Page 45 of Knight
Oh, and no, it did not escape me that every time I turned my attention to him he was looking at me, his eyes holding a darkness that pinned me in place and almost stole my breath away.
The door opened and in walked B-ry. A few sets of eyes shifted only long enough to see who it was, but as I met his gaze, I noticed something was off. He hadn’t bothered to shut the door behind him, which was very unusual. His body was tight and rigid but I couldn’t tell anything from his expression. For a half second, I almost brushed it off as club business, but then I saw a figure move behind him, rushing in through the doorway.
“Sorry, I’m late,” Tara’s voice rang out from B-ry and because he was so big, I wasn’t able to actually see her. “I couldn’t find my keys.”
And that didn’t surprise me. It always seemed to take her a long minute to find anything. Probably because she carried the worlds biggest purse filled to the brim with only God knew what.
Then, like watching a car crash in slow motion, B-ry stepped to the side to let her pass, finally revealing her much smaller frame.
I blinked.
And blinked again.
The room went dead silent.
I mean, like you could have heard a pin drop.
No wonder B-ry looked so tense. He’d gotten the chance to see it before we had.
With the quickness of a cheetah, I averted my eyes, turning my head to look at something—anything—else. I honestly had no idea what to think about what I’d just seen. And it was obvious I wasn’t the only one.
“Your hair wasn’t that color two days ago, right?” Sketch asked, not giving a crap about niceties.
Yes, because Tara had not been that color two days ago. Not even a day ago. And it was hard to deny that the new blonde she sported was a similar shade to mine.
“Oh, yeah,” she said brushing it off as if it was nothing.
I looked over at Brand and Chris. Though they were a little confused because they’d never met Tara before, it was clear they were catching on fast.
“I’m starved. Can I steal a slice?” she asked like it was any other time.
“Yeah, me too,” B-ry said making a point and doing his best to snap the room out of the weird trance we all seemed to be in.
“Help yourselves,” Mouse called out, his gaze suddenly on his knee that was bouncing like crazy.
Tara came back out and I was determined not to make it a thing. I’d never wanted to do something that drastic—as far as color was concerned—to my hair, but there were millions of women out there who did it every day. Hell, there were women that went to the salon to try and get a color like I had naturally, even going as far as to go every other week for a touch-up so no one would know it wasn’t their natural color.
Sketch slid closer to me and I found it odd that he didn’t leave the space for her to sit down between us. But then his legs were spreading out wider and it was clear he was trying to take up as much of the middle of the couch as possible. I didn’t miss the little chin lift Knight sent him out of the corner of my eye.
She scanned the room and gave a half-shrug at the fact that there weren’t any open spots. She moved to the other couch, balancing the plate with one hand. Then she did her best to squeeze in between Brand and Knight until they had no choice but to make room. Poor Chris looked like he was about to sink into the corner of the couch, it was that squished. Brand scooted even closer to Chris in an attempt to give her some more room, there wasn’t even a breath of space between him and Chris. It was almost comical.
“So,” I said, breaking the strained silence that had gone on way too long. “Sketch here was just telling us about something that happened last night.”
“Oh, I didn’t miss any of the good parts, did I?” she asked and her eyes lit up as she turned her attention to Sketch. She’d heard enough of his tales to know how crazy they got.
“Oh, yeah. I mean, no.” He was clearly struggling a bit. But after he gained his composure, he carried on like normal. This story ending with a ‘Blade and Sketch tag team,’ as he had called it. It was hard not to roll my eyes at him. Never a dull moment around the guy, that was for sure.
I breathed out a sigh of relief internally.
It was weird. Like, maybe a little. But I didn’t think it was as big of a deal as they were making it out to be.
