Total pages in book: 13
Estimated words: 11908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 60(@200wpm)___ 48(@250wpm)___ 40(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 11908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 60(@200wpm)___ 48(@250wpm)___ 40(@300wpm)
But it was either grocery shop or starve, and I wasn’t keen on starving.
I quickly shut the water off, then snatched a towel off the back of the toilet. After quickly drying off, I donned a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, then yanked my boots back on.
“Need the truck,” I grunted when I got downstairs. Blink was sitting at the bar, watching Lindsey as she helped Erik, a kid they’d taken in, do homework. The boy had shown up at the clubhouse one night while we were all out of town, and when we got back, Lindsey had done made him a part of the family. Blink about lost his shit, but Lindsey got what she wanted in the end. And truth be told, Blink had a soft spot for the boy, too.
Erik had it rough with a mom that didn’t care about him and a dad who was MIA, if I remembered correctly. He wasn’t used to three meals a day, clothes that actually fit, and people who cared about him. But if he stuck around long enough, he’d have that here. Always. I never said much to the kid, but he could count on me, too. Fuck, he could count on all of us.
Blink tugged the keys from his pocket, then held them out to me. I took them, then headed out the door without another word. Here was to hoping grocery shopping happened without a hitch, and I didn’t run into anyone I didn’t need to.
I jinxed the absolute fuck out of myself.
Because right as I turned onto the aisle for ice cream because I knew Lindsey was having a craving for it lately, there she was. The vixen from earlier who’d ambushed me at the gate and had starred in my jack off fantasy was placing ice cream into her shopping cart. When she turned, we locked eyes, and she scowled. If looks could’ve killed, I would’ve been buried beneath the damn store.
“It’s you,” she sneered.
I sighed. “Ambushing someone at their residence solely because they refuse to talk to you on the phone isn’t the way to get in anyone’s good graces.”
“First of fucking all,” she snapped, not caring that there was an elderly woman clearly listening in on our conversation while pretending to choose an ice cream flavor, “your rude as fuck president kept hanging up on me. He’s a dick.” She wasn’t wrong, but we all were, honestly. The military had fucked us up. “I thought having you all, a new crew in town, at a charity fundraiser would be good PR for you all, but maybe you lot are just as terrible as everyone thinks you are.”
I personally didn’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thought of me, and I knew my brothers didn’t either. We weren’t here to please anyone. We’d all been raised in shit conditions, then survived even worse ones while serving overseas. We weren’t looking for validation from anyone.
“Look, lady—”
“Nicole,” she snapped. “My fucking name is Nicole.”
I heaved a tired breath. “Look, Nicole, we’ve done our charity work—enough that we really don’t need to do it for the rest of our lives. Your cause is a good one. I support that. But we just want peace after serving in the military for nearly twenty fucking years.”
She blinked, her jaw dropped, and then, her cheeks colored the darkest shade of red. “Oh,” she said softly.
The old lady patted her shoulder with a quiet laugh. “That one bit you in the ass, didn’t it, hun?” she teased before walking away to hopefully go mind her own business.
Nicole pushed her curly hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “I didn’t realize,” she finally said. “I apologize.”
I grunted. “Look, I’ll bring it up to Blink again, if it makes you feel any better, but I already know his answer will be a solid no.” And it wasn’t just because we truly didn’t want to be involved. It was because we had so much other shit going on that us being part of that event could be catastrophic for everyone there. The Lockheart MC didn’t care about innocents.
“Give me a call in a couple of days,” I told her. “Just tell them you’re looking for me and I told you to call. Someone will pass along that message.”
Her brow quirked, that sassiness back full force. “Sure I won’t get hung up on?”
I snorted. “Nah. As long as they don’t think you’re trying to get them to do something, they’ll pass the message along.”
She shook her head. “Blink is still a dick.”
I chuckled and grabbed Lindsey’s chocolate ice cream from the freezer before setting it in the cart. “You’re not wrong, girly. But truth be told, we’re all dicks.” I winked at her—fucking winked because why not make shit harder on myself? “Talk to you in a bit.”