“Well, I’m sorry if my arrival interrupted your nap,” I tell him. “Although, I doubt your back would be happy after sleeping on a pool table all day, so maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Fun night?”
“Something like that.” He glances away, keeping his answers short and never looking anywhere but directly into my eyes.
Charlie begins to stir in my arms, so I stand. Her mouth searches, and when she finds nothing, she begins to cry.
“Shh.” I rock her, pacing back and forth across the room as she gets louder.
“Do you need me to get anything?” Venom asks.
I look up, surprised to find genuine worry on his face.
“Her formula is in the car.” My eyebrows pinch. “But you’re probably not supposed to leave—”
“It’s not a problem.” He pulls his phone out, bringing it to his ear. “She’s fine. They’re both fine. But the baby needs to eat, and her formula—” He listens to someone speaking on the other end of the line. “Understood.”
Venom hangs up, and my eyebrows pinch. But I don’t have time to ask what’s going on before the door to the room swings open and Hayes walks through.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I rock Charlie, but she continues to cry, drawing out a worried wrinkle between Hayes’s eyebrows. “Charlie’s fine. She just woke up hungry. It’s an hour past when she usually eats. There’s formula in my car if I can grab it.”
He shakes his head. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Okay.” My nerves skitter as he leads me out of the room.
I can’t read his solemn expression, and I have no idea where he’s been for the last thirty minutes. He might be leading me to the car so I can get formula, or he might be kicking me out. The uncertainty in his silence has me on edge.
We pass through the clubhouse, where a group of guys is gathered. Many faces I recognize from when I first arrived, but they avoid my gaze. Except for Steel, who doesn’t take his eyes off me as I walk past.
The party has cooled off since I got here. The room has emptied apart from the guys wearing patches like the ones on Hayes’s cut. Clearly, my arrival put an end to whatever they were doing this morning.
Hayes leads me outside to my car, popping open my passenger door. “Keys?”
“Where are we going?” I reach into my back pocket for the keys.
He snatches them from my hand. “To my place.”
“Oh, okay.” I thought that room was where he lived, but clearly not.
Circling to the back, I wrestle Charlie into her car seat, and she immediately starts screaming.
“Is it far?” I look up, finding Hayes watching me. “She needs to eat first if that’s the case, or your ears will be numb by the time we get there.”
He points a finger at the horizon where a group of houses sits in the middle of the desert. From the fence line, they must be within the Twisted Kings property, but I didn’t notice them when I first arrived.
“It’s a two-minute drive,” he assures me. “But if you want to sit in the back and feed her while I drive—”
“I’ve got it.” I dig through her diaper bag, and she calms when I pop her pacifier in her mouth. She coos, and I brush my fingers through the soft, fine hair on the top of her head. “There you go. Only a few minutes. I promise.”
Hayes is staring at me when I close the back door. It was easier to read him the night we met. Now, his expression is blank, even when I suspect a million thoughts are running through his head.
“That will keep her happy until we get there,” I assure him, dropping into the passenger seat.
Hayes closes my door and circles the car.
The ride is bumpy, but at least Charlie isn’t crying. Every so often, Hayes glances at her car seat in the rearview mirror. His grip on the steering wheel turns his knuckles white when she starts rustling around.
“Is she okay?”
