Page 27 of Bullet
That question rendered me speechless for a second. “I care about the club a lot. It means the world to me. It’s not just my job, those guys are like family. I spend more time there than I do at home.”
“Then I don’t get it,” Celia replied. “If you’re up to the task of taking on the responsibility, and you care about the club, and it’s a better job, why wouldn’t you do it?”
Again, I was left without a great answer. What had been so unclear just moments ago suddenly had much more clarity. In the grand scheme of things, Celia and I didn’t actually know one another all that well just yet, but it felt like we’d been together for years. She simply spoke to a part of me that I didn’t think anyone else had access to but me.
It was slightly terrifying.
“So you think I should do it?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know why you wouldn’t.”
For me, nothing in life had ever been that simple. Maybe it was because Celia was younger, or because she worked in the field she did, but it put her in a much better place to just allow things to be that clean-cut. “Okay,” I said. “I think you’re right. I think I should do it.”
She grinned. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her even closer to me. “I know how I want to celebrate.” I didn’t wait to set my lips against the side of her neck.
Celia let out a soft moan but placed her hands against my shoulders and made a weak attempt to push me off. “I really have to go to work, Harry.”
“No, I don’t think you will.”
As if on cue, Celia’s phone rang. She slipped it out of her pocket, and I didn’t stop kissing along her neck and jawline as she answered it. “Hello?” My hands slid even further up her dress and she used her free hand over the back of her mouth to keep from making too many noises with whomever she was talking to. “Yeah, turns out I don’t feel so well. Can I swap for Thursday?” A smile of victory crossed my face as Celia said, “Thanks. Bye.” She hung up her phone and glared at me. “You’d better make it worth it.”
I stood and lifted her up with ease, slinging her over my shoulder. “Don’t be silly. You know it will be.”
Chapter Nine
Celia
The smile on my face was permanently affixed. My arms wrapped around Harry and his bike rumbling beneath me combined with the day we’d had together, I had to admit I didn’t want to leave Harry behind. The last twenty-four hours had been some of the best I’d ever had in my life, and if it wasn’t Harry absent-mindedly telling me he’d take care of me, it was snuggling with him on the couch with his cats curled in our laps. It all felt sodomestic, but it felt amazing. When I finally convinced him to let me leave and bring me back to my old roommate’s apartment, it was not without some mutual disappointment. He made everything worse by throwing on a tight-fitting black t-shirt and light blue jeans with combat boots; he looked good enough to eat.
“If you don’t get off, I’m gonna ride away with you attached to me,” Harry said.
My gut reaction was to tell him to do it. I could go to Hoppa’s with him, spend the rest of the night with him there, and then go home with him. Just thinking about it made me inexplicably happy, but my godfather was waiting for me, and had been calling me nonstop for the past few hours, so I had to at least make an appearance and calm him down.
Despite my body desperately fighting against me, I released my hands from around Harry’s waist and dragged myself off his idling bike. I tried returning his spare helmet, but he pushed it back into my hands.
“Keep it. Hopefully, you’ll be wearing it a lot,” he said with a smile.
It was like I was a teenager in high school again and my crush had just given me his letterman jacket. Butterflies fluttered through my stomach as I walked up the path and through the front door of the apartment complex. When I was safely inside, I watched Harry pull his own helmet back on and roar off down the street. I missed him the second he was gone, but my phone rang again in my pocket and snapped me back to attention.
Laura was probably out for the night, so I didn’t bother going up to her apartment, and instead walked out back to the complex’s parking lot and got in my own car to head home.
My cheeks hurt from the smile on my face, but I didn’t think anything of it until I was walking into my house and my godfather was staring at me with a snarl.
“What?” I asked.
“What’s that smile? Don’t tell me that’s because of Harry?”
Although I was something of a practiced liar, hiding anything from my godfather was borderline impossible. Still, I murmured, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” as if it was going to work, but the second I tried to pass him, he wheeled into my path, nearly running me over in the process. “Hey!”
“Have you forgotten what we’re doing here?” he asked. “Everything we’re fighting for? Your poor father? How do you think he’d feel knowing you’re falling for the man who murdered him?”
“I’m not falling for him.”
He shifted in his chair, a little more than I thought possible, but it was probably just my rising frustration. “I’ve never seen that look on your face before. Do you think I’m dumb? That I don’t know what it looks like when my own godchild is developing feelings for someone? You’re normally even-toned, smirking just like your dad. I’ve seen you around other men before, and none of ’em make you smile like that.”
“So, what, you want me to be miserable?” I spat all of a sudden. “Ihaveto do this. I’m doing what we have to in order to get back at him, can I not have a little fun as I do it?”
