Shy lifted his beer and took a drag.
He swallowed and found it didn’t help the burn.
Dog, unfortunately, kept fucking talking. “They’re gonna wait until she graduates to get married. She’s bein’ funny about it. Dude wants her to move in, she says after the wedding. Don’t know why she just don’t shack up with the guy. Try before you buy, see if that shit’ll work. But she’s not down with that so… whatever.”
Tabby being theirs, his brothers could talk about this shit all night.
But Shy had had enough.
He pushed his stool back, slid off it, and muttered, “Gotta go.”
“Where you goin’?” Bat asked.
He didn’t know. He didn’t care. Anywhere just as long as he got there on his bike.
“Shit to do,” he muttered and moved around the bar, eyes to his feet, mind centered on keeping his jaw relaxed, his hands unclenched.
He walked out the door, swung on his bike, and rolled out.
He didn’t hit Chaos again for three weeks.
* * *
Six months later…
Shy was moving across the forecourt toward the Compound in order to grab a shower and head out. His hands were filthy from grease. The car he’d been working on for the last three months was finally done.
Time to celebrate.
He moved into the Compound and felt the heaviness in the air immediately. Boys were moving out, faces alert, even alarmed, the vibe bad.
“What’s goin’ on?” he asked Roscoe, who was shifting, like all the brothers, toward the door.
“Car accident,” Roscoe answered, stopping and catching his eye. “Tab’s fiancé.”
The force of that information knocked Shy so hard it was a wonder he didn’t fall to a knee.
The wedding was three weeks away.
Jesus. Tabby.
“What?” he whispered.
Roscoe shook his head. “Just got the news. She’s at Denver Health. He’s, brother, this shit is fuckin’ crazy, but the guy was DOA. Didn’t even make it to the hospital. Gone. Tack says Tab’s lost it. We’re movin’ out, takin her back, Tack’s back, seein’ if we can do anything.” His head tipped to the side. “Comin’?”
DOA.
Didn’t even make it to the hospital.
Gone.
Tab’s lost it.
Lost it.
“Anyone watchin’ the kids?” he forced out.
“Sheila’s headin’ up there.”
“I’ll go help her out,” Shy offered, turning, digging his greasy hand into his jeans for his keys.
“Help out Sheila with the kids?” Roscoe asked his back.
Shy didn’t answer. It was jacked, fucking lame, but it was doing something. Something away from Tabby.
She wouldn’t want to see him now.
She never wanted to see him.
But he had to do something.
He wasn’t her family.
But she was his.
* * *
Three days later…
Shy sat in his dark living room in his apartment, the first time he’d been there for months.
He was thinking and he was remembering.
Remembering for the first time in a long time that day when the news came.
Remembering that day when his life, at age fucking twelve, shifted and went from good, no great, to absolute shit.
Remembering the day years later when he found Chaos and he thought, finally, fucking finally, his life would no longer be shit and he was right.
And thinking that, six hours ago, probably wearing black, probably looking lifeless, just like she’d looked yesterday when he saw her walking out of the office with Cherry, Cherry’s arm around her holding her close, her head bobbing like she was agreeing to what Cherry was saying when he knew just by looking at her she didn’t hear a thing, Tabby stood in a cemetery and laid her man into the ground.
Her man was twenty-seven years old.
Shy’s age.
Shy lifted the bottle of vodka to his lips and took a deep pull.
He didn’t drop it before he took another one.
Chapter One
“I Dreamed a Dream”
Three and a half months later…
His cell rang and Parker “Shy” Cage opened his eyes.
He was on his back in his bed in his room at the Chaos Motorcycle Club’s Compound. The lights were still on and he was buried under a small pile of women. One was tucked up against his side, her leg thrown over his thighs, her arm over his middle. The other was upside down, tucked to his other side, her knee in his stomach, her arm over his calves.
Both were naked.
“Shit,” he muttered, twisting with difficulty under his fence of limbs. He reached out to his phone.
He checked the display, his brows drew together at the “unknown caller” he saw on the screen as he touched his thumb to it to take the call.
“Yo,” he said into the phone.
“Shy?” a woman asked, she sounded weird, far away, quiet.
“You got me,” he answered.
“It’s Tabby.”
He shot to sitting in bed, limbs flying and they weren’t his.
“Listen, I’m sorry,” her voice caught like she was trying to stop crying or, maybe, hyperventilating, then she whispered, “So, so sorry but I’m in a jam. I think I might even be kinda… um, in trouble.”
“Where are you?” he barked into the phone, rolling over the woman at his side and finding his feet.
“I… I… well, I was with this old friend and we were. Damn, um…” she stammered as Shy balanced the phone between ear and shoulder and tugged on his jeans.
“Babe, where are you?” he repeated.
“In a bathroom,” she told him, as he tagged a tee off the floor and straightened, waiting for her to say more.
When she didn’t, gently, he prompted, “I kinda need to know where that bathroom is, sugar.”
“I, uh… this guy is… um, I didn’t know it, obviously, but I think he’s—” another hitch in her breath before she whispered so low he barely heard “—a bad dude.”
Fuck.
Shit.
Fuck.
