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What a damn mess.
He opened the driver’s door and the smell of the freshly baked hoagie rolls filling the interior made her mouth water. Not as much as Rev’s ass, but damn close.
She pouted when she saw the chips were BBQ flavored instead of sour cream and onion, but she didn’t dare complain. Not in the mood he was in. She’d like to keep her head attached to her neck.
However, six sixteen-ounce bottles of Coke were not enough to mix with three 750 ml bottles of whiskey, that was for damn sure.
“Are you sure that’s enough soda?”
He squinted at her. “That shit’s for you, not me.” He threw the stuff behind the driver’s seat and finished climbing inside. “Anythin’ else, princess?”
Princess?
He thought she was acting like a princess because she suggested food to add to his liquid dinner?
“You know—”
Her mouth hung open when he cut her off with a sharp, “No,” like she was Cujo and Rook was scolding his four-legged terror for taking a shit on the shop floor.
She snapped her mouth shut and stared at him with pursed lips, debating whether it was worth wasting good whiskey by cracking one of the bottles over his head.
Her conclusion was that it wasn’t.
“Fine,” she huffed.
He gave her a sharp look and a cocked eyebrow before releasing the parking brake and shifting the Bronco into Reverse.
They drove in complete silence—no radio, no talking, nothing—until he located a motel at the other end of town that advertised vacancies in red flashing neon.
She anticipated his growled, “Stay here”—since that seemed to be today’s theme—and he didn’t disappoint her. He left her in the Bronco to go into the motel’s office alone.
The place reminded her a lot of The Grove Inn, an older, but well-kept, motel. The differences were the office was on one end instead of the middle, and there seemed to be rooms in the front and the rear of the one-story building.
And she was pretty sure there wasn’t a smoking hot biker like Ozzy behind the front desk.
She wondered if Rev was getting one room or two but that was answered when he got back into the truck with three key cards in his hand.
Three.
That was an odd number for two rooms. He tossed one plastic card into her lap and slipped the other two into his back pocket. As her brain processed that, he pulled the Ford around to the back of the motel where the rest of the parking spots were empty.
“Hold up, you have the key to my room, but I don’t have the key to yours?”
She received silence as an answer. Unacceptable.
“Rev…”
He pulled in front of the room at the end farthest from the office. After shutting down the Ford, he turned to her. “Yep.”
“Why?”
“‘Cause you’re property of the club and since you’re with me, it’s my job to protect you.”
Oh.
But wait. “That still doesn’t explain why I don’t have a key to your room.”
“‘Cause you don’t need one.”
“But I want one.”
“Don’t always get what you want, Reilly. Though, I know you think you should. My trip. My rules. You didn’t have to come along.”
“After what I saw today, I’m glad you didn’t come by yourself,” she muttered.
That made his mouth get even tighter than it had been since the moment they pulled into his parents’ driveway. “Coulda done it without you.”
She wasn’t so sure of that.
“Get whatever you need outta the truck before I lock it up.”
“If you’re going to get smashed on whiskey, how are you going to protect me?” She had air-quoted the word “protect.”
“Once you’re in your room, you ain’t leavin’ it.”
“But—”
“My trip. My rules,” he repeated. “You could be back in the Grove doin’ your own thing. So, buckle up, buttercup. You insisted on comin’ along.”
Buttercup? She wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than princess. “You keep reminding me of that.”
“‘Cause you keep forgettin’. You think I wanted you to see that shit you saw? Think I wanted for you to hear that shit you heard?”
No, probably not.
“Don’t want anyone to know that shit. That’s my shit and no one else’s goddamn business.”
“Saylor.”
“Leave her out of it.” His tone cut her like sharp glass.
It was hard to leave his sister out of the equation since they had the same parents and she dealt with the same things as he did. Maybe even worse.
“She’s my friend, Rev. She’s like my sister, too. Do you think I don’t care what happened to her?”
He stared at her for a couple of breaths. “She talk to you about that shit?”
“No.”
“Then it ain’t your business. Know you struggle with this, buttercup, but everything ain’t your business.”
She wasn’t liking this whole “buttercup” thing. He’d never called her that before and he wasn’t doing it to be cute, he was doing it because anger was seething just under his surface.
