Chapter Eleven
Four long hours flew by without word from Thomas. Wracked with nerves, Tiffany’s hands shook, pulse raced, terrified—for Allie, for Thomas, for the club.
After Thomas left, she walked out of his room, intent on finding Mia and Lynn to keep her company. On her way down the hall, this time she noticed what she hadn’t before. The hall upstairs was narrow and had countless doors, bedrooms she assumed much like Thomas’s. She strode down the stairs, looking around, primarily because she was curious. She’d been in the compound once but hadn’t seen much of it except the hallway leading into the backlot and the kitchen. At the bottom of the stairs, she took a left and paused at the entrance to the large common area. She looked to her left seeing again the flat screen television and couches. She then turned her head to her right. There, she found Mia and Lynn, sitting on stools in front of the bar. One of the prospects, Beef, stood behind it.
“There you are.” Mia lifted a shot glass. “Come.”
She closed the distance between them and sat on a stool next to Mia. Lynn sat to Mia’s other side.
Mia threw back a shot then slammed the glass in front of her. “Three more.”
Beef nodded, grabbed a shot glass, set it in front of her, and poured. Tiffany lifted the glass to her lips and gulped it down ignoring the burn in the back of her throat.
“What’s up with you and Cuss?”
The perfect way to distract themselves, no doubt both Lynn and Mia were as shaken as she. Even so, Mia would want to know.
After Allie had been kidnapped, Thomas had, for the first time, been affectionate. Not that he wasn’t, he usually was but never in public. Over the last several months, he’d grown more and more affectionate. When he arrived at her place, he gave her a hug. When he left, he hooked his arm around the back of her neck, pulled her into him, and kissed her forehead. As of late, they’d gotten into the habit of watching scary movies, his request. When they did, she used his shoulder to hide her face. He’d chuckle and sling his arm around her shoulders. Needless to say, she’d become accustomed to his displays of affection, but it always happened behind closed doors.
Out of the norm to see this, Mia asked, but Tiffany didn’t want to discuss it even though she trusted both Mia and Lynn implicitly.
She shrugged. “He’s just trying to comfort me.”
Mia quirked a brow. “Oh, God, please tell me you don’t believe that.”
She looked from Mia to Lynn, wearing the same expression. Brows lifted and furrowed, jaws dropped. “He’s always affectionate with me…just not in front of other people.”
Lynn’s eyes widened. “He’s affectionate with you?”
She nodded.
“Why aren’t—”
Mia cut Lynn off, speaking too loudly like she did often when excited or angry or just being herself. “What the hell is he waiting for?”
“E-excuse me?”
Mia shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Tiff, do you want to be an ostrich for the rest of your life? Live with your head in the sand?”
“Um…” she mumbled, unsure where Mia was headed with this.
“Allie’s right, Tiff,” Lynn spoke softly. “And so is Mia. You need to open your eyes and get your head out of the sand. Cuss is in love with you. He’s been in love with you for a long—”
Her heart stilled in her chest then clenched, hard. No, she shook her head. “I’ve known him for more than seven years. Close to eight years. He’s never—”
Mia leaned into her. “Tiff, babe, listen to me, and listen good. A man who doesn’t want you doesn’t text you constantly. He doesn’t show up at your place uninvited, doesn’t spend countless hours with you. Plus he’s a biker, and bikers don’t invite a woman to a club event unless he’s claiming her—”
“It’s not like that. It’s just…” She shrugged. “I don’t know why, but he’s always been protective of me.”
“Exactly, he’s protective, aka possessive—”
Maybe to the average person, it would seem like they were more than friends since they spent so much time together, but they weren’t. Had he felt something for her, he wouldn’t have waited years. He wouldn’t continue to be just her friend. Still, it was difficult to explain what she and Thomas were. They were close, best friends close, and to the average person, this was hard to believe because it was unusual for a man and a woman to be.
She shook her head. “It’s not like that…” Her gaze fell to her lap, thinking, trying to find a way to explain it, make them understand. “It’s like…I’m his sister or something.”
“Sister?” Mia scoffed. “I have a brother, and don’t get me wrong, he’s protective. He loves me and looks out for me. He even got in Stone’s face when he found out we were dating. A terrible idea considering Stone was with Hash, Trick, Dodge, and Strike, and my brother was alone. Luckily, Stone didn’t take offense. To him, anyone who cares about me enough to stick up for me, he accepts even if it’s him they’re trying to protect me from. That said, my brother doesn’t look at me like Cuss looks at you, and thank God for that.”
Mia lifted a brow. “You know what else my brother doesn’t do? He doesn’t call me twice a day and text me in between those calls. He doesn’t hug me or cup my cheeks or kiss my forehead looking like what he really wants to do is devour me.”
“He doesn’t look at me any different—”
“You’re a very beautiful woman, Tiff. Ever wonder why none of the brothers hit on you?” Mia paused. “It’s because you’re Cuss’s. He’s claimed you. The brothers know it.”
“I’m not…” Her gaze went from Mia to Lynn then back again. “He doesn’t mean it like that.”
Lynn’s eyes widened. Her glossed lips parted. “So he’s told you you’re his?”
“I…um…” She took a deep breath. “He’s called me ‘his girl,’ but it doesn’t mean—”
“Yeah, it does.” Lynn held out her glass.
Beef poured another shot. Her gaze went to him.
