Clara and Rhodes

Rebel

“If this doesn’t work out with us, heads up, I’m going after the bearded one,” I teased Rush as I sat beside him in his truck on the way from Ride back to his place.

“That’s Joker and just sayin’, his wife, Carissa is gonna give birth to his kid any day now. He’s pretty much living for that day, though mostly he lives for her. He’s been in love with her since high school.”

Sweet, I thought.

“Ah,” I said then I kept it up. “Right, then the blond one.”

“Snap’s old lady is called Rosalie and she’s all sugar, no spice, but she’d still be all about the catfight, you looked at him in a way she didn’t like.”

I reckoned any old lady had a catfight in her in such an instance.

“Then the one who looks like a lunatic from an asylum where you’d definitely want to be an inmate so you could keep him company,” I said.

There was a smile in his voice when he replied, “Hound’s woman is also knocked up and she’s a biker babe to the core. She’d wipe the floor with you.”

Hmm.

“The one with the biker version of a Fu Manchu that’s only one shade down from scorching hot?” I tried.

“Property of Lanie. And she wouldn’t risk breaking a nail. But she would hire a hit on you.”

I turned to look at him. “Property of?”

“MC culture. Traditionally, that swings only one way. The way Chaos rolls, it swings both.”

I liked that.

“And don’t even think of High,” he added. “Millie’d drag you around the Compound by your hair.”

“Are they all taken?” I asked.

“Dutch or Jag might give you a go, but you’re probably too old for them.”

And the man turns my giving him shit back on me.

I looked forward. “Just thirty and already a cougar.”

Rush chuckled.

“You do know, it takes the fun out of busting your chops after you left me with your stepmom like you did when you don’t play along and get insanely jealous I find all your brothers hot.”

“You might want to be not so obvious you’re just busting my chops, then,” he replied.

I hmphed.

Loudly.

He reached out and took my hand.

He linked his fingers in mine, saying softly, “I fucked up, babe. A lot on my mind. I didn’t think. That wasn’t cool. For you or Tyra.”

I looked at him, relatively stunned.

The relatively part was that this was Rush. All the goodness I got from him was beginning not to be a surprise.

He was still a man, so him understanding what he did was not cool, copping to it and kind of apologizing for it, even if he didn’t use those exact words, was the part that was stunning.

“Now you’re screwing with my ability to remain marginally pissed at you by admitting you fucked up,” I shared.

He smiled at the windshield and moved my hand to rest on his thigh.

“It seemed okay,” he noted.

“We had a rocky start,” I told him, and his fingers in mine squeezed. “We smoothed it out. She’s nice.”

“She’s awesome.”

“Yeah,” I murmured, drew in breath and asked, “You guys get things in hand?”

“As best we can.”

I turned to look at him again. “Are you okay?”

He shrugged a shoulder and gave my fingers another squeeze. “As best I can be.”

“Let me guess, brother business is brother business. I quit Benito, I’m in the dark?”

He glanced at me before looking back at the road. “Yes and no. There’s shit you won’t know because it’s brother business. There’s other shit I’ll share.” He hesitated and announced, “At the end of the meet, I didn’t just call Tab like I told you about. I had to call my mom.”

Oh, he’d told me about dinner with his sister the next night.

But even with that scariness at hand, what he said grabbed all my attention.

So it was me squeezing his hand before I asked, “Why?”

“Women are getting dead, Rebel. She has ties to Chaos. They’re historical but all this shit is historical. Dad contacted her, offered Chaos protection. She didn’t take him up on that. So Dad asked me to follow up. I’m hoping she’ll call.”

She didn’t sound all that nice.

Harrietta dumped in the street, how something like that would affect Rush if it was his mother, I hoped she called too.

“Right, of course,” I murmured. “I . . . does she not know what’s happening?”

“It would not surprise me she’d be okay with getting dead just to make Dad feel like shit and fuck with Tabby’s head.”

All right then.

She really didn’t sound all that nice.

“Whoa,” I whispered.

“Yeah, she’s pretty stubborn and holds a mean grudge.”

I knew all about that kind of thing.

“I’m sorry, honey.”

He pressed my hand to his thigh. “It is what it is.”

“I’m still sorry.”

Another glance and a soft, “Thanks, baby.”

I shut up and looked forward.

“We’ll hit the market before we hit home,” he changed the subject. “Make a mental list of what you want in the house.”

“You want me to cook tonight?”

“If you want.”

I thought about making him dinner.

I thought about making him breakfast.

I thought about all the time I would now have on my hands that would probably be mostly filled with cooking for him, hanging with him while he did important stuff and maybe catching some TV.

These thoughts didn’t make me happy.

I was not big on having nothing to do.

It was then I remembered about brunch.

“Oh shit,” I mumbled.

“What?”

I looked at him again. “Brunch. Sunday.”

“What?”

“I asked Amy and Paul over for brunch on Sunday. That’s three days away.”

“Okay. So brunch for them on Sunday is on the agenda,” he replied.

“Um, I’m not sure that’s wise.”

“No worries. Boz or someone will have the main house. And I’ll be there with you.”

Oh boy.

His fingers tightened in mine and I was unsurprised he read my vibe.

He just read it wrong.

“You don’t want me there with you?”

“Well . . . uh . . .”

I didn’t finish that.

“Babe.”

That was a growl.

And he wasn’t done growling.

“You’ve met my dad and my stepmom, and Tab’s pretty much made it command attendance at her and Shy’s pad for dinner tomorrow.”

Eek.

I was ignoring the fact I was meeting his sister the next day.

A girl could only take so much.

It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since we started our first date, for God’s sake.

“And you don’t want me to meet Paul and Amy?” he pushed.

“It’s not that.”

“What is it?” he demanded.

“I just . . . they’re not good after what happened to Diane,” I shared.

“I didn’t think they’d show throwing glitter and singing ‘Jeremiah was a bullfrog,’” he returned.

That was kind of funny.

He still sounded like he was getting pretty pissed.

Shit.

I had to come out with it.

“Well, it’s more about the fact that Paul is having a slight problem with his alcohol intake,” I admitted.

Rush was silent.

“And I might have promised Amy I’d talk to him about it.”

“Might have?”

“In the sense I promised Amy I’d talk to him about it.”

I waited for Rush to get ticked I’d gone all Superwoman again. Even if this particular bit was grandfathered into the whole thing about me taking care of everyone’s business before my meltdown, after which I learned my lesson to stop trying to take care of everyone’s business (maybe).