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Laughing, Cora shrugged. “Not bad, just observant. But Dare’s nowhere near as hot as Phoenix, whose butt I totally kicked in a game of pool, which he got all pouty over.” She laughed. “He’s hugely annoying, but pretty nice to look at.”
Shaking her head, Haven chuckled. At least Cora had moved on from talking about Dare’s hotness. Her stomach did a loop-the-loop because Cora . . . wasn’t wrong. It was just that he was equally intimidating, which made the hotness harder for Haven to appreciate. “Who else did you meet?” she asked to keep Cora talking—about someone other than Dare.
As her friend ticked off a long list of names—well, nicknames, mostly—of Ravens she’d met, Haven finished her food and found it easier and easier to lose the anxiety she’d felt when she’d peeked in on the party and spoken with Dare.
Finally, Haven cleaned up her mess and put everything away.
“Come meet some people,” Cora said, face expectant.
But Haven knew her limits. Tonight had been adventurous enough already. “No. The party’s just too much for me. But you should totally go back.”
Cora gave her a sad puppy face, complete with a fat bottom lip and all. “Please, I promise I’ll stay by your side the whole time.”
With a small smile, Haven shook her head. “You know I’m the worst partygoer ever. So go have fun and don’t worry about me. I’m gonna sit out on the porch for a while and then head back up.” One of her favorite things about being there was the peacefulness of the woods, the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the valley vista below. And despite the fact that the darkness would keep her from appreciating the view, she could still enjoy the peacefulness and put off holing herself up in her room for a little while longer. Apparently, she was also the oldest twenty-two-year-old ever.
“Okey dokey,” Cora said. “But if you change your mind . . .”
Haven wouldn’t, and they both knew it, but she just smiled. “If I change my mind, I’ll come find you.”
Nodding, Cora winked. “Okay. Stay out of trouble.”
Haven smiled even though she wondered just how possible that actually was, for either of them. “Ha ha. Would you go already?”
Cora stuck her tongue out and left.
Haven made for the back door that led to the building-long covered back porch. Honestly, Cora was going to go party with an entire motorcycle club, and Haven was going to go sit by herself in the night air. Of the two of them, she was hardly the one who needed to worry about finding trouble. At least for tonight.
CHAPTER 3
A knock on the office door. “Hey, D?” Maverick leaned in as Dare looked up from the bag of patches on the desk. “Was looking for you, man.” The club’s vice-president and Dare’s cousin, Maverick Rylan was the light, good-looking, and upbeat yin to Dare’s dark, beat-to-hell, and brooding yang. The fucker. Good thing he was one of Dare’s best and most trusted friends in the world.
“What’s up, Mav?” Dare asked, letting his head fall back heavily against the tall leather desk chair. Hands linked over his gut, ankles crossed, shitkickers resting on the desk’s far corner, Dare was almost considering just sleeping there for the night—the party providing comforting white noise in the background, the warm spring air blowing through the open office window. The insanity of the clubhouse was a helluva lot better than the solitude of his own place sometimes.
Maverick dropped his big-ass frame into the beat-up wooden chair on the desk’s far side. “You should be out there with everyone.” The words were more question than criticism, more concern than censure.
Dare shrugged. “I was out there.”
The droll stare was pure smart-ass Maverick. “It’s a fucking celebration.”
“I know what the hell it is,” Dare said.
“Then you should be out there,” Maverick said, shaking his shaggy sandy-blond hair out of his face. Intelligent dark blue eyes glared at Dare. “We need you out there, D.”
“Get off my back, Maverick. I’m here. I’m always here. Everything I do, I do for this club.” Dare’s boots thudded loudly as he shifted position, all his peace from moments before gone now. Well, as close as he got to peace, anyway.
They glared at each other for a long moment, neither of them needing to explain why Maverick was hassling him. Harvey and Creed. The two brothers they’d lost and buried two weeks before. The two brothers whose loss they all still felt. The two brothers whose loss made tonight’s celebration just a little bit hollow despite a fight won, justice served, vengeance claimed.
Heaving a sigh, Maverick’s expression softened. “You’re a moody motherfucker.”
Now Dare was the one with the droll stare. “Oh, good. You’ve met me before.” Only thirty-four years ago. Back before Dare’s first family had been destroyed, back when Dare’s father wasn’t yet estranged from his grandfather and still returned to the East Coast for occasional visits. When they were kids, Dare and his brother, Kyle, and their cousin, Maverick, ran these mountains like the hellions they grew up to become. Well, Dare and Maverick got to grow up.
