True to her word, she had ice-cold beer as well as eats ready for us four hungry, sweaty, kind of grimy guys.
Shy passed out the first round of beers, and I saw Tail frowning at a chair that looked too fucking tiny to hold his weight.
Stepping through the sitting room, Shy opened a sliding door, which led to a private deck. “There’s more beer out here in the cooler.”
Talk about a call to the cavemen.
We almost tackled one another to get to the deck.
I stopped on the threshold, after kicking Cole in the ass and sending him into a near face-plant, to usher Shy outside.
“Smooth, Handsome.” Brodie lifted his beer in my direction. “Real smooth.”
The heat of the day had released the scent of Shy’s potted flowers into the air. Something that smelled green and fresh surrounded us on the cozy terrace with epic views of the river and bay. Sailboats on the water, Patriot’s Point across the way, the Ravenel Bridge arching high across everything.
Shy took a seat, and I followed suit beside her.
She’d had overhead fans installed—the big bamboo ones. And as we sat on lounges in the shade with the whomp-whomp of slightly cooler air fanning us, I paid more attention to Shy than I should have.
Her cheeks wore a light splash of pink, and she idly swung a foot in the pretty sandal. Her bare shoulders gleamed, her smile gleamed brighter as she listened to the constant one-liners zipping from dude to dude.
The late afternoon with good food and totally shit-talking company became some kind of housewarming party. Shy only sipped from a beer, ate a small plateful of food. She’d shown us the two bathrooms and told us to help ourselves if we wanted to clean up.
Probably because we smelled rank.
“Ahhhh.” Brodie stepped outside later from a quick rinse-off, slaking his wet hair with both hands. “A deck and a beer cooler. Righteous set-up you got here.” He dug another ice-frosted brew from the Yeti. “Consider yourself an honorary member of Retribution, Miss Shiloh.”
The sun was about to set, sending long feathery trails of violet and pink and orange across the Cooper River. And when Shy’s lips tipped up in a smile, she was more stunning than the sunset.
Too monumentally aware of her all of a sudden, I excused myself from the crew. Navigating through the interior, I found myself in her private bathroom. I shut the door. Locked it.
With my fingers stabbed down onto the counter, I glared at myself in the mirror.
Suddenly Shiloh was part of the MC family while I still had nothing to do with mine for reasons beyond my control.
I couldn’t risk that shame or pain again.
I took a leak then turned on the sink to scoop up some much needed hot water. I splashed my face and hair, shucked off my shirt, soaped my chest and pits and what I could reach of my back.
I toweled off then hung the damp cloth on the bar after neatly folding it. Idly taking a drink from my beer, I swiped a palm across the fogged-over mirror. It popped open on contact, revealing a hidden medicine cabinet from which myriad orange prescription bottles rattled into the sink below.
Pain killers, several antidepressants, an anticonvulsant. The drug names I’d read about in those fancy college psych classes danced before my eyes as I picked up each bottle.
This shit was the real, heavy medicinal deal. Whatever was wrong with Shy that she had so many prescriptions, it became immediately clear she wasn’t just a self-medicating junkie.
Something was way the fuck weird about all of this.
Returning the last pill bottle to the shelf, I shut the door, its magnetic snick locking everything inside like Shy had, apparently.
And me, too. Many, many years before.
The balcony doors were open when I returned to the front room. I heard the assholes out there talking about me. That was fine. As long as their smack-talk didn’t revolve around Shy I was all good.
“Handsome is as handsome does,” Brodie quipped.
“What does that even mean?” Tail glugged more beer.
Cole leaned his elbows on his knees as he sat forward. “Not a freakin’ clue.”
Glass shattered behind me, and I spun around at the sound to see Shy leaning over the sink in the kitchen.
I hustled to her like my ass was on fire. A glass had splintered all over the sink, and Shy stood there, shaking like a leaf, gripping the edge of the counter until her knuckles turned bone white.
“You okay?” I pulled her away from the counter, drawing her up against me. “Did you hurt yourself?”
Chapter Seven
Handsome Is Not As Handsome Does
SHY LOOKED TIRED. PALE. Wobbly.
I picked her up in my arms and carried her to the sofa.
With her in my lap, I frowned down at her. “Seriously. Are you okay, Shy?”
“Just wiped out, that’s all.”
She covered her legs in the long dress, curling toward me like a kitten kneading a sleeping place.
Her trembling stopped and she released a long sigh.