Second, unless he was an exceptionally good actor, this was not him.

So I slowly closed the door.

“Goddammit,” he clipped.

“Talk to me,” I ordered.

“It’s rush hour, Rebel. We gotta go or we’ll be late.”

“I’m not leaving this house with you in this mood,” I informed him. “Now tell me. Are you pissed about Paul and Amy? Because I didn’t push them about brunch. I didn’t ask Amy how things were. I didn’t put myself out there for them. I waited so I could talk to you about it. So there’s nothing to be pissed about.”

“I’m not pissed about that,” he said tightly.

“Then what are you pissed about?”

“Right now, you not getting your ass out that door,” he bit.

“Rush—”

“God fucking dammit, if you don’t wanna go, I’ll take you to the big house and I’ll go.”

“I want to go. No. Honestly, I’m worried about meeting your sister. But I still want to go.”

“Then let’s go.”

“Not before you tell me what’s bothering you.”

“Nothing’s bothering me.”

“Rush, you can’t imagine for a second I don’t know something’s bothering you.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, nothing is bothering me!” he thundered.

I stood solid, staring up at him.

Belatedly, his plans for the day hit me.

“Your mom,” I whispered.

“Fuckin’ fuck me,” he growled, glowered at me, dropped his head, swiped his hand over the back of his neck, lifted his head, and his hair fell into his eye.

Impatiently, he tucked it behind his ear.

A hank of it fell back into his eye.

I’d never seen him do that. It was somehow cute. And sexy, even done while he was in this foul mood.

“Let me guess, you had to kidnap her,” I said.

“No, babe. But I did talk to her and after all this time apart she shared her love, Rebel. Covered me in it. It’s a wonder I don’t got rainbows shooting out of me, I’m so full of my mother’s love.”

I didn’t like what his words said, or the sarcasm he used to say them, but . . .

This was good.

Not good.

Absolutely not good.

But still in a way, good.

He wasn’t perfect.

He wasn’t going to be that side of our relationship that was about understanding and support and acceptance and tolerance and wisdom. It wasn’t going to be one-sided and eventually get to the point where I wondered why he bothered, then worried he was bothered, then did shit that fucked us up and made him bothered enough to get shot of me.

He needed me too.

And it already had been established I was a girl who needed to be needed.

I had a feeling my aura was white AF when I moved into him and put a hand to his abs.

“Tell me,” I whispered.

He gave me a look, which I’d have to check and make certain didn’t scorch off my eyebrows, before he spoke.

“She refused Chaos protection. Said she hoped we all got our throats slit, that being the end of our Club.”

I stepped back in horror, my hand dropping.

“Yeah, got that blood in me, sweetheart. Isn’t that awesome?” he asked, again with the sarcasm.

But I could oh so totally forgive the sarcasm.

“Rush—”

“We had a brother, long time ago, I was a little kid. He was like an uncle to me. Straight up, somethin’ ever happened to my dad, he’d come in, take on Tab and me, raise us like his own. Good man. The best. Club was fucked up with shit they should not be doin’, Dad was getting them clean. There was someone in the Club who wasn’t down with that. So Black got his throat slit to stop it from happening.”

“Oh my God,” I breathed.

“So yeah,” he ground out. “That cut close to the bone. She knew Black. She knew precisely what she was saying. And she still said that to me. And that wasn’t all she said.”

“What else did she say?” I whispered.

“She called me my father’s dog and told me I was there to get my treat. And she blamed Dad for everything that’s happening. Everything that’s ever happened. Including Black. And she threw in Natalie. Reb. All of it.”

“She loves him,” I told Rush. “She misses him.”

“Who? Dad?” he asked, looking at me like I was crazy.

“Trust me, honey, a woman doesn’t hold on to that kind of anger unless it’s rooted in love.”

“That’s whacked.”

“Who wanted the divorce?”

He shut up.

Tack had.

I moved to him again, putting my hands on either side of his waist.

“I want to say that you should shake this off. But it’s your mom. Even being distant from her, you can’t shake this off. I don’t know how to help you feel less anger than you’re feeling now. But I’m not sure I want to. That anger is justified. What she said is hideous, and it’s hideous even without a man you loved having died that way. The rest was salt in a wound. But your anger will burn out eventually, and that’s when I’ll feel sorry for her.”

Again, looking at me like I was crazy. “You’ll feel sorry for her?”

“Yeah. Because when you stop feeling this deep about shit she said to hurt you, she’ll have lost the power to hurt you, which means she’ll have lost your love. And when she does that, I’ll definitely feel sorry for her.”

Rush stared down on me.

Then I let out an, “Oof!” when he yanked me roughly in his arms and held on way too tightly.

I slid my arms around him and did my best to breathe before he came into himself and loosened his hold, but he didn’t let me go.

“Was a dick,” he muttered in my ear.

“It happens.”

“It’s not cool.”

“Maybe not, but in this instance, it was understandable.”

He lifted his head and I pulled mine back so I could find those crystal-blue eyes.

They were troubled.

“Honey,” I whispered.

“I got a bad temper.”

I didn’t miss that.

“This may make me sound like a freak, but I’m kinda glad. You were wearing me out by being perfect.”

His brows went up and his chin jerked back before his face relaxed and his lips twitched.

“Now I know,” I told him.

“Know what?”

“That you’re for real.”

A beat went by where his face froze.

It unfroze when he growled.

I lost sight of it after that because he kissed me.

I went up to the toes of my boots to kiss him back.

When he broke it, he murmured, “Ready to go?”

I gave him a big smile.

“Absolutely.”

Still Giggling

Rebel

With the way things were going, I totally should have known.

Even so, I was unprepared for when Rush and I stood at the door of a nice house with a great yard, plump balls of rust-colored mums planted in some pots on the front porch, Rush hitting the doorbell and then promptly pulling open the storm, pushing open the door, and hand in mine, guiding me in only for the first thing we saw to be two dark-headed boys racing up to us.

I lost Rush’s hand because he was a big guy, and he was built, but no man could be tackled by two boys without at least going back on a boot.

He went back on that boot as both boys shouted, “Rush!”

I stared down at them, trying to come to terms with the fact that his sister had a baby, not young boys who looked maybe seven and nine (or around there), before I realized these weren’t Tabby and Shy’s.

They were Rush’s brothers.

His freaking baby brothers.

Of course.

I wasn’t having dinner with Rush’s sister, brother-in-law and their baby.

I was having dinner with the Allen family.

I processed that about a nanosecond before I processed Rush getting them both in a headlock and demanding in his rough, deep voice that was now filled with brotherly affection that they, “Give.”

That voice would sound like that, except better, when he had Rhodes in a headlock and he was demanding he “give” with fatherly affection.