McCoy (Golden Glades Henchmen MC 3)

"Oh, wow." Set up for life? I couldn't imagine that. Hell, I couldn't imagine not scouring the penny-savers for coveted—and rare—nail polish coupons before I went out to pick up some new colors. "Why does everyone live at the clubhouse then? If you're all stable financially, I mean."

"Logistics. It makes sense that we stay close for as long as we can. We're still a relatively new chapter."

"Chapter?"

"A chapter is like an offshoot of the main club. Kind of like how there is an original Starbucks, but also a million others."

"Biker clubs are like franchises?" I asked, amused at the idea.

"Sort of, but not really. There is the mother chapter, up in New Jersey. And we, down here in Golden Glades, are what is called a sister chapter. So while the Navesink Bank club has been around for decades, we are new."

"Is it just the two chapters?"

"For now. Another one is in the works. And if that goes well, another after that."

"Pretty soon there will be Henchmen on every street corner," I said, shaking my head. "Your world is kind of crazy."

"It can be, yeah," McCoy agreed.

"And dangerous," I added.

"Well, before you, it had been a couple years since our last gunshot wound," he teased.

"Does it scare you? Knowing that you could get shot at any point? Like, I don't have that worry. I mean, maybe I should. Living here and all. But no one is actively trying to kill me most of the time. That's got to be stressful."

"I've been doing less than legal jobs since I was a teenager," McCoy explained. "Not quite to this level, but definitely illegal shit. I think it is just like anything else. You get used to it. The first couple times you drive a car, you're really aware of how dangerous it is, how you could wind up dead at any moment, sometimes through no fault of your own. But then you drive for a while, and it stops being at the forefront of your mind all the time. It's like that, I guess."

"I think maybe you're just braver than I am," I said, not sure I could ever live with the uncertainty of having someone potentially murder me.

"I think you've proved that you're pretty fucking brave too, Shy."

"For my sister, I can be a lot of things I'm normally not."

"That close, huh?"

"Inseparable," I confirmed. "Our mom died when Belle was in her senior year of high school. We'd been close before then, but after that, she'd needed to move in with me. And we've gotten closer than ever. Do you have any siblings? I mean, you know, biological ones, not your biker brothers."

"No. It's just me." There was a sort of finality in his tone, one that made me feel like he wasn't inviting any more questions about his upbringing.

"It's good you have your biker brothers then," I declared, pulling the blanket up under my neck, feeling the warmth start to make my eyes heavy.

"You can sleep, babe. I'm gonna hang here."

"You don't have—"

"I'm going to hang here," he cut me off. "First, because you need sleep. So there needs to be someone around to keep an eye for Belle. Second, I just want to make sure there is no more contact from your new friends," he said. "So you can sleep. And I will hang. And we don't have to argue about it."

"I wasn't going to argue about it," I said, rolling my eyes. "I was just stating that if you had somewhere else you needed to be, you don't need to feel guilty about leaving."

"Starting to sound a bit like an argument."

"Only because you seem to have your heart set on one," I shot back, getting those dancing eyes from him again. "But, yeah, of course you are free to stay."

"Hate to break it to you, but I would've stayed even if you didn't invite me."

"Rude," I said through a big yawn.

"Sleep, babe," he said, flicking the blanket over my exposed feet.

"Bossy too," I concluded as I shimmied down the couch a bit to get my head on the throw pillows.

McCoy shot me a bemused look as he pulled out his phone to start texting, I assumed, his club.

"Less talking. More sleeping," he demanded.

A part of me was really enjoying the talking.

The other part, though, had been through a week of hell.

And for the first time in a long time, I could sleep the calm, dreamless sleep of a woman who was safe and whose loved ones were safe.

Well, as fate would have it, though, that wouldn't turn out entirely true.

But I didn't know that yet.

So I slept, wrapped up in my blanket and the comfort of knowing McCoy was there, even if having a strange man in my apartment while my sister and I were both unconscious should have been the furthest thing from comforting in the world.