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“When did you join?”
“Straight out of high school.”
He’d had no direction and his grades had been shit. He’d been suspended half of the time so why anyone was surprised that he didn’t know the curriculum, he didn’t know.
“That’s where I met Griff, my boss. He took me to my first job site and then I kinda just never stopped working for him. He pushed me to get an education, too.”
“He sounds great.”
“The father I never had,” Ace said with a nod. “Probably why I love to tease him. I’ve called him daddy enough times to make him threaten to fire me. His kid loves it, though. She always joins in. Right until Griff’s partner starts, too. Then we’re both out.”
He liked telling Kody about his life almost as much as he liked hearing Kody laugh. He wanted to know everything about Kody. Past. Present. Future. What he’d been through. How he’d grown. Where he saw himself in a year as well as in twenty. He just wanted to know Kody and he wanted Kody to know him.
Kody
They shared their high school experiences and hearing Ace’s stories was both hilarious and heartbreaking. Ace telling him about his suspensions had anger boiling inside him. Ace hadn’t been treated right. Maybe if he had, he wouldn’t have joined a gang? Then, again. From what Ace had told him, his motorcycle club was his home, and the other bikers were his family. Ace clearly hadn’t felt like he belonged among his fellow students but joining that gang had changed his life. He couldn’t begrudge anyone for wanting to belong. He knew better than anyone how much found family meant. The camaraderie, the shared experiences, the memories, it made you closer than most blood families. At least it did for him and his firehouse family.
“Did you date in high school?” Ace asked. “I bet you were popular.”
Kody shrugged, eyes cast down. “I guess you could call me popular.”
A hand cupping the side of his face had him looking up. Ace was watching him with a mix of worry and curiosity.
“What?”
Kody let out a sigh. “I got with Ruben in high school.”
“Your ex?”
“Yeah. What about you, though? I bet you were popular with the girls,” he said, giving Ace a flirtatious smile.
Ace shrugged. “I guess. Though not as much with the girls in my high school as the ones I met in other places.”
“The girls in your high school weren’t into bad boys?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t exactly spend that much time there.”
“So, you never had any study dates, either?” Kody asked, brows raised. “None of those girls went, ‘Hey. I’m good at math. I could teach you,’ wink wink?”
Ace frowned at him.
“I’ve had study dates. What’s the winking about, though?”
Kody pressed his lips together. Oh, this was too good.
“Chloe asked me to come over to her house and study all the time. I liked going there. They always had nice snacks,” Ace said.
“No kissing? No sex?”
Ace’s eyes widened almost comically, and he sputtered out, “No? What? Why would we have sex?”
Kody couldn’t hold back his laughter any longer and he only laughed harder when Ace gave him a disapproving look.
“How are you in a gang when you’re this innocent and oblivious?”
Ace scowled at him. “It’s not a gang.”
“Oh, god,” Kody said with a burst of laughter. “You’re in a gang because you’re innocent and oblivious.”
