“I feel like I’m missing something,” Darren says with a confused look on his face. I bite my tongue to stop myself from telling him to give up the act. He knows damn well who the Forsaken are, and he knows damn well what they can do. But even in Duke’s grasp, where I feel braver than I have in a long time, I don’t have the courage to mouth off to Darren.
“You see our patches, your hear our bikes, you know who we are,” Diesel says. He lifts his chin at Duke and nods his head toward the back door.
From behind me, Duke bends at the waist and places his mouth right beside my ear, whispering, “Clubhouse. Ten minutes. You don’t show, and I’m going to hunt your ass down, you got that? It’s been a damn long time, and I’m tired of waiting for your sweet pussy.”
As much as I want to light into his ass like there’s no tomorrow, I can’t. I have to work here, and that’s assuming Eileen doesn’t fire my ass for all of this shit anyway.
“Whatever,” I say. I can’t bring myself to agree, and I can’t argue here. Without another word, Duke turns and leaves the shop out the back door. Diesel raises an eyebrow and shrugs his broad shoulders, then follows Duke.
I’m tempted to say something to Darren, whose eyes are fixated on the back door. Something snippy like ‘Well, it was nice seeing you, jackass’, but I’ve had enough drama for the morning and I’m not up to invite any more. I move quickly around him and slip out of the door. A large hand wraps itself around my upper arm, holding me in place. My chest constricts painfully. For just a moment everything stops. Even my breath.
“Wait,” he says. “Do you want to have a drink later or something?”
Darren turns me around, giving me a curious look. My eyes travel down to his hand wrapped around my arm and narrow instantly. Even after all this time, I still don’t like the feeling of him touching me. I pull my arm back and shove my hands in my pockets.
“Listen, Nic, I didn’t know you two were together,” he says. It takes me a moment to catch on, but when I do, I’m annoyed for a whole other reason. Of course Darren would assume I’m with someone and that’s why I’m less than thrilled about his presence. Never would he consider that I’d like for him to die in a fire. Slowly.
“I...,” I say and trail off. I don’t know what to tell him. I certainly don’t want to tell him the truth, but denying that anything is going on would be my best bet. Letting Darren think I’m hooked up with Duke would be a convenient excuse to get out of having a drink with him. Because it’s never just one drink with Darren and it’s never easy to tell him no.
“I don’t want to step on any toes, or get mine broken, but I want to run something by you,” he says. There’s nothing he can run by me that I want to hear. I fold my arms over my chest, which, incidentally, shoves the tops of my exposed tits farther out of my tank top. Darren’s eyes dip to my chest before he lifts his eyes and gives me a flat stare.
I clamp my mouth shut before I say something I’ll regret.
“I’m kind of busy,” I lie, “but can I take a rain check?” I take a few steps back, unfold my arms from my chest, and dig around in my purse for my keys.
“It’s important,” he says. He reaches up and pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a deep breath. When he lowers his arm, he smiles apologetically. “What I came here to tell you is that I’ve had a lot of time to think about the way things ended between us. We can’t go back, but I want to make it right.” If I could find the person who told him where I work, I could choke the life out of them. Finding my keys I grab a hold of them and give Darren my full attention. I shake my head and clutch the keys with all my might. How dare he think there is any way he can make that shit right? Because he can’t. “I talked to my dad, and he agreed to review your dad’s case and see if he can help get some of the charges dropped, or at least the sentence reduced.”
My heart swells for just a minute before I remember who I’m talking to. Darren doesn’t do things for people without an end game. He’s as selfish as they come, and a total bastard to boot.
“The club’s taking care of it,” I say. Because they are, but there’s only so much their expensive-as-fuck attorney can do for Dad after everything he’s done on the club’s behalf since he’s been inside. I can’t believe there’s much Darren’s dad can do to help at this point.
“Are they? Wasn’t your dad’s attorney that guy who represented Ryan when he made the paper a few years ago?” Darren asks. Of course, if he’s asking this, then he already knows the answer. And he would bring Ryan up. It doesn’t matter that Darren was off fucking around with half of the cheerleading team when I hooked up with Ryan. Ryan took something Darren considered his, and I guess he isn’t letting that grudge go.
“Roger Sloan,” I say with a slight nod of my head.
“When is the last time you talked to Roger Sloan?” he asks. I really hate that he’s baited me into a conversation, but now I need to know where this is going.
“Never,” I admit. “The club’s always handled it.”