Shit. She’d forgotten he was there. How freaking embarrassing discussing this in front of one of them. She flushed.
God! What if he told Thomas what Mia and Lynn thought? Would Thomas use it as an excuse to cut her out of his life, again?
Pushing these thoughts aside, she tried again to make them understand. “If he wanted me, don’t you guys think he would’ve made it known by now? It’s been seven years.”
“Babe, you keep saying seven years, but in reality, it hasn’t been. First, high school doesn’t really count. You were just kids. Then you moved away and were away for years. You moved back not too long ago.”
A good point, but it’d been months since she moved back.
“Even so, he should’ve. I don’t know what’s keeping him, but that’s not the point.”
She shook her head. “If a man wants you, he makes it known, makes it happen,” she recited the words she whispered to herself after every text, every call, every hug, and every kiss on the forehead.
“I think he is,” Lynn jumped in. “He is making it happen at a snail’s pace, but it’s happening. Why else spend so much time with you?”
Because he was her friend! Why couldn’t they understand?
She shook her head yet again. By this point, she didn’t know if she continued to do it for them or to keep herself from believing what they said. “You both know I have feelings for him, right?” She flinched then looked to Beef and prayed he hadn’t heard that.
The sides of his mouth twitched.
Great. Something else he could tell his brothers.
She pushed that thought aside too and kept trying to make her point. “It’s obvious, meaning he knows, meaning—”
“Cuss is a lady’s man.” Mia lifted her shot glass and slung it back. How she did that without cringing Tiff would never know. “Well, it’s no secret bikers have their choice of taps. Cuss, though, all he has to do is look at a woman. I’ve seen it happen, and you know what?”
Tiffany knew it to be true, and still, hearing it did a number on her. She couldn’t prevent her body from responding, her heart clenching so tight her chest ached. She swallowed, hoping she could magically forget her reaction, forget how it made her feel.
“I haven’t seen it happen for a long time, not since before he left for LA.”
Her eyes widened. He hadn’t been with a woman for that long? Because of her? Did he want more with her?
She set her elbows on the bar top, angled her head down until it rested on her hands then pressed her fingers against her temple, forcing the fantasy away. It had been months since she graduated. Months, and they’d only ever been friends.
She lifted her head, held out her shot glass, and avoided Beef’s gaze while he poured her a shot. She gulped it in one swallow, cringing when it burned down her throat.
“I haven’t seen it either.” Lynn smiled. “And you know what else? He hardly ever comes here Fridays.”
What the hell did that have to do with anything? Her brows drew together.
“Friday nights, the club hangs out here. They drink, blast music, play pool, watch games, pick random taps to have fun with,” Mia explained.
“Cuss used to come. Then he’d come for an hour and disappear. Haven’t seen him here on a Friday for several weeks.”
Fridays, Thomas had dinner at her apartment. After, they watched movies. As of late, scary movies. Still, it didn’t mean anything.
“Friday Night Fiascos,” Mia whispered, her voice low. “That’s what Allie calls them.”
Her eyes filled with tears. She glanced at Lynn and caught her wiping her face.
“The point is we don’t have forever. I think we can all agree, and you and Cuss are wasting time, precious time. I mean…look what happened with…” Lynn’s voice trailed off.
Tiffany knew what her friends meant and how right they were. She needed to tell Thomas how she felt. She’d been thinking about telling him for some time. She just hadn’t found the courage.
Knowing what he did for a living, she worried day in and day out, wondered about the endless what ifs. What if one of the people he was paid to “take care of” was quicker and faster? What the hell would she do? Could she live knowing she’d never told him how she felt?
She came to the conclusion weeks ago that she couldn’t. Still, she hadn’t told him.
After that long, frustrating conversation, she headed to Thomas’s room, where he told her she should sleep. She didn’t know why it mattered where she slept considering according to Mia and Lynn, there were thirty bedrooms at the compound. Most were occupied. Each member of the club had his own unless he opted out for whatever reason. Namely, he had his own home or apartment, and hardly, if ever, stayed at the compound.
Tiffany entered, closed the door behind her, and leaned against it, her gaze scanning the mess in Thomas’s room. Something she hadn’t paid much mind to before.
Thomas could make a mess in a couple of minutes. Whenever he visited her, he took off his cut, draped it on a chair in the dining room. As he headed into her kitchen to grab a beer from the fridge, he dropped his keys on the counter then leaned against it and talked with her while she finished dinner. When she plated their food and headed into the living room before he sat, he removed his wallet from his jeans and dropped it on the coffee table. He did this every time, leaving his stuff strewn around her apartment. She never told him to stop, never accommodated all his stuff in one area as the neat freak in her demanded, finding she liked that everywhere she looked she remembered Thomas was there.
His room at the compound though wasn’t the type of mess he made in a couple of minutes in her apartment. It was the type of mess that took months to make. Clothes littered the floor, the mattress, every piece of furniture. The bed unmade. Cans of soda and beer bottles scattered on his nightstands and on top of his armoire.
Tiffany should go to bed. Tomorrow, she had to get up early and get to work. She prayed and hoped they’d find Allie. Even with that hope, no way Allie would be at work. Tiffany couldn’t call out. She needed to go to bed but couldn’t. Too amped up, too nervous, and jittery, and also because a neat freak couldn’t sleep in a room as messy as Thomas’s, she did what any neat freak would do. She cleaned.