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“Okay. If you don’t need anything, I’m gonna look for my dad.”
“I saw him going with my dad and Uncle Show over to the garage.”
“Ugh. Okay. See ya.” Lexi walked off without waiting for Gia to reply.
Gia supposed that was the way in any large family: tight bonds with some, looser bonds with others, fragile bonds with a few. But in the end, love for the whole batch.
She stopped thinking about Lexi and family and anything else as Zaxx finally headed back to her.
~oOo~
“What’s Kellen’s deal?” Gia asked. Her voice was soft; she was about as relaxed as she could be while remaining conscious. “That’s the fourth or fifth time I’ve caught him glaring at us.”
Zaxx’s fingers kept up their dreamily light caress of her bare arm as he looked over. “I don’t know. You want me to do something about it?”
She shook her head and nuzzled more closely to him. For the past hour or so, Gia and Zaxx had been sitting together on the chaise; he’d picked her up, sat down himself, and settled her on top. Gia thought she could spend the whole night right here, exactly like this.
Dad hadn’t loved it, but he’d only given them a parentally irritated look, and only once. He’d gotten on board with the Zaxx-and-Gia idea, but he still struggled a little.
“No,” she said aloud as she snuggled in. “I am not giving up my cozy nest for Kellen Frey. He is my least favorite patch.”
Zaxx chuckled. “He’s everybody’s least favorite patch. He’s a fuckin’ weasel.” His lips moved in her hair as he spoke. “Even the club girls duck him. I don’t know why he’s wearing the Mane.”
“Well, you know that’s above my pay grade. That’s Keep stuff. But Dad bitches about him sometimes, so I can make a moderately educated guess.”
“What’s your guess?”
“He’s good with the accounting stuff, I think. Better than anybody else.” Kellen was the club secretary and treasurer.
At that, Zaxx scoffed lightly. Gia lifted her head to look at him. “You disagree?”
“That he’s good with the books? No. Far as I know, he does a good job. But math and science were the only subjects I was any good at in school. English and history, all that writing and all those dusty old books, they about did me in, but anything with numbers, I barely needed a teacher for. Kel’s not the only one who can work a fucking spreadsheet.”
“English and history were my favorite subjects. Not all books are dusty and old—and the dusty old ones are pretty good.”
He cocked a sexy eyebrow at her. “I like reading okay, but in high school, all the books are dusty and old. And boring as fuck, if you ask me. Or just confusing. Shakespeare and the guy who did that poem about the old sailor, and that Faulkner weirdo.”
Gia laughed. “Okay, point. The poem about the old sailor is ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,’ by the way. Samuel Taylor Coleridge.”
“Is that information I will ever need in my life?” he asked, grinning.
“Probably not,” she conceded with a smirk of her own. Rather than continue her defense of the humanities, she returned to the actual topic. “Maybe you should let Badge know you know your way around Excel.”
Zaxx looked in Kellen’s direction again. Gia looked as well; Kellen had given up his scowling and was laughing with Tommy. Whatever had crawled up his ass must have been causing him only intermittent discomfort.
“Kel’s a club officer,” Zaxx said. “He’s had a patch for years. Mine’s not two years old yet. I don’t think I’m in any position to take his job.” He wrapped his arms completely around her and tucked his face against her neck. “Can we stop talking about him, please? There are so many nicer things to talk about. And do.”
Shifting on his lap, Gia wrapped her arms around his neck, slid her hands into his long, loose hair, and gazed into his beautiful eyes. Night had fallen, but the yard glowed with mini-lights and paper lanterns strung through and among the trees. All that soft, warm light made his eyes sparkle as he stared into hers.
As it turned out, fiction had not lied. It was possible to get lost in someone’s eyes. Maybe this was like a movie.
His hand slipped up to caress her cheek. “I have a present for you, you know.”
“Yeah?” Gia dragged herself back to reality.
He nodded. “I just ... don’t want to make a big show of it in front of everybody. I want it to be me and you. I’ll give it to you when we get some privacy.”
The word ‘privacy’ more than the word ‘present’ caught Gia’s imagination. After a week of sleeping in the living room of the main house, almost never having a moment to herself, even being monitored as she crutched her way to the bathroom, she’d started to fantasize about that tiny house, into which she had not gone in more than a week.