He nabbed his boots off the floor and sat on the bed to yank them on with his socks, asking, “Do I need backup?”
“I don’t want anyone…” she paused. “Please, don’t tell anyone. Just… can you please just text me when you’re here? I’ll stay in the bathroom, put my phone on vibrate so no one will hear, and I’ll crawl out the window when you get here.”
“Tab, no one is gonna think shit. Just give me the lay of the land. Are you in danger?”
“I’ll crawl out the window.”
He gentled his voice further and stopped putting on his boots to give her his full attention.
“Tabby, baby, are you in danger?”
“I… well, I don’t know really. There’s a lot of drugs and I saw some, well, a lot of guns.”
Shit.
“Address, honey,” he urged, and she gave it to him.
Then she said, “Don’t tell anyone, please. Just text.”
“I’ll give you that if you keep me notified and often. Text me. Just an ‘I’m okay’ every minute or so. I don’t get one, I’ll know you’re not and I’m bringin’ in the boys.”
“I can do that,” she agreed.
“Right, hang tight, I’ll be there.”
“Uh… thanks, Shy.”
“Anytime, Tab. Yeah?”
He waited, and it felt like years before she whispered, “Yeah.”
He disconnected, pulled on his last boot, and stood, tugging on his tee as he turned to his bed. One of the women was up on an elbow and blinking at him. The other was still out.
As he found his knife in the nightstand and shoved the sheath into his belt, he ordered, “Get her ass up. Both of you need to get dressed and get gone.” He reached into the nightstand and grabbed his gun, shoving it into the back waistband of his jeans and pulli
ng his tee over it. “You got fifteen minutes to get out. You’re not gone by the time I get back, I will not be happy.”
“Sure thing, babe,” the awake one muttered. She lifted a hand to shove at the hip of her friend.
Jesus.
Slicing a glance through them he knew he was done. Some of the brothers, a lot older than him, enjoyed as much as they could get, however that came, and they didn’t limit it to two pieces of ass.
He’d had that ride and often.
It hit him right then it went nowhere.
He’d never, not once, walked up to a woman who looked lost without him and became found the second she saw him. Who leaned into him the minute he touched her. Who made him laugh so hard, his head jerked back with it. Whose mouth he could take and the world melted away for him just as he made that same shit happen for her.
And he would not get that if he kept this shit up.
He jogged through the Compound to his bike and rode with his cell in his hand.
She texted, I’m okay, and Shy took in a calming breath and turned his eyes back to the road.
She texted again. This time, I’m still okay, and, getting closer to her, Shy felt his jaw begin to relax.
A few minutes later she texted again. This time it was I’m still okay but this bathroom is seriously gross.
When Shy got that, after his eyes went back to the road, he was flat-out smiling.
She kept texting her ongoing condition of okay, with a running commentary of how much she disliked her current location, until he was outside the house. He turned off his bike and scanned. Lights on in a front room, another one beaming from a small window at the opposite side at the back. The bathroom.
He bent his head to the phone and texted, Outside, baby.
Seconds later he saw a bare foot coming out the small window and another one, then legs. He kicked down the stand, swung off his bike, and jogged through the dark up the side of the house.
He caught her legs and tugged her out the rest of the way, putting her on her feet.
She tipped her head back to him, her face pale in the dark.
“Thanks,” she said softly.
He, unfortunately, did not have all night to look in her shadowed but beautiful face. He had no idea what he was dealing with. He had to get them out of there.
He took her hand and muttered, “Let’s go.”
She nodded and jogged beside him, her hand in his, her shoes dangling from her other hand. He swung on his bike, she swung on behind him. A child born to the life, she wrapped her arms around him without hesitation.
He felt her tits pressed to his back and closed his eyes.
Then he opened them and asked, “Where you wanna go?”
“I need a drink,” she replied.
“Bar or Compound?” he offered, knowing what she’d pick. She never came to the Compound anymore.
“Compound,” she surprised him by answering.
Thank Christ he kicked those bitches out. He just hoped they followed orders.
He rode to the Compound, parked outside, and felt the loss when she pulled away and swung off. He lifted a hand to hold her steady as she bent to slide on her heels, then he took her hand and walked her into the Compound.
Luckily, it was deserted. Hopefully, his room was too. He didn’t need one of those bitches wandering out and fucking Tab’s night even worse.
“Grab a stool, babe. I’ll get you a drink,” he muttered, shifting her hand and arm out to lead her to the outside of the bar while he moved inside.
Tabby, he noted, took direction. She rounded the curve of the bar and took a stool.
Shy moved around the back of it and asked, “What’re you drinking?”
“What gets you drunk the fastest?” she asked back, and he stopped, turned, put his hands on the bar and locked eyes on her.
“What kind of trouble did I pull you out of?” he asked quietly.
“None, now that I’m out that window,” she answered quietly.
“You know those people?” he asked.
She shrugged and looked down at her hands on the bar. “An old friend. High school. Just her. The others…” She trailed off on another shrug.
Shy looked at her hands.
They were visibly shaking.
“Tequila,” he stated, and her eyes came to his.
“What?”
“Gets you drunk fast.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded.
