CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Gwen
Three weeks.
Three long weeks of avoiding and silence.
Well, not complete silence. Knight and I would be courteous when we were in the same room. But those brief hellos and shallow, quick chats about how we were doing were not enough. In fact, they were almost worse. The distance came back full force and the slow, tortuous ache spread in my chest more and more every single day.
I had gotten the job at Royally Brewed and was loving it. Iron almost seemed relieved when I told him that I wouldn’t be able to work at the bar anymore. I had no doubts that it had everything to do with my dad and not my actual work ethic.
It seemed like everything except the whole Knight thing was going amazingly well. I had no complaints outside of the tension of my living arrangement. And even then it wasn’t all that bad. I was just living in my own personal hell. The guys would still come over a few nights a week and those nights I would muster up every ounce of courage and strength that I had to hang out for a bit.
I had no idea if any of them knew what was going on behind the scenes, but Knight did his best when everyone was around to make things seem normal, or close to it. I didn’t even know what our normal was anymore. And at this point, I was just doing my best to move on. Strange as it was, it felt close to being a breakup. A sick, twisted, unconventional breakup.
Tara had become my shoulder to lean on even if I didn’t really talk about what was going on. She pushed sometimes but she understood that I would talk when, and if, I wanted to. She wasn’t stupid, though. She knew it had everything to do with Knight. She had also started to come around more, sometimes stopping by unexpectedly. Usually, I liked my space when I wanted it, but having her around as a distraction and buffer was kind of nice.
I worked with Dale just about every shift that I had at the coffee shop. I was in no way complaining, though. He was light and fun. He smiled a lot. A lot. But I found that I was smiling too more often than not when I was around him. We had a good amount of things in common and he was easy to talk to. I would even go as far to say that we both flirted a little. It was all harmless and we both knew it. He hadn’t made any kind of move or indication that he wanted to ask me out. Which I was grateful for. He was professional and fun. And, like Tara, a really good distraction.
“Hey,” Knight said as he came into the kitchen. I looked over my shoulder at him. He was freshly showered, his stupid smell overtaking my nose as I breathed in. I gave him a short nod in return. “The boys are coming over. Ky is bringing Dino’s pizza. You want to join?”
And that was the moment when the microwave decided to chime, letting me know that my sad frozen meal was ready for me to eat. Popping the door open, I contemplated turning down the best pizza in the city for something that was supposed to be chicken and rice.
“Come on,” Knight said, his voice next to my ear and his back almost touching mine as he looked over my shoulder at what I had made. My whole body stiffened and I shoved all the feelings back down where they needed to friggin’ stay. “You don’t really want to eat that anyways.”
He was right and while I could have grabbed a hold of my pride, picked up my fork, and started to dig in right then and there, I just didn’t have it in me. Who was I kidding? I was never going to turn down pizza for cooked mush that had no flavor.
“Yes,” I said a little breathlessly because he was still right there, not touching me but so close that I could feel the heat coming off of his body. “Okay, fine.” It may have come out with a bit more bark than I meant for it to.
“Good, because he got you a sausage, pepper, and pineapple one. I’d hate for it to go to waste because I know none of us will touch that gross shit.”
My head whipped to the side in an attempt to look at him and give him my best death glare. But as my eyes moved to his lips, I saw the corner of one side twitch like he was doing his best to hold back a smirk.
“I think it’s cute you have your own taste and you don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks,” he said in an unfamiliar tone. A tone that had my body doing its best to rebel against a shiver. And don’t even get me started on my traitorous nipples.
Don’t read too much into it. He was just making an offhand comment probably trying to break the ice. He didn’t really mean anything by it, Gwen. Get it together!
Even as I screamed those words to myself in my head, my body felt suddenly hot and my head a little dizzy. I simply blamed it on the fact that I had been super horny lately. It had been a long time since my last naked mambo and I was obviously in desperate need of release. Even my solo banjo strumming wasn’t helping lately. I was currently doing my best to break my own record of ‘how many times a week can I do this?’ and it was frighteningly embarrassing. So far this week, I was at four, and it was only Tuesday.
“I think Tara’s coming over, too. If that’s cool?” She wasn’t, or at least we hadn’t made any plans for her to. But you bet your sweet ass I was going to text her and beg if I had to. I needed a buffer.
“Cool,” he replied as he took a step back and his eyes did a slow scan of my body. “You alright? You look a little flushed.” His eyes narrowed on my face like he was trying to figure out what was wrong. Like he didn’t know what he was doing to me, but I wasn’t wholly buying it.
“Yeah, fine. Great. It must be the steam coming off of this thing.” I pointed down to the now cooled meal sitting on the counter in front of me.
“Right.” He stretched out the word just long enough to let me know he didn’t completely believe me.
His phone rang and I let out a relieved sigh as he pulled it out and answered it while he walked out of the kitchen. With lightning fingers, I pulled out my phone and shot a text to Tara basically telling her to get her ass to my apartment, now. She sent me one back right away, letting me know she was headed my way.
“Thank God,” I muttered to the empty room.
