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Chapter Eight
Greta
HE LOOKED LIKE A PEACEFUL giant in his sleep.
Bear was sprawled out in my recliner with a blanket half draped over his body and his arm dangled to the side.
This is what happened when you fell asleep at four and everyone else went to bed at the correct time.
It was twelve-thirty, and I was wide awake.
For the first time in days, I felt like I actually had some energy, and of course, it happened in the middle of the night.
I wandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge to see a pan filled with taquitos. “Yes,” I whispered. I grabbed the pan and forked five onto a plate. I got out all the fixings while they warmed up in the microwave.
Ten minutes later, I was camped out at the kitchen table with a taquito smorgasbord in front of me. Even warmed up, Meg’s cooking was absolutely amazing.
“You make any for me?”
I clutched my hand to my chest, smearing cheese and sour cream on my shirt, and jumped into the air, my fork clattering to the floor. “Holy shit, man!” I gasped. “You cannot scare a woman like that when she is stuffing her face.”
I hadn’t even heard the man get up, but somehow, he was standing not even five feet away from me with a smirk on his face.
How?
“I was trying not to scare you.”
I tipped my head to the side and glared at him. “Mission failed,” I drawled.
“Any of that left?” he asked with a nod to my plate.
“Yes, but I’m not sure you deserve it after you tried to scare me to death.”
Bear chuckled and moved to the fridge. “Next time, I’ll clear my throat when I move.”
“That would be appreciated.” I grabbed my fork off the ground and tossed it toward the sink, then grabbed another one from the drawer and sat back down. “What are you doing awake?”
“Same thing you are. Hungry and not tired anymore.” He grabbed the pan of taquitos and a plate from the cabinet.
“I’m the one who fell asleep at four, Bear. I doubt you went to sleep while everyone was here.”
He shook his head and piled taquitos on his plate. “Everyone left around seven.”
“So, why are you awake?” I laughed. “I wouldn’t think five hours is enough sleep for anyone.”
He put the plate in the microwave and shrugged. “You would be surprised, mama. Five hours of uninterrupted sleep is pretty good for me.”
“You must think I’m crazy for sleeping as much as I have the past two days.” I was pretty sure I had been asleep more than I had been awake.
He shook his head and grabbed a fork. “If I had the shit kicked out of me like you did, I would have slept just as much, mama.”
“I would like to see the person who could kick the shit out of you,” I laughed. “I can guarantee Dr. Lu was lucky to be able to get away from you. You would have broken him like a damn twig.”
“He that scrawny?” he asked.
I shrugged and swiped my finger through the sour cream on my plate. “For a normal person, no. But if you would set him next to you, very scrawny.” Honestly, anyone was scrawny next to Bear.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he chuckled.
“You should.” I took a bite and groaned. “My God, these are good.” After almost twenty-five years of eating Meg’s cooking, I was still surprised at how incredible it was every time.
The microwave dinged, and Bear pulled out his plate. “I was surprised that there were any left. All of the guys had their plates piled high with them.”
“Not surprising, though, since Meg knows she has to cook for an army when everyone is around. She probably easily made one hundred of these.” That was the twenty plus years Meg had been an ol’ lady. She knew the guys could eat, and even if there were leftovers, they would also get eaten.
Bear sat down next to me and grabbed the sour cream. “How are you feeling otherwise?” he asked.
I shrugged and picked up a stray piece of lettuce from my plate. “Surprisingly, much better. I guess all I needed was about twenty-four hours of sleep for me to start feeling better.”
Bear plopped a mound of sour cream on his plate and dumped some cheese on the taquitos. “Sleep is always the best thing.”
“You’re right, except now it’s almost one o’clock in the morning, and I’m ready to run a marathon, or you know, grocery shop.”
“I don’t really think grocery shopping is doable right now since it’s so late.”
Yeah, that was a big no unless we wanted to drive about thirty minutes to the nearest all-night store. “I mean, my bathroom could use a scrubbing, but I was kind of hoping Mom would work on those tomorrow when she came over.”
Bear chuckled. “That sounds like a good plan. How about we just watch a movie or something?” he suggested. “I think you might run out of energy a lot sooner than you think.”
He was probably right. Leaving the toilets for Mom was probably the best idea because even if I was in tip-top shape, I hated cleaning those damn things.
Bear ate half of his food and looked up at me. “I do have an idea of what we could do.”
I tipped my head to the side and tried not to get my hopes up. “What would that be?” I knew I wasn’t up for a round or two in bed with Bear, but I was willing to give it my best shot.
“You have any yearbooks?”
My mouth dropped open. “Ah, what?” Sure, I didn’t expect him to come right out and suggest we hop into bed, but I sure didn’t think that he was going to suggest yearbooks. “From high school?”
Bear nodded. “Yeah. Zig or Zag, I don’t know which one is which, said he looked through his yearbook and couldn’t find anyone with the name Conner Lu. We think he might have changed his name to throw everyone off, but that doesn’t mean his face might not be somewhere in a yearbook.”
“Oh, well, I do have a couple up in my closet. Though, I was three years behind Zig and Zag in school.”
“Well, there still might be a chance we can find him, and honestly, it might not have been Zig or Zag he knew. How old are the other guys?” Bear asked.
“Uh, well, Jonas and I are the youngest. And then there is Luna, Frost, Easy, Zig, and Zag. Hero was out of high school a year or two before I started, also. Well, and Marco was like years before. He was graduating high school when we were all just being born.”
“Marco,” Bear grunted.
I tipped my head to the side and smiled. “Did I say something wrong?”
Bear shook his head. “No, it’s just I’m not the biggest fan of Marco and Leo.”
“Uncle Leo?” I chirped. “He’s always been nothing but nice and friendly with me.”
“That’s because you’re part of the family, Greta. You don’t see the side that Leo presents to the rest of the world.”
“I’m not stupid, Bear. I know exactly who Leo and Marco are, but that has nothing to do with me. In case you didn’t catch on, the Devil’s Knights aren’t exactly saints, either.” God knew that there were things the club had done that I would never know about. I had heard snippets here and there about men who had tried to go up against the Knights, and it didn’t end well for them.
“Let’s just not talk about Leo or Marco, okay, mama?” he asked.
“Only because you asked nicely,” I muttered. Though, I was going to get to the bottom of why Bear didn’t like Leo or Marco. “You finish eating, and I’ll run up to get my yearbooks.”
“They on the top shelf of your closet?” he asked.
I shook my head. “They’re actually on the floor shoved behind all of my shoes.” I made my way upstairs and rummaged around in the two boxes in the bottom of my closet until I found all four yearbooks.
High school.
