Page 19 of Joy Ride

If it could work for these guys…

There were so many reasons why he wasn’t as lucky.

“Yeah, I figured the three of you might have spent the rest of the night like we did.”Quinn wasn’t grinning when he said it.“But if you had, you wouldn’t look like trash this morning.What’s up, Walker?”

Walker respected Quinn.Though Gavyn owned Hot Rides, Quinn—the shop manager—had really been the one to shape it into what it was becoming: a world-class operation with a knack for hiring the best in the business, even if they were quirky and unconventional.Although each of them would have been outcasts elsewhere, when they teamed up…anything seemed possible.

And there was never any judgment between them.

That didn’t mean it was easy to lay all his business out for the world to see.Without some outlet, he’d fucking explode, so he closed his eyes and said, “One of us is a dad.”

“And you don’t know which of you it is?”asked Kason, the lead singer of the band Kyra played drums for.

Walker put his hands on his knees and squeezed, hard.“No.”

“I’m sorry.That’s rough.”Kyra reached around Van and rubbed his back.Walker couldn’t help it if he leaned a little closer to her reassuring touch.“I can tell you both care for her.I’ve never seen you react to someone like that before.In my mind, that’s what really matters.So what’s the problem?”

Carewasn’t the word.

Walker loved Joy.Had from the moment her mother had moved in and he’d overheard Joy trying to convince the woman of what a colossal mistake she was making getting involved with Angus and the Wildfire outlaws.He’d known right then she was smart and brave enough to speak the truth even when it wasn’t going to go over well.

“To start, she’s my stepsister.”Walker was afraid to lift his gaze then.

“Were you raised together?”Ollie wondered.

“No.I mean, her mother married my father when I was almost seventeen.She’s about a year and a half younger than me and Dane, who was my best friend, even back then.”Walker swallowed hard.

Amber shot him a warning glance.“Before you decide to say whatever is about to come out of your mouth, you should consider the fact that all of the guys, and Sally, over at Hot Rods were in a similar situation.Tom adopted them in their late teens after they had rough starts.Since Sally, Alanso, and Eli are together—and all of the rest of them have a special bond, which involves a physical relationship on occasion—please be careful what you say next so I don’t have to kick your ass or let one of them do it for me.”

Walker blinked at her a few times.He hadn’t really ever thought of it like that.Being around the Hot Rods family made it easy to see how perfect they were together.He’d never once questioned their bond or if what they were doing was right.It simply was, and they were each stronger for it.

What if he’d been screwing things up for nothing all this time?

“Let me guess.”Wren jumped in then.The shop’s welder was badass yet tender too.Especially when she was flanked by her two boyfriends, Jordan and Kason.“Dane had a monster hard-on for her back then, just like he does now.And you felt guilty about wanting your best friend’s girl, especially because she was your stepsister.”

Walker nodded.Was he that easy to read, or were they particularly good at understanding the intricacies and pitfalls of three-way relationships, given that they’d each managed to navigate one themselves?

“Well, now that you see you can have your cake and eat it too, so to speak,” Ollie said, gesturing at himself, Van, and Kyra.“What’s stopping the three of you—or should I say four—from becoming a unit?”

“My piece-of-shit father, mostly.”Walker shifted his gaze to Jordan then.The man was an ex-special-agent for the government.He would understand the best.“He’s the president of the Wildfire OMG.A motorcycle club, supposedly, though they do a lot more than ride bikes and shoot the shit, if you know what I mean.They’re one-percenters and Joy’s mom was my father’s old lady, the main one anyway, until she was killed in a motorcycle accident when Dane and I were away in the military.After we finished our stint, we made the mistake of going back, because leaving Joy behind ate at us, and ended up fucking everything up worse instead.”

“Hang on a second.I feel like you’re speaking a foreign language.”Devra tipped her head.“Can someone interpret for me?”

Quinn cleared his throat.“An OMG is an outlaw motorcycle gang and one-percenters are the most hardcore members of that lifestyle.It’s not something to be taken lightly.These are people involved in organized crime, doing dirty work, and loving every minute of it.This is dangerous shit we’re talking about.”

Walker was glad both that Quinn understood the severity of the situation and also that he didn’t have to rat on Wildfire himself.Even now the club rules ran deep in his blood.Outing his father and their brotherhood wasn’t easy for him.

Fortunately, his silence in the face of Quinn’s accusations was damning enough.

Jordan folded his hands over his stomach as if he wasn’t as interested as Walker knew he was.“Is that why you left?You didn’t want to be involved?”

“I couldn’t do it.”Walker sighed.“Over the years it seems like Angus has graduated from petty shit like intimidating people for kickbacks to selling illegal weapons and getting involved with drugs.Maybe even human trafficking.People die over this shit.That’s not me, and it’s sure as fuck not Dane.We risked our lives plenty of times in the service, saw our friends bleed out or get blown up in front of our eyes, but at least it was for something better than greed or ruining more lives—innocent or otherwise.Or we thought so at the time.”

“Be honest.You left your old life to get Dane out, even though it meant leaving Joy behind.”Quinn scratched his chin.“I can see how that had to be fucking wretched.”

It sounded worse when Quinn said it out loud.Especially since Walker knew the guy had a thing about being abandoned.To Quinn, that was a cardinal sin.Walker would probably be lucky if the guy didn’t toss him out on his sorry ass.“I didn’t want to drag her into god knows what.Dane and I had nothing to offer her.Not compared to the way my dad’s organization provides for her.Although he’s a piece of shit, Angus is powerful, and he does keep her safe.Unlike Dane and I have ever been able to manage…”

Walker trailed off, remembering the sight of Dane washing blood from her pale skin as she sobbed into his shoulder.Nothing had been the same after that.

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