Chapter 13
Slayer slammed his phone closed and glanced over at Billie, who was sitting inside the diner they stopped at for dinner. Their little road trip was just cut short by some renegade club leaving their mark all over Deadly territory. Billie was about to get a crash course in outlaw life, and he had no idea how to ease her into it.
They hadn’t even had the ‘full-disclosure,’ talk yet. Maybe it wouldn’t be wise to share this with her so soon. Billie always did have a white and black sense of right and wrong, and now Slayer definitely fell into the ‘gray,’ category.
How was he supposed to tell her that the people he was taking her to meet, to live with, to stand beside, were murderers? Justifiable or not, they’d all done their fair share of wrong. Billie would panic if he relayed to her what Ox just told him; that one of their favorite bars was now a murder scene, and that the sheriff was in on the fucking cover up!
Slayer wasn’t exactly sure he was excited about that himself, but he definitely didn’t want his new life with Billie as his old lady to be ruined so early. They weren’t even in North Carolina yet, and he was already sweating bullets.
She looked so fucking innocent sitting at their small table in the diner, waiting for him. Expecting some kind of romantic evening that ended with more heavy petting and soft words and absolutely nothing to do with some rival MC blowing through their side of the mountains. She wouldn’t even begin to understand what that meant. She was in danger just by riding with him. They had no idea how deep or far the Madmen’s connections went…
Instantly his mind went to Rayna and Fury and the hell they went through on their way back from Myrtle beach. Would that happen to them? Billie wasn’t trained to use a gun and she definitely wouldn’t be a good enough shot on the fly to take out multiple men riding bikes.
“Fuck,” He whispered to himself. Now was the time to make a hefty decision, and he already had a feeling he was about to make the wrong one.
As he stepped inside, he forced a smile and sat down across from her. She smiled back at him, obvious to the fact that he was indeed about to lie to her.
“Who was that?”
“My boss. He said that he hates to rush us, but we gotta head back as fast as possible. He needs me at the shop, apparently we’re way more than slammed. Some kind of accident in town that sent a lot of locals up to our place to get their cars fixed. I’m sorry,” He said as he reached for her head.
And, he was sorry; sorry that he was lying to her, tricking her, and doing everything he could to keep her. Once he got her to North Carolina, it would be easier to get her to understand the gravity of his lifestyle, of his world. It would be easier for her to acclimate once she was there with the other old ladies.
“That sucks…Are you okay with that? You could just call him and tell him we’re gonna take our time.”
So fucking innocent.
“My boss is also my prez, baby. I can’t tell him to fuck off if he needs me. Ox is a fair man, a good man, he wouldn’t call unless he absolutely had to. Don’t worry, I’ll make it up to you.”
“I wasn’t really concerned with making this a long trip, I’m eager to see where you’ve been hiding for the last six years. I just wanted to make sure you were okay with it,” She said.
He could see the honesty in her eyes and hoped like hell that she couldn’t see the dishonesty in his. He wouldn’t lie to her unless he had to, and this was the first time he’d ever been faced with a decision like that. He didn’t share club life with any of the whores he fucked. Billie deserved to know the truth, but first, he had to make sure it wouldn’t scare her away for good.
He couldn’t handle it if she got spooked before they really gave a life together a go. Not after he was so close to calling her his again. He’d waited for so damn long, and it was so fucking close, it was all he could do not to shout it from the rooftops; Billie Aria King is mine!
“I’m okay with it. We’ll take a vacation soon enough and see the world, I promise. Ox needs me for the moment, but it won’t be like that forever.” That wasn’t exactly a lie, but it wasn’t exactly the truth; he had no idea how long the beef would last. It could be months, could be days, he had no idea.
“That sounds nice. I’ve wanted to head to the beach for a while, but I never got around to it.”
He gripped her hand over the table, “I’ll get ya that new camera as soon as we roll into town, and you can go to the beach and take as many pictures as you’d like. Rayna and Fury have a little girl, I’m sure they would love to have some family photos taken. Fury will pay you top dollar for them, too. Ain’t nobody in the club stingy with their money,” He said.
She looked like she was thinking hard for a moment before she looked up at him.
“Do you…have a lot of money? Probably rude of me to ask, but I am curious.”
“I don’t spend a lot and I don’t need a lot. I have a lot in the bank, and damn right you should be curious. I know we go way back, but I just moved you out of your home to go across the country with me. You have every right to know if I have the money to support you, and I do.”
He went one step farther than he probably needed to, mostly because he was feeling guilty about the fact that he was lying to her about his lifestyle already, and pulled out his phone. With a couple of swipes of his fingers, he was showing her his banking app, including all the commas between the numbers.
“Wow,” She said softly.
“I know you ain’t after my money, and once you get yourself established in town, you’ll make yourself your own cash. For now, just let me worry about you, okay? I may have been shit at sticking around, but I never let you go without, did I?”
She slowly shook her head and he lifted her hand from the table and kissed the back of it, his whiskers tickling her fingers. Billie was smiling again, and he loved it, and he couldn’t take the thought of her leaving him.
It didn’t sit well, the thought of it not working out, the thought of her getting smart enough to leave him this time. What if she woke up and decided that he wasn’t worth it? What if he woke up and she was just gone, with no trace of their love left behind?
He would deserve it, karma was a nasty bitch, but…he didn’t want that for them. He wanted them to work, like Fury and Rayna. Like Esme and Prettyboy, Green and Emily, Laney and Axel, Scarlett and Limit, for God’s sake! If Limit of all creatures can find someone to love him, why shouldn’t Slayer be able to do the same?
Her green eyes assessed him across the table, and he was sure in that instance that she knew the truth. That she’d somehow heard his conversation with Ox, and that she was already working out a plan in her head to get back home.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
Slayer smiled and nodded, taking a drink of his soda while he did so.
“I’m excited to take you home with me, to share this part of myself with you. It’s the only part of me you’ve never been a apart of, and I want that to change.”
Her eyes lit up at that, and she tightened her hold on him. She was still icy, still hesitant, but every day they spent together he could see the change in her. The way she would lean into him when they kissed, even if it was only for a second. The way she reached for his hand without realizing it, or the way she curled up next to him at night. Two days on the road together, and it was better between them then it had been since he came home.
In reality, he knew that eventually, it would work out. She would have to come to understand the way his world works…right? She wouldn’t just decide that he wasn’t worth it because the outlaw life was new to her, right? She had to know that it was different, that the lines were blurred where he came from…didn’t she?
The only one who could answer that was Billie, and he was too damn chicken shit to say a peep about the events that had recently come to light. Any other time, and he would blaze right through it, answer any questions she had, and explain to her whatever she needed explained.
But, now? Now she was only just starting to forgive him, to let him in, to show him how she’d grown and changed over the years. She was like a delicate flower blossom, and Slayer needed her to remain who she was. He didn’t want to be the force that crushed her petals so fucking soon.
“Billie? You in this, with me? For sure?”
Her head snapped up and she tightened her hold on his hand, confusion lining her features. Her shoulders were tense with worry, and she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth momentarily before she asked, “Did you change your mind?”
“Miles nor time has ever changed my mind about you, Billie. I just need to know you’re ride or die, because where we’re going, that’s really the only way to explain my lifestyle.”
“Ride or die?”
“Exactly.” She shrugged, as if there was nothing more that she could say to make him understand what was going on in her head before she said, “We ride together, we die together.”