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He said it in such a way that made it sound like normally luck wasn’t on his side. Not at all.
And that made my heart hurt for him a little bit.
He closed the bags, then got on.
I noticed this time, however, that there was a little seat on the back fender unlike last time.
Then, without a second thought to who Slate was, or why I was so excited to be close to him all over again, I got on as well.
For a second time in just as many days, I was on the back of his bike.
This time, though, I didn’t bother to get as far away as I could.
I got close.
I also noticed him press back into me.
Just the most infinitesimal of presses…but it was enough.
Slate ended up being almost right.
By the time we got out of the restaurant, it was almost four, and the bed was calling my name.Chapter 8Having a Snickers for dinner is acceptable when you’re an adult, right?
-Slate’s secret thoughts
Slate
I could tell with an almost certainty that today wasn’t going to go at all how I had planned.
Especially how it’d started.
After getting the phone call, and finding myself at the ER, I’d been on alert.
I’d felt like something was wrong, yet I couldn’t quite put my finger on why.
After finding that I intimidated the staff and the brothers of the MC—an MC I still wasn’t sure really wanted me there—I’d spent the majority of the time outside, listening.
Meaning I knew almost the instant that Harleigh was in danger.
As soon as I saw her hit the ground after being backhanded by that man, something inside of me had switched from ‘off’ to ‘on.’
Taking one look at her crumpled on the ground, holding her face, and I had nearly lost it.
What I wouldn’t have given for the ability to have a weapon on me.
How it had gone down had been me standing like a dumbass in front of Harleigh, hoping that he wouldn’t aim the gun in her direction.
Seeing her crawl around on that dirty floor, trying in vain to escape, had made my heart ache with something I wasn’t really willing to admit I felt just yet.
After I’d seen my chance, I’d taken the gunman down, and now I found myself going to dinner when all I really wanted to do was go home and decompress.
Though, it helped that Harleigh was on the back of my bike two minutes ago and walking inside with me now.
When we finally arrived, it wasn’t hard to find the MC and the rest of our group.
Nor was it hard to realize that they’d started without us—drinking, that was.
The ease in which we found them was likely due to the fact that they’d cordoned off a section of the restaurant, and they were being a rather rambunctious lot.
“Wow,” I said surprisingly, coming to a stop just shy of being in the actual restaurant. “They didn’t waste time, did they?”
Harleigh’s eyes shone as she took in the group.
“No,” she agreed. “They sure didn’t…do we even need to be here?”
She sounded tired.
Really tired.
I looked down at her to see her eyes wary and exhausted as if she wanted to be here about as much as I did.
“Your brother’s in the corner there,” I murmured.
The brother had come in for all of a minute and a half.
He hadn’t said a word.
All he’d done—in full uniform might I add—was walk—stomp—in, let his eyes take Harleigh in from head to toe, and then march right back out.
He hadn’t even seen me standing there next to her.
Or, if he had, he hadn’t reacted to that.
Her brother wasn’t wearing the military uniform anymore.
This time he was in a black t-shirt, jeans, and a baseball cap. He had his arms crossed over his chest, and yes, I agreed. He definitely had quite a few colorful tattoos—and they had nothing to do with the actual color of them.
His eyes were the first ones to come to us, stalling there at the entrance of the restaurant that neither one of us wanted to be at.
His lips tipped up at the corner as he saw his sister’s rather unhidden annoyance.
“He’s a butthead,” she agreed. “But I love him.”
“He looks like a much younger version of your father,” I found myself saying. “Obviously, that’s rather understandable why he does, but shit, they could be each other’s clones.”
Harleigh sighed and grabbed a hold of my shirt, pulling me in her wake.
“That’s why he got all those tattoos,” she explained. “Everybody always compared him to my father, and let me tell you something, he’s definitely not my father. Not in any way, shape or form.”
I looked at Dax, then at the older version, Harleigh’s father.
If Max’s looks were any indication, Dax would age quite well.
And I also wouldn’t consider either of them beautiful.
Their eyes were definitely too intense to ever be considered ‘pretty.’
