Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 69847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
That was the sweetest thing I’d ever heard.
“I feel like there’s a good story there,” I admitted.
“Titus and Blue.” He looked at me with those beautiful eyes that he’d given to his daughter. “That’s her name. Blue.” He grinned. “They have a complicated dynamic. Blue is deathly allergic to talking to people unless she’s extremely comfortable with them. And Titus isn’t one of those people.”
“Because she has a thing for Titus,” I guessed.
“Likely,” he agreed. “But the thing is, no one will ever know unless Titus gives it a go…and who the hell knows if he’ll ever be brave enough to do that or not.”
I grabbed our empties and said, “Where do these go?”
He got up, quickly towering over me, and pointed toward the bar. “There. The Dixie Wardens MC have some cleaners come up after their parties. They clean up all the trash and empties, but I’ve never been one to leave my shit for others to pick up after me. My mom would’ve murdered me in my sleep if I’d done that to her.”
I snickered. “We had to learn from a young age as well. Our dad was a stickler for us taking care of our uniforms and performance stuff. If we didn’t, our dad made us work the circus outside of what he already forced us to do.”
“Needless to say.” He laughed. “You learned to keep your shit cleaned up.”
“I learned to keep my shit cleaned up.”
“Wow,” I heard said from my side. I looked to see a young woman there. “I hear congratulations are in order.”
The woman looked like she wanted to murder me.
Slowly.
And record it so she could watch my torture over and over again.
Slone sidled closer to me, not quite touching me, but getting close enough that he could if he wanted to.
“It’s nice to see you again, Rochelle,” Slone said through a tight smile.
My brows rose at his obvious reticence to this woman.
“And who are you?” I asked curiously.
Because obviously I needed all the answers right then, right there. Why did Slone look like he wanted to run? Why did she look like she wanted to murder me? Why, why, why.
“I’m Rochelle Brummel,” she answered, as if stating her name was plenty of information for me to ascertain who the heck she was. “When did y’all get married?”
We didn’t.
“Oh, not too long ago,” I lied.
Slone blew out a breath of relief.
“Ah.” She huffed out a breath. “I just guess I wanted to confirm if it was true or not.”
She whirled around in a cloud of Chanel No. 5 and all but stomped in the opposite direction.
Slone groaned. “That was close.”
“What was close?” I asked.
Then he was all but pulling me in the direction of the door.
“Dixie has a granddaughter,” he murmured. “I met Rochelle when she was around fourteen or fifteen, I guess. I’d just gotten drafted, and I swear it was like Rochelle saw me and thought we would be perfect together. She told everyone that day that I would be her husband, and has gone out of her way to make me feel as uncomfortable as possible. Though, I imagine that she doesn’t see it that way. But still.”
“Have you mentioned it to Dixie?” I asked curiously.
That’s when we got to the parking lot and I remembered how we’d gotten here.
Viddy had picked us up from the airport.
Well, Viddy had picked the girls and me up from the airport. Meanwhile, a couple of the Dixie Wardens had driven Titus’s and Slone’s motorcycles to the airport for them to ride around.
I hadn’t remembered that was the case until now.
“Um…” I hesitated. “It’s not that I refuse to get on your bike or anything, but I’m not one hundred percent certain that I won’t go all.” I threw my hands up and went wobbly, pantomiming the act of falling down to my knees. “I’m not sure I can stay on.”
He contemplated that for a long moment and then said, “Let’s put you in front then. We can’t stay here.”
The urgency in his voice had me turning around to see what was making him want to move so fast.
Rochelle.
Again at the door watching us with an assessing look on her face.
Well, shit.
CHAPTER 9
Question: How do you get blood stains out of clothes.
-things not to ask a police officer
SLONE
I wasn’t sure what it was about Rochelle that had me so uncomfortable. But from the very beginning, even when she was a teenager of fifteen, she’d given me the creeps.
There was just something about her that had me so on edge that I didn’t want to be around her for any length of time. I certainly didn’t want her around Ari, either.
“Hop up,” I urged.
She twitched her mouth up at a cute angle, and then twisted her leg to the side and swung it over.
I caught her hips when she went to tottering to one side—my bike was custom made for me, so it was rather large and she wouldn’t be able to touch her foot down to the other side—and helped her get situated on the bike.