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“Get your ass outside, Byrne!” he ordered and pointed dramatically down the hall.
“I can’t,” I told him and nodded to my gun on the dresser. “Cole put a box aside for me to use while I’m here, and now Alice can’t find where he put it.”
“Who’re you shooting in the desert?” Roan demanded. He let himself into my room, flopping down on the bed and taking a long drink from one of the bottles.
“I go everywhere with my gun, you know this. Well, sober you does.” My gun wasn’t the only thing I wanted to put in the box, but I wasn’t about to talk to him about that while he was drunk.
“Just carry it around!” he exclaimed. “No one cares. It’s Colorado. I want to go outside!”
“Shut your furry ass, Roan,” I retorted. “You can sit there and wait a few minutes, or you can walk your dumbass out the fucking door. I’ll meet you there.”
“Okay, look,” Alice cut in as she stormed through the open door. Her delicate face was set in an angry expression—something amplified by the violent shades of red and orange in her long hair. Her piercings and tattoos showed off by a sports bra and shorts did nothing to tone down her mood. And truly, Alice was a fucking force of nature. If she was pissed off, I knew to get the fuck out of her way. Unfortunately, that mood was coming right at me, so I braced for it. She slammed a box down on the dresser as she raged, “I don’t know what the fuck he did with it. I don’t care what the fuck he did with it. I bought you a fuckin’ new one.”
“I could’ve waited until he got back,” I told her, even though I appreciated the gesture. The sooner I got my gun locked away, the sooner I could hang out with everyone. The sounds in the clubhouse fucking taunted me. I hadn’t realized how much I missed pack get-togethers until I found myself stuck in my room listening to it all. My body vibrated with excitement.
“He’s on a rescue,” she said. “He ain’t comin’ back any time soon.”
That made sense. Cole’s passion project was his search and rescue team. Blackstone Ridge was a huge tourist spot, and tourists were fucking morons. The number of idiots who got lost in the desert doing stupid shit was obscenely high. So much so that Cole used the club to start a specialized search and rescue team. There were two groups: the smoke show and the searchers. The smoke show group manned the town, making a huge fucking thing out of it all to draw the attention from the real group going out as wolves to track down those who went missing.
“Well, thank you,” I replied. “Just let me know what I owe you.”
“Nothin’. I’m makin’ Cole pay for this shit. We’ll just keep it in the room for the next time you’re around.”
“Sounds good.” I chuckled. Fuck. I didn’t want to be around when she told him.
“Bonfires are goin’ up, and grills are goin’,” Alice informed us as she started out the door. She waved in Roan’s direction. “Obviously, y’all figured out where the fuckin’ beer is at. I did my job, so don’t fuckin’ ask me for anythin’ else.”
“We love you, Alice!” Roan shouted after her with a stupid ass grin on his face. “You’re my favorite Stone!”
“Fuck you, Ironwood.”
“God, she’s fucking hot.” He sighed. “If she didn’t scare the crap out of me, I’d bang her.”
“You’d fucking try,” I scoffed. I took my time setting up the bio lock safe. For as eager as I was, I wasn’t about to rush it.
“I so would,” he readily agreed. “I like them feisty:”
“Ain’t that the fucking truth,” I muttered as I put away my gun. The amount of fucking women I’d punt-kicked out of that man’s life was fucking ridiculous.
My phone vibrated. I caught a glimpse of Declan’s name and grinned.
DECLAN: Get your scrawny ass outside. I’m here. I want you to meet Raven before everyone is drunk off their ass.
About fucking time. In the months since conspiring with all the pack leaders to protect Raven from the Lochlans, I was the only one who hadn’t met her yet. Declan and her kept to Cedar Harbor, where I wasn’t. Granted, Declan kept me updated about all the shit he could. Some of it I didn’t need to fucking know—oversharing fuck—but I listened nonetheless.
I wanted to know all the things going on with my brothers, but it felt weird trying to reconnect. They had three years together—years I didn’t fit into. Trying now was the best fucking option I had. Would it be enough? They made me think it would for the most part. But that nagging voice in the back of my fucking mind had a goddamn field day with planting doubts though.
I won’t be.
DECLAN: Yeah, but I plan to be. And once she gets going, there’s no controlling her.
I can’t wait to see that shit. Be right down.
With my back to Roan, I opened up my bag and took out three pill bottles. Roan knew about them—fuck, he’d helped me get on them— but I still felt weird about anyone seeing them. When they were stashed away, I locked the safe. I dropped my bag to the floor and kicked it under the bed.
“Come on, you furry asshole.” I held out a hand to Roan and yanked him to his feet. “We have so much fucking shit to get into.”
“Fuck yes.” Roan’s face looked damn near ready to break in half. “I want taquitos.”
