I lick my bottom lip and nod. I don’t know what is going on with me but I can’t see him with another tart. He leans in and gives my mouth an earth-shattering kiss. I place my hands against his chest as he drinks me in, feeling his heart drumming against his chest in a violent rhythm. Feeling the lines we set for each other fading into something more, I wonder if he’s just as scared as I am.
His soft mouth devouring mine is intoxicating. Possessive lips taking mine under the night’s sky encourage me to sink into him. He grabs the back of my head, and deepens the kiss as if I’m the only one on the sidewalk. At this moment, I couldn’t care less who walks past.
“I’ll see you around, babe.” Bobby kisses my forehead and walks away, leaving me gasping for breath and in a complete haze.
I stride around the corner. The hospital is just a block away so I decide to walk. My mind is in a complete jumble. I don’t know what I am feeling or what I am thinking. I just know that I was jealous over Bobby for the first time ever, and I hate the feeling. It burns and feels like my chest is sinking all at the same time. I have seen girls climb all over Bobby, and him all over them, but not once have I cared as much as I did tonight. I need to try harder at distancing myself, but to do that, I’d need to move across the world.
10
Bobby
I sit at the wooden table in the chapel of the club, waiting for some of the brothers to show up after leaving the restaurant, Shadow called and told me to get my ass to the club fast. Lip got into some shit and we needed to gather quickly.
My fingers tap against the wood grain as I think about seeing Jessica with that doctor guy. It made me angry when he rubbed it in my face about how close he and Jessica were. I considered throwing Jessica on the table and fucking her right in front of him.
“You’re here,” Bull observes, walking in with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. His dark hair slicked back, he pulls his leather cut onto his shoulders comfortably.
“Yup,” I reply, still tapping the tabletop. A bunch of the guys come in after Bull, and sit down in their usual spots. I look over and see Lip holding his arm which is patched up with white gauze, his face holding a shadow of pain. Speckles of blood cover his clothes and face, causing me to eye him skeptically. “What happened to you?” I question, staring at the red blood seeping through the gauze.
“Bullet grazed me,” Lip croaks, his voice scratchy.
“Sounds like a fucking mess to me. Why don’t you explain?” Shadow insists, sitting near the head of the table. I turn and look at Shadow, curious at what the hell he is going on about. Shadow looks nervous as he runs his hands back and forth through his black hair. This can’t be good.
“I was headed to Greg’s Pizza and I took the back way. I stopped to light a cigarette and saw an exchange between some SUVs down an alleyway. I stood there for a second to get a better look at what was going on. Some men spotted me, and instantly started shooting at me, so I fired back,” Lip explains, his eyebrows raised as he speaks.
“Why did they just start shooting?” I ask, shrugging. They had to be up to no good to draw their weapons and fire.
“I wondered the same thing at first,” he informs. “I ran around a building to reload my gun when a man was being guided from the building toward a black car. When he went around his side of the car to get in, he spotted me and pulled his weapon, but I was faster. I shot him and ran,” Lip rambles anxiously, shaking his head.
“Why did you run?” Shadow questions gravely. I nod, wondering why in the fuck he would run. We don’t run. We aren’t pussies.
Lip looks up from staring at the wooden table, his eyes holding a sense of grief as he looks at Shadow.
“Because,” he mumbles, “it was Augustus,” Lip continues, his eyes never leaving Shadow.
I stand immediately, my chair falling against the floor from the force. “You fucking shot Augustus?” I holler, my heart thudding against my ribcage. My hands become clammy, and the scar cutting into my abdomen flares with pain, a reminder of how Augustus nearly killed me.
“Yeah, it was either me or him. When he went down, his men ran toward him, and I made a break for it,” he confirms, looking downward. I sense there is more to the story he is not telling me, his eyes avoiding everyone at the table.
“What are you not telling us?” I mutter.
He looks up and sighs. “It may be nothing, but as I was running away, I ran right into Doc,” he explains, shaking his head as if he is sorry. All the breath rushes out of my lungs from the thought of Augustus’s men seeing Lip with Jessica.
“How did that happen?” Bull asks, putting his cigarette out in an ashtray.
“I just ran, man. I was only a few blocks from the hospital, and when I was running, I slammed right into her. She was concerned with my arm, but I yelled for her to let me go, to get the fuck away from me,” Lip nearly shrieks, his tone pleading for me to understand he did what he could to get her to go away.