Page 23 of Brand
“Maybe you should really pay attention to who you are…sleeping with,” I said jokingly.
“Oh, I assure you, there was no sleeping.”
I laughed, loudly actually.
This Blade was different from the man I’d first been introduced to, and I found that I liked him this way. He was intense most of the time, but then there were moments like this, where he joked with me.
The door jingled and I turned my attention to the biker walking in. Yes, I’d been around enough to spot that leather vest—or ‘cut’ as Sketch had corrected me many times now.
“Hi,” I said with a bright smile.
“Hey there,” he smiled back. “Brand around?”
He looked around my age, maybe a year or so older. His blue eyes held a light in them that made me relax.
“He should be back—”
And I didn’t get to finish because Brand was suddenly walking through the front door, intense look on his face, and I wondered what had happened in the last hour to make him seem on edge.
“Hey, Lake,” he said, a bit of the intensity of his mood fleeing his face. “Meet me in the office.”
Then the guy, Lake, was headed towards the back with quick, long steps.
“You alright?” I asked, true concern in my tone.
“Yeah,” he answered shortly, then his eyes met mine and it was like his shoulders relaxed. “Sorry, just people in this town sometimes…”
I hummed and nodded because I understood that statement to its fullest. He could have been talking about anything from being on the road with the insane drivers, to being at the grocery store and having to deal with the stupidity that seemed to exude from people here tenfold.
“Hey, it’s okay,” I said as I unknowingly reached out and touched his bare arm.
Warm. I was so warm inside instantly. My breath hitched and I did my best to play it off.
“Sketch is getting lunch and you don’t have an appointment for another hour.” I smiled, hoping to cover the fluttering in my belly, as well as make him feel better.
“Thanks, Cami.” He pinched his lips together as his gaze bore into me for all of a half-second. “Things alright while I was gone?”
“Yep.” My eyes cut over to Blade, who was standing in the doorway to his room watching us with pinning eyes. “Nothing exciting happened, unless you count the fact that I couldn’t find the purple pen.” I shrugged as I heard Blade stifle a laugh.
Brand’s eyes slowly moved from me to Blade, then back again. With overly innocent eyes, I smiled up at him.
“Yeah, okay…” he said, seeing through the both of us. “As long as nothing is broken, I don’t want to know. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Then he was gone, our connection was severed as he took long, hurried steps to the back, just like Lake had.
“You’re horrible at that,” Blade said with a few shakes of his head before he disappeared into his room.
“Have a good day, Cami,” Lake said as he darted to the front door a little bit later.
My eyes widened and I gave a smile and quick wave.
How did he know my name?
Unless…they had been talking about me in that back room.
I shook my head, not wanting to go down that rabbit hole of wondering why the subject of me might have even been brought up back there.
Sketch walked in the door as Brand walked up and stood beside me. I tried to shake off the closeness as Sketch started to pull out the wrapped sandwiches from the bag, plopping one in front of me, then Brand. Sketch walked off, leaving us alone and I wasn’t sure why I felt a tad bit awkward.
