Page 8 of Knight
A beer appeared over my shoulder and with a flinch, I jerked back into the present. As I reached for the bottle, I noticed slender fingers gripped the outside. The bottle was wet from the ice in the cooler and I watched as it ran down the side and pooled around those slender fingers. That was when a very familiar scent filled my nose making me dizzy.
No fucking way.
It couldn’t be. I didn’t want to believe it. And as I thought of all the ways I could escape, I couldn’t bring my eyes to look at the person that was holding that bottle.
“You gonna take that, man? Or make her hold it all day?” Charming’s voice came out of nowhere and made me aware that we were on display.
“I’m good,” I managed to force out of my mouth in a gruff tone. I went to stand, but just as I did I saw a familiar big profile walking down the back hallway.
“Knight?” Brass called once he reached the opening to the main room of the bar. “You got a minute?”
No.
Nope.
I did not have a minute.
But I didn’t even have the balls right then to open my mouth and tell him no. I had a fucking feeling my day was about to go from shitty to living hell. I seriously contemplated running out the door right that second. Pussy. Yeah, I fucking knew it. But the combination of what surrounded me screamed ‘bad fucking luck, brother’ to me.
I had no choice but to suck it up and see to what he wanted. With my lips pressed into a tight line, I gave him a short nod as I stood. I still couldn’t turn my head to look at her. Yes, because I fucking knew it was her. It didn’t escape me that the room had gone deadly quiet and I knew everyone was watching with curious eyes. I kept my eyes on Brass’ retreating form as I made my way away from the table, away from Gwen, and away from the last little bit of hope that I could have ended this day with a fun, relaxing night.
Inside the small office of the bar, Iron sat behind the desk looking relaxed as a man with nothing better to do. Brass stood just to the left of the desk, and I couldn’t read anything from the expression on his face.
“So, Gwen is moving down here to finish up her last year of college. California just wasn’t for her,” he started and as he talked about his daughter his face softened then hardened.
If I were a guessing man, I would have said it was because he knew his daughter wasn’t happy while she’d been away. I knew Gwen, even though it had been forever and a day since I’d actually been around her. But the sense of family that she had gotten from being around the club growing up was something I always knew she’d gravitate toward. I couldn’t imagine that running so far away from home had been good for her. And it made me wonder why the hell she even did it in the first place.
“I’m going to be honest with you,” Brass continued, “When she called me in tears saying she wanted to come home, I didn’t even want to let her leave once I got her back. She sounded broken, Knight, and lost. But I also know my daughter, and she wants a sense of life on her own. So I suggested here, knowing you and Mouse and the club were here to watch out for her and give her that sense of home.”
Fuck me.
I could completely see what he was saying and the thought that she’d been so miserable but also too stubborn to admit it for so long hurt like a fist to the gut.
“Iron here informed me that you got a place off compound and you got an extra room.”
Yep, I saw where this was going. I would have rather stepped out into the road when I knew a bus was coming.
“I think it would be a good idea if she lived with someone she was familiar with. Someone that could watch out for her. You feel me?” His tone wasn’t one that was asking any kind of question. It was one that told me I really should agree with him.
My mind screamed ‘fuck no’ while my face held a tight smile. All I could do was nod as I swallowed down the huge lump that clogged my throat.
I couldn’t blame the man. I wasn’t even sure he had the first clue about what went on with Gwen and me. He simply knew we were friends, and then we weren’t so much. I could only imagine that he assumed we drifted apart like kids sometimes did once they grew older.
“Great,” he said as he relaxed his stance and slapped me on the shoulder so hard I knew I’d feel the sting for a good while. “We’ll be there in the morning to set shit up and get her moved in. I gotta head back home the day after tomorrow.”
I needed to get out of there. I needed to fucking scream and throw things. Hit things. Run. Something—anything—to get this anxiety and frustration out. What the hell was I going to do?
Sure it didn’t seem like I had much of a choice in the matter, but if I wanted to tell him no, I could have opened my mouth and done so. The thing was, it was a tight line to walk. Brass had been like a second father to me all my life. He was more than just the prez of the chapter I’d grown up in, prospected for, and got patched-in to. He was a man I looked up to and never wanted to let down. And that was why I was going to bite the bullet and watch over the most precious thing to him.
Even if that meant that I would be living in my worst nightmare.
Even if it meant that I would be faced with, and living with, the one person that no matter how hard I’d tried, I couldn’t get out of my fucking head.