Not even thirty minutes later, the place was filled with noise and the aroma of greasy, hot cheese. The place was full. Mouse, Sketch, and I took up one couch. Ky sat in the chair. I had dragged my desk chair out and Lake was currently claiming that as his. Brand, Knight, and Chris took up the other couch. Brand had decided to close the shop early that night because there had been like no business. Or ‘deader than Satan’s asshole’ as Sketch had put it.
I learned that Chris was there visiting for a few days. I got the impression that he came down here a lot. Through their conversations, I could tell he knew the guys well and that he and Brand seemed to be good friends. Chris was from Moon Hill and worked at the bar that the club owned there. I figured that was the connection because he wasn’t actually part of the club. Though, by the way the guys talked, especially Lake, Brand, and Ky, he was part of the family.
I sat back, watching and listening with a smile permanently glued to my face. I loved the banter between the guys. I loved how Brand, Lake, Ky, and Chris almost seemed to act like brothers, constantly ribbing each other and telling embarrassing stories and calling one another out. Or how Sketch had his raunchy but hilarious stories, which ninety percent of the time ended up in some sort of sexual act. Or how Mouse, despite how outgoing he’d become, still seemed like the quiet one of the group, sitting back taking in everything and occasionally throwing me a genuine smile.
Then there was Knight. Beautiful, maddening Knight. It didn’t slip by me how he was more open in a room full of people versus when we were alone. Or how he smiled and laughed more around these guys. The way he seemed like the old soul out of the group, watching over all of them with an intent eye, but still able to laugh along with them.
Oh, and no, it did not escape me that every time I turned my attention to him he was looking at me, his eyes holding a darkness that pinned me in place and almost stole my breath away.
The door opened and in walked B-ry. A few sets of eyes shifted only long enough to see who it was, but as I met his gaze, I noticed something was off. He hadn’t bothered to shut the door behind him, which was very unusual. His body was tight and rigid but I couldn’t tell anything from his expression. For a half second, I almost brushed it off as club business, but then I saw a figure move behind him, rushing in through the doorway.
“Sorry, I’m late,” Tara’s voice rang out from B-ry and because he was so big, I wasn’t able to actually see her. “I couldn’t find my keys.”
And that didn’t surprise me. It always seemed to take her a long minute to find anything. Probably because she carried the worlds biggest purse filled to the brim with only God knew what.
Then, like watching a car crash in slow motion, B-ry stepped to the side to let her pass, finally revealing her much smaller frame.
I blinked.
And blinked again.
The room went dead silent.
I mean, like you could have heard a pin drop.
No wonder B-ry looked so tense. He’d gotten the chance to see it before we had.
With the quickness of a cheetah, I averted my eyes, turning my head to look at something—anything—else. I honestly had no idea what to think about what I’d just seen. And it was obvious I wasn’t the only one.
“Your hair wasn’t that color two days ago, right?” Sketch asked, not giving a crap about niceties.
Yes, because Tara had not been that color two days ago. Not even a day ago. And it was hard to deny that the new blonde she sported was a similar shade to mine.
“Oh, yeah,” she said brushing it off as if it was nothing.
I looked over at Brand and Chris. Though they were a little confused because they’d never met Tara before, it was clear they were catching on fast.
“I’m starved. Can I steal a slice?” she asked like it was any other time.
“Yeah, me too,” B-ry said making a point and doing his best to snap the room out of the weird trance we all seemed to be in.
“Help yourselves,” Mouse called out, his gaze suddenly on his knee that was bouncing like crazy.
Tara came back out and I was determined not to make it a thing. I’d never wanted to do something that drastic—as far as color was concerned—to my hair, but there were millions of women out there who did it every day. Hell, there were women that went to the salon to try and get a color like I had naturally, even going as far as to go every other week for a touch-up so no one would know it wasn’t their natural color.
Sketch slid closer to me and I found it odd that he didn’t leave the space for her to sit down between us. But then his legs were spreading out wider and it was clear he was trying to take up as much of the middle of the couch as possible. I didn’t miss the little chin lift Knight sent him out of the corner of my eye.
She scanned the room and gave a half-shrug at the fact that there weren’t any open spots. She moved to the other couch, balancing the plate with one hand. Then she did her best to squeeze in between Brand and Knight until they had no choice but to make room. Poor Chris looked like he was about to sink into the corner of the couch, it was that squished. Brand scooted even closer to Chris in an attempt to give her some more room, there wasn’t even a breath of space between him and Chris. It was almost comical.
“So,” I said, breaking the strained silence that had gone on way too long. “Sketch here was just telling us about something that happened last night.”
“Oh, I didn’t miss any of the good parts, did I?” she asked and her eyes lit up as she turned her attention to Sketch. She’d heard enough of his tales to know how crazy they got.
“Oh, yeah. I mean, no.” He was clearly struggling a bit. But after he gained his composure, he carried on like normal. This story ending with a ‘Blade and Sketch tag team,’ as he had called it. It was hard not to roll my eyes at him. Never a dull moment around the guy, that was for sure.
I breathed out a sigh of relief internally.
It was weird. Like, maybe a little. But I didn’t think it was as big of a deal as they were making it out to be.