Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
She made a strange nose.
“What?” he asked.
“Uh…Bryan,” she said. “Wishing me a Merry Christmas and hoping I’m happy.”
Core didn’t say anything for a beat, before he asked, “You gonna reply?”
“I don’t know. I don’t hate him. It’s kinda nice he reached out in a non-stalkery way to say he’s thinking about me during a big holiday.”
“So reply,” Core urged.
He heard the ticks and the swoop of her sending a text back.
He then heard the return swoop.
“I said, ‘same back at you,’ and he replied with smiley face,” she told him.
“Good?”
“Good,” she answered.
“You cool?” he asked.
“I’m cool, honey,” she murmured, and her tone sounded just like his mood—mellow, happy and ready to fuck and pass out.
So Core let that go and concentrated on getting his woman home and putting the finishing touches on the best damned Christmas he’d ever had.
This wasn’t hard, except he had to drum up some energy once he got her into their room and she saw the rug Eight and Muzzle had come over sometime that day to put under their bed.
So the quick solid fuck lasted a lot longer before they passed out.
So yeah.
Best damned Christmas he’d ever had.
On New Year’s Day, Core walked through the clubhouse, watching Linus behind the bar pop a bottle of beer open. He slid it down the bar to where Hound caught it. Hound gave it to his wife, Keely, and turned back just in time to catch the second one Linus sent flying.
That one was for Hound, Core knew, because after he caught it, he chugged half of it.
Core was walking by him when he dropped the beer, caught Core’s eyes and said, “Bro, that brisket, fuckin’ A.”
Core grinned to Hound, dipped his chin to Keely, and buried the knowledge that not too long ago, it was Hound’s blade that carved into Beck’s face after what they did to Rosalie.
He then disappeared into their kitchen, moved through it and out the side door where they now had a long, black, industrial-sized smoker battened to a concrete slab.
Beck was working it, Shim and Eight with him, all of them had beers.
Core moved to the big cooler they had out there and got his own beer.
After popping the cap, he asked, “You talking business?”
“Yup,” Beck answered.
Core tipped the neck of his beer at his brother, his request to be filled in.
“Holidays got in the way, we still need to go up the mountain,” Beck said. “We’re thinking it’s time for Linus to be patched in. So we wanna knock that out while we’re up there.”
Core swallowed the pull he took on his beer while Beck was talking and said, “Makes sense, needs a vote.”
“You agree Linus is ready?” Eight asked, sounding skeptical.
“He’s young,”—and he was, he was only twenty-two—“but he’s been prospect for over a year. He’s loyal. He doesn’t bitch. He’s good to dig in. And he’s got mad skills with anything that has wires.”
Eight didn’t reply.
“You got reservations?” Core asked.
“Same as I said when we took him as prospect,” Eight replied. “I think you should be old enough to be able to rent a car before you decide to commit your entire life to a mission. He’s too fucking young.”
“You want him to prospect for another three years?” Shim asked.
Eight shook his head but answered, “I want him to have some life under his belt before he’s too far down it to realize he’d made a commitment to something he was too young to devote his life to. We put ourselves out there. Our biggest expense is our lawyer because we get arrested to take heat off cop allies and Chaos brothers, covering for them when they’re doing the work. We do shit that cannot be undone. It all seems good-guy outlaw when you’re twenty-two, but later, you realize, even if you’re the good guy, you’re still a fuckin’ outlaw.”
This was something to consider.
“We’ll take it to the table,” Beck decided.
And that was it because it couldn’t be decided anywhere else.
“Hup,” Eight warned and Core turned to the door.
Hellen was doing her cute-drunk gallop his way.
When she made it to him, she latched onto his Henley with her fists and leaned into him.
And there was more cute.
He put his hands to her hips and smiled down at her.
“Dutch and Georgie have challenged us to a game of pool,” she announced.
Core knew one thing, they were going down. He knew this because Dutch could shoot a solid game of pool. He had no idea what skill level Georgie had, but whatever it was, it had to be better than how shit Hellen was at it. Core knew how to shoot pool, but she was so bad, he couldn’t carry them both.
“I take it you’re in,” he muttered.
She smiled.
“Right,” he said, unlatched one of her hands from his Henley, and with juts of his chin at his brothers, holding her hand, he walked his woman inside.