Page 25 of Sparrow

Makes sense.

On the other side of the garage, Cosmo and Whiskey are working on one of the Harleys that came in for servicing, and beyond them, I can see several other men taking apart a truck I didn’t even know we had. The black and white-checkered floor is covered in tools, rolling stools, jacks, and paint cans, the space humming with the sound of multiple men talking as they work to each other, and I breathe out a sigh.

It’s been too long since I’ve seen the garage this busy, and the noise and action are somehow healing.

Especially after the argument I just had with Orion.

He’s not letting go of this idea of sending Arden home, and though I know why he’s doing it–he thinks New York is honestly the safest place for her–I disagree. I know the Saints are just up the road and that they’re bound to notice that we have her at some point. I know there will be trouble.

Maybe even a war.

But I also know that I have the law on my side. This is my fucking town–or at least my family’s–and my own cousin is the de facto sheriff. Granted, Bear isn’t supposed to occupy that position anymore, not after what happened between him and Sammy’s dad, but that doesn’t change the fact that if I need help, I have people I can call.

Now actually calling them?

That’s where I might draw the line.

I wonder, though, what Orion’s real slant is. He’s already said he doesn’t want Bear involved, and that doesn’t make any sense. Orion’s known Bear for ten years. He knows the man will do anything to help us if we ask him to.

I get the feeling it’s more about the fact that Bear is now associated with the law.

And that takes me back to the sudden fear that Orion’s secrets, the ones I’ve let him hold for years, are going to raise their heads up and become problems for me and mine. I don’t like to think about it, and I’m specifically not thinking about what it might mean for Orion’s spot in my home and the garage–the club itself–but the idea is sitting like a monster in the shadows, just waiting to pounce.

I turn away from it.

Too much drama there, and I already have enough problems with the Arden Situation.

Because I have no idea what I’m going to do with her.

But I know for a fact that I’m not sending her home. She’s far too valuable to just send back to the town and people that let her get kidnapped the first time around.

The girl herself appears at my shoulder, then, popping up like a fucking ghost, and I jump away from her.

“Marshall, I need to talk to you,” she says firmly.

A snort from my other side has me turning in that direction, though, and I find Rookie, his messy brown hair swept down over one eye. As usual. The kid is only eighteen and our one and only prospect, and he takes his role as up-and-coming club member, and therefore someone who doesn’t have to brush his hair, very seriously.

“Marshall?” he asks, grinning at Arden like it’s the first time he’s ever seen a girl. “Literally no one calls him Marshall.” He pauses, considering her. “Although. I’m guessing he might let you do it.”

My mouth drops open at this. Is he... flirting with her?

To my absolute shock, Arden, a girl I’ve never seen interact with anyone but her family before, doesn’t blink an eye.

Or rather, she does. She does some fluttery thing with her eyelashes that makes her eyes somehow even more luminous, and looks up at him like he’s the funniest person she’s ever met. “What do you mean no one calls him that? Isn’t that his name?”

When I look back at Rookie, I nearly laugh.

He’s become the living embodiment of the Heart Eyes Emoji, and I know in that second that if Arden asked him to walk off a bridge, sprout wings, and fly down to the city below us to pick up some special chocolate for her, he’d run for the nearest bridge, trying to remember everything he’d ever heard about how to sprout wings.

He says something I don’t catch and Arden laughs, though I can hear that it’s not a true laugh. Something shallow and nervous, more like a bird tittering than anything. But it’s more than the solemn tone she’s used up to this point.

More than the dry, damaged girl she was when I found her last night.

She answers him and he laughs too, and within moments he’s turning and walking back toward Dutch like he just won the fucking Olympics.

“Rooks!” I snap.

The boy spins around, shocked, and I glare at him.