He grabbed the bottle and put it in front of her.
She looked down at it then up at him, and her head tipped to the side when he didn’t move.
“Glasses?” she prompted.
He tagged the bottle, unscrewed the top, lifted it to his lips and took a pull. When he was done, he dropped his arm and extended it to her.
“You can’t get drunk fast, you’re fuckin’ with glasses,” he informed her.
The tip of her tongue came out to wet her upper lip and Jesus, he forgot how cute that was.
Luckily, she took his mind off her tongue when she took the bottle, stared at it a beat then put it to her lips and threw back a slug.
The bottle came down with Tabby spluttering and Shy reached for it.
Through a grin, he advised, “You may be drinking direct, sugar, but you still gotta drink smart.”
“Right,” she breathed out like her throat was on fire.
He put the bottle to his lips and took another drag before he put it to the bar.
Tabby wrapped her hand around it, lifted it, and sucked some back, but this time she did it smart and her hand with the bottle came down slowly, although she was still breathing kind of heavy.
When she recovered, he leaned into his forearms on the bar and asked softly, “You wanna talk?”
“No,” she answered sharply, her eyes narrowing, the sorrow shifting through them slicing through his gut. She lifted the bottle, took another drink before locking her gaze with his. “I don’t wanna talk. I don’t wanna share my feelings. I don’t wanna get it out. I wanna get drunk.”
She didn’t leave any lines to read through, she said it plain, so he gave her that out.
“Right, so we gonna do that, you sittin’ there sluggin’ it back and me standin’ here watchin’ you, or are we gonna do something? Like play pool.”
“I rock at pool,” she informed him.
“Babe, I’ll wipe the floor with you.”
“No way,” she scoffed.
“Totally,” he said through a grin.
“You’re so sure, darlin’, we’ll make it interesting,” she offered.
“I’m up for that,” he agreed. “I win, you make me cookies. You win, you pick.”
He barely finished speaking before she gave him a gift the likes he’d never had in his entire fucking life.
The pale moved out of her features as pink hit her cheeks, life shot into her eyes, making them vibrant, their startling color rocking him to his fucking core before she bested all that shit and burst out laughing.
He had no idea what he did, what he said, but whatever it was, he’d do it and say it over and over until he took his last breath just so he could watch her laugh.
He didn’t say a word when her laughter turned to chuckles and continued his silence, his eyes on her.
When she caught him looking at her, she explained, “My cooking, hit and miss. Sometimes, it’s brilliant. Sometimes, it’s…” she grinned “… not. Baking is the same. I just can’t seem to get the hang of it. I don’t even have that”—she lifted up her fingers to do air quotation marks—“signature dish that comes out great every time. I don’t know what it is about me. Dad and Rush, even Tyra, they rock in the kitchen. Me, no.” She leaned in. “Totally no. So I was laughing because anyone who knows me would not think cookies from me would be a good deal for a bet. Truth is, they could be awesome but they could also seriously suck.”
“How ’bout I take my chances?” he suggested.
She shrugged, still grinning. “Your funeral.
”
Her words made Shy tense, and the pink slid out of her cheeks, the life started seeping out of her eyes.
“Drink,” he ordered quickly.
“What?” she whispered, and he reached out and slid the tequila to her.
“Drink. Now. Suck it back, babe. Do it thinkin’ what you get if you win.”
She nodded, grabbed the bottle, took a slug, and dropped it to the bar with a crash, letting out a totally fucking cute “Ah” before she declared, “You change my oil.”
His brows shot up. “That’s it?”
“I need my oil changed and it costs, like, thirty dollars. I can buy a lot of stuff with thirty dollars. A lot of stuff I want. I don’t want oil. My car does but I don’t.”
“Tabby, sugar, your dad part-owns the most kick-ass garage this side of the Mississippi and most of the other side, and you’re paying for oil changes?”
Her eyes slid away and he knew why.
Fuck.
She was doing it to avoid him. Still.
Serious as shit, this had to stop.
So he was going to stop it.
“We play pool and we get drunk and we enjoy it, that’s our plan, so let’s get this shit out of the way,” he stated. Her eyes slid back to him and he said flat out, “I fucked up. It was huge. It was a long time ago but it marked you. You were right. I was a dick. I made assumptions, they were wrong and I acted on ’em and I shouldn’t have and that was more wrong. I wish you would have found the time to get in my face about it years ago so we could have had it out, but that’s done. When you did get in my face about it, I should have sorted my shit, found you, and apologized. I didn’t do that either. I’d like to know why you dialed my number tonight, but if you don’t wanna share that shit, that’s cool too. I’ll just say, babe, I’m glad you did. You need a safe place just to forget shit and escape, I’ll give it to you. Tonight. Tomorrow. Next week. Next month. That safe place is me, Tabby. But I don’t want that old shit haunting this. Ghosts haunt until you get rid of them. Let’s get rid of that fuckin’ ghost and move on so I can beat your ass at pool.”
As he spoke, he saw the tears pool in her eyes but he kept going, and when he stopped he didn’t move even though it nearly killed him. Not to touch her, even her hand. Not to give her something.