“Language,” I warned half-heartedly.
She rolled her eyes and handed a bracelet to me.
She bit her lip, like she was suddenly nervous. “This one is purple and teal. It matches mine. The purple is for me, the teal is for you, and the silver is for the Mavericks—intertwined because we’re a family.”
For a second, my throat tightened. The simple braid of thread looked small in her palm, but it felt just as important as the patch on my cut. My chest tightened.
“C’mere,” I said roughly. I tugged her in for a hug. “I love it.”
Jessa looped the bracelet around my wrist and tied it off with a double knot, like she needed to know it would stay.
Like she needed to knowIwould stay.
Kenna tied Merrick’s before leaning in for a kiss. And Gracie knotted the bracelet tight around Fuse’s thick wrist.
I lifted my arm, the colors bright against my tattooed skin. Around the fire, the others did the same. Three inked men with more scars than I could count, sporting delicate friendship bracelets.
We’d earned our patches with mayhem, blood, and broken bones. But these little bracelets proved we’d managed to build a family among the wreckage.
Chapter Seventeen
It’d been two weeks since Hatchet and I stopped pretending we didn’t want each other. Sneaking around like a couple of fucking teenagers sounded exciting in theory, but the reality was searching for who might be watching before we kissed and me tiptoeing out of his house before sunrise, praying Jessa didn’t catch me during my walk of shame.
“We should tell them tonight,” Hatchet murmured against my neck, his voice gravely from sleep.
“Not yet,” I groaned. “Let’s wait till our one-month anniversary. Then they can’t say it’s just a fling.”
He shifted himself over me, his tattooed forearms braced on either side of my head. “I don’t give a damn what they say. This isn’t a fling.” His smirk skated the line between amused and exasperated.
I traced the ragged edge of a healed bullet wound just below his shoulder. “I know. But have you ever been with someone for longer than a month?”
He studied me for a moment, like he was trying to unravel where I was heading. “Is this an insult or a question?” he grumbled. “What’s your point?”
“There’s less argument after one month,” I explained. “Because at that point, you would have gotten bored with anyone else. We can explain to them that we’re serious then.”
“We should just rip it like a Band-Aid,” Hatchet insisted, ghosting his lips over my collarbone. “Lay it all out on the table.”
I let out a breath, my body already vibrating from his touch. “People in serious relationships need to agree on the important things. Merrick accepting this is important to me. We wait. Just a little bit longer.”
“Fine. You get what you want. But only if I get what I want.” He shifted his hips against me.
I rolled my eyes. “Jessa’s waking up any minute now. We don’t have time. I have to leave.”
Hatchet rolled away. “She knows you’re here.” He reached for his phone on the nightstand and thumbed it toward me. “She sent a text this morning to ask if you’re staying for breakfast.”
I sat, clutching the sheet to my chest. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
An infuriating grin spread across his face. “Because I like watching you squirm.” His phone pinged with a text, and he paused to read it. “And she expects us to be at the table in ten minutes. Quickie?”
I swung my leg over and straddled him, leaning down to brush his ear with my lips. “Ten minutes is not enough time, and you know it. We’ll wait. I’ll come over after dinner.”
“Great. Now I’m going to have to hide my boner all day,” Hatchet muttered.
When we finally made it to the kitchen, Jessa sat at the counter with two mugs of coffee, two plates with eggs and toast, and a smirk that mirrored Hatchet’s. She pushed the plates toward us. “You realize I’ve seen you sneak out every morning this week?” She pointed at Hatchet in mock disappointment. “And you? What kind of example are you setting for me?”
Hatchet laughed quietly. “You’ve got a point.” He scratched theback of his neck. “We shouldn’t be hiding this from you. I don’t want you sneaking around. No shenanigans.”
I spooned a heap of eggs onto my toast and watched the two of them. Hatchet had a way of owning his mistakes. No excuses, no denial. Just straight accountability. Watching him go from the charming but lethal enforcer I’d always known to a protective parental figure shifted something in my chest.
