Coast started to head in, but I pressed him back. “I’ll get it. Enjoy your moment.”
Reaper shouted after me. “Leah’s going to skin you alive for stealing whiskey from her bar.”
“Can’t argue with Prez’s orders,” I countered.
I strode into the empty clubhouse, and from the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of raven hair. Merci sat alone in the corner, nursing a drink.
“Thought you were moving in with Merrick,” I said as I approached.
She wiped her face hurriedly. “Just needed a drink before I headed over there,” she said, her voice cracking.
I paused, taking in her swollen eyes and mascara-streaked cheeks. “Hey, what’s going on?”
She tried to force a smile. “I’m fine. Shitty day at work.”
I rubbed her shoulder, not sure what to say or how to stop whatever pain had wound her so tight. She tensed as I sat beside her.
“Go back to the party. I just need a few.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Want to talk about it?”
She shook her head.
“You know what always helps clear my head?”
“If you say a blowjob, I will break this glass over your skull and then stitch you up with a crochet hook.”
My lips tugged into a smile. “I was going to suggest a ride on my bike.”
She seemed to consider it for a moment. “I would love that,” she breathed. “Until last night, I hadn’t been on a bike since my dad died.”
The quiet pain in her tone made my gut wrench. I remembered Merci occasionally riding along with Maxwell when I was a prospect. Before the lung cancer took over when she was only fourteen.
I grabbed a spare helmet stashed behind the bar and handed it to her. She followed me to the parking lot and smiled as I put on my own.Thane would find someone else to deliver the whiskey when I disappeared.
“Glad to see you’re wearing one of these.”
“Yeah, there was this annoying doctor who kept nagging me about safety and shit.”
“She sounds smart,” she quipped.
“Maybe,” I hummed.
“I bet she was hot, too.”
I knocked down my visor before she could catch my expression. “Get on the bike.”
I tried to ignore how it felt to have Merci’s chest pressed against my back, her legs squeezing around my hips at every turn. The cooling night air did nothing to slow the heat building between us. I slowed around a corner, taking a turn onto a dusty dirt road. My bike rumbled down the path before I stopped. I toed the kickstand down, and Merci swung her leg over and unclipped her helmet. Her eyes already shone brighter.
I hung our helmets on the handlebars. “Follow me,” I ordered, walking toward a path without waiting for her. When we reached the opening at the end, the moonlight bounced off the water, casting an ethereal glow around the small pond. Fireflies sparked in the low grass, and the stars shone in her eyes as she stared at the sight before us.
“Used to come here a lot as a teen,” I murmured. “When I needed to think. When I needed quiet.” When I wondered what I had done to deserve what I had. Or didn’t.
Merci looked at me with questions but didn’t voice them. I slipped off my boots and socks and rolled up my jeans, steppingto the edge of a large boulder that let me dangle my feet in the water. She hesitated for a moment before doing the same.
We sat in comfortable silence as the minutes ticked by. She released a shaky breath, and I wrapped an arm around her shoulder.
“I lost a patient today …” Merci trailed off. “She wasn’t just a patient. We grew up together. We were friends in high school. One second, they were just one happy family. The next, she was gone. Now, her husband is raising two kids on his own.”
