit of skin to the pry bar and grown so frustrated that Gray had been forced to jump in and help them when he’d finished with the late model station wagon he’d been working on. Though old, the owners clearly took good care of it and saw to it that it got the maintenance it needed to keep it road worthy, a fact that Haven had bemoaned when he’d mentioned losing out on the coin flip he and Gray had to decide which of them was going to work on it and who was gonna tackle the SUV.
One of the worse coin-flip loses of my life, Haven had moaned when the hood finally popped free of the latch and the mess stuck to it.
At least now they didn’t have to worry about anything work related until Monday morning when the repair shop opened again.
While Haven broke off from him to get Loki-Bear settled into a spot with his toys, Jeremy decided to appease his growling stomach and make a beeline straight for the grill. At least now he no longer had to worry about facing his old man, though he’d be a lot happier when the money was out of his wallet and in his father’s hand.
“Oh man, can I have a couple of the charred ones, please?” Jeremy asked the moment he spied a couple partially split opendogs on the grill his Pops manned in an apron with a flaming motorcycle on it.
