She instantly bristled, stabbing a finger at my chest. “Last time I checked I was a grown-ass woman with boobs way bigger than your balls, so I’ll do what I damn well please . . . Handsome.”
She stormed out, and I followed, pressing through the onlookers to get to the door. “Shy! Goddammit!”
Already in her car, she gunned the engine.
I stepped outside.
I was surprised she didn’t run me over as she tore out of the parking lot.
My reception when I reentered Retribution went as expected. Comments from everybody along the lines of how badly I’d royally fucked up with Shy.
I was just about to leave so I could kick my own ass in private when Brodie and Ashe—both of them seriously disheveled—entered the bar.
Wiping the gloating smile off his face when he caught sight of me, Brodie scowled. “Who wants to tell me what the fuck happened this time?”
And every hand in the place, save mine, flew into the air.
I suffered through a few minutes of off-color comments—Tail taking point—before Ashe heaved a giant sigh. “Seriously. Men-o-pause much?”
Seriously? After her earlier breakdown?
That was rich.
Chapter Ten
Come to Jesus, Boomer Steele-style
I’D TOLD SHY TO stay away, and she had. That didn’t make me any happier.
Two weeks. Two freakin’ weeks, and everyone was in love. Bo and Doc Ronnie finally got it on. Couldn’t get enough of each other.
Ditto Kinkaid and Sadie.
Boomer and Rayce.
Hunter and JB.
Brodie and Ashe.
All the friggin’ happy couples.
I had none of the happy, just all the eating away at my guts worries.
At least working out with Bo and Brodie meant I had something to punch instead of beating myself up inside.
After just one kiss I couldn’t shake the damn woman. I was downright unbearable. I made sure everyone at Chrome and Steele was as miserable as me during the day, too, then I brought my new best buddy—my bad mood—with me to Retribution every night. And I was sick and goddamn tired of jerking off pretending I wasn’t thinking about Shy night after long lonely night.
I was doing the usual, sitting at the bar, slouched forward, a half empty bottle of beer in hand, when Boomer took the stool next to me. He pulled the stool closer, making sure that bitch of a thing screeched across the floor with such a fingernails-on-chalkboard scream I couldn’t possibly ignore him.
“Not in the mood.” I cut him off before he could even start.
Probably not a cool move to tell the president of the club to piss off before he even said howdy, but I’d apparently left my manners on the bar floor the last time I’d sent Shy out the front door.
His hand fell to my shoulder, and he gave a low, dry chuckle. “That what you told Shiloh?”
I shrugged his heavy hand off and continued my very intense inspection of floating bubbles in my bottle of beer.
“Know what I always liked about you, Handsome? You never said much, but you always had a point when you did.” He lifted two fingers to Kinkaid and waited patiently for the delivery of two whiskeys. “And you never stirred up trouble, always had the time to take care of other folks.”
My lips wrinkled into a sneer. “And that means I don’t need a come to Jesus talk now.”
“You’re a solid man.”
“I’m an asshole.”
“Well, can’t argue about that given how you treated Shiloh last time she was here. But you also did a lot for her in the short time since she first turned up. Fixed her car. Helped her move. And I heard about the kiss too.” He took a swig of the mellow whiskey. “I know what it’s like to close yourself off, my man.”
“Do we need to take this to the private table?” I hooked my thumb over my shoulder. “Is that where this is going?” I said in my most disrespectful tone.
“Boy. I can take you outside and beat the shit out of you if that’s the only thing that’ll get through that thick fucking skull of yours.” His hand clapped onto my shoulder again, that time with a helluva lot more force. “You ain’t that big yet.”
Get into a fistfight with Boomer Steele? Where I was a solidly muscled one hundred and ninety pounds, he was a brick shithouse of at least two hundred-thirty.
Then again, maybe he could just make me go lights-out a lot earlier tonight, with a lot fewer recriminations weighing on my mind.
I took my first slow sip of whiskey. “Pass on the brawl, thanks.”
“Good. I don’t get off hitting people I like.” Leaning an elbow on the bar, he glanced at me. “So listen. Brodie’s worried about you. Tail is worried about you. Tucker’s worried about you. Now, me? I don’t give a good shit about you.”
I shook my head, a small smile forming.
He grinned. “Either you talk to Shiloh on your own recognizance—”
“Hey, you been brushing up on your word-of-the-day calendar, haven’t you?” Per usual, Brodie popped up like a freakin’ goateed gopher, slapping his hand on his brother’s back. “Buying you another one for next year.”