Page 20 of Royce

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The night of our date, my phone pings and I nearly jump out of my skin. I’ve been on edge all day, hoping that Molly won’t cancel on me, and now I look around the main room to make sure nothing too crazy is going on.

“I’ll be right back,” I needlessly announce to the guys, then shrug off the comments they all make as I walk out to meet Molly in the parking lot.

I can’t help the huge grin that cuts across my face when I see her, and try to shake off my nerves at the thought of fucking up our date.

“Hey, sugar,” I say, opening the car door for her and reaching a hand down to help her. “We can just take off, if you’re not ready for this.”

“I’m good,” she answers, looking at me in question before we hear someone call a greeting out to her. “Hey, Amy!”

Molly smiles and waves at Wrench and Amy as they head inside.

“You know them?”

“Of course,” she says, playfully leaning toward me with a grin on her face. “My wares are very popular around here, you know.”

“I’m a huge fan of yourwares, myself,” I agree, wolfishly staring into the V-neck of her shirt. That could have landed either way, considering our history, but luckily Molly laughs at me; pushing me backward so she can close her car door.

“Is there a party here tonight?" she asks, seeing all the vehicles in the lot.

I shake my head, trying to figure out why it is so busy right now. We’re in that weird time when women with kids have taken off,and guys like me, well, that’s when we’re texting chicks to come by and organizing booze and food runs.

Getting inside, Wrench catches my eye and motions to the empty seats at his table. I have no problem with that, but considering all the faces I see between the door and them, I doubt we’ll make it and get out in time for the reservation I made.

“This is crazy, why don’t we come back another time?” I ask her, just as I see Jasper waving us over to where he’s sitting with Flint, Mack, Roy, and Ellie. “Fuck,” I mumble under my breath.

“What’s wrong?” Molly asks.

“I don’t want to lose our reservation,” I tell her before following her line of sight to see that she’s looking over at Jasper’s table.

“No, I mean, why are they all staring at me?” she rephrases her question, then looks down at her outfit to see if something went wrong.

And there’s definitely nothingwrongwith how her dark jeans wrap around the curve of her ass or how the black V-neck shirt subtly showcases the swell of her breasts.

I let out a sigh. “Let’s go say hello to them, then we’ll head out, alright?”

Turning toward them, I run directly into Hawk.

“Shit!” he bellows as he tries to save the pitcher of beer that he’s holding. Like it’s happening in slow motion, my eyes follow the arch of the beer that goes flying and in a split second I figure out where it will land.

“No!” I yell, pushing Molly out of the way—her eyes wide in confusion as she tries to grasp the hand that I just used to get her out of the way, and regain her footing.

In my rush to save her, I might have pushed Molly a little too hard. She flies back into Russian, and like dominoes, he stumbles into the guy behind him, and on down the line. The crowded room making sure my brothers spill their drinks as they knock into the next unsuspecting individual. At least until they come to Gunner.

His eyes are glued on me as his chest gets sprayed with beer, but he doesn’t budge as Smithy steadies himself, starting to apologize until he turns to see who Gunner is glaring at. That starts a reverse wave from what just happened, but the only one I’m interested in is Molly.

“I’m sorry,” I immediately say, stepping over the puddle that Hawk’s beer made as I reach for her. “I was trying to help. Come on, will you sit with Flint for a couple of minutes? I owe some people drinks.”

With the most mischievous smile I’ve ever seen from her, she leans up and mock whispers it in my ear. “Or we could just run for it.”

With that gem, the mood around us instantly changes from differing levels of pissed-off to amused.

I laugh and kiss her cheek before pulling her over to Jasper’s table. While they’re each ready to give me grief, I cut them off.

“I’ll get you a round, but only if you don’t bad mouth me to Molly,” I quip before kissing her cheek again. “This old guy is Mack. I think you know everyone else. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“We haven’t really met yet either.” I hear Jasper say to her before their conversation is drowned out by other voices as I retreat to the bar.

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