Spec (Hell's Handlers MC Florida Chapter 2)

Curly’s jaw ticked, and fire flashed in his gaze. Scott would play it as dirty as he had to, to keep Olivia safe. If reminding the prez how he’d nearly lost his own woman to a psycho got the job done, then that’s where he’d place his bet.

Instead of outrage from his brothers, them pumping him up and preparing to wage war against a motherfucker, someone snickered.

Scott whipped his head to the right to find Tracker doing a shit job of covering his mouth and his amusement. “Something funny, brother?” The ass was about five seconds away from one hell of a nosebleed.

Another snorted laugh came from across the room. Lock, of all people, stared down at the table with his damn shoulders shaking.

Scott’s blood boiled. He hopped to his feet, slamming his palms on the table as another of his supposed brothers began laughing. “What the fuck is so goddamn funny?”

Tracker gave up trying to hide his glee. The mohawked dickhead pressed a hand to his stomach and let out a belly laugh that was apparently more contagious than the clap because the rest of the club laughed along with him.

Were they serious? Scott glanced from traitor to traitor, unable to come up with a reason to find a shred of humor. Yet even Curly’s lips slanted up in a half-smirk.

Tracker lifted a hand. “Sorry, bro!” He took a freaking minute to catch his breath before continuing. “It’s just… who are you?”

Scott blinked. “What?”

“Seriously,” Lock piped in. “Two weeks ago, you’d have burst in here throwing shit and flipping tables, then gone AWOL, and we’d be burying a body right about now. Now here you are, falling in love and shit while bringing your problems to the table like a goddamn mature adult.” He shrugged then snorted. “It’s funny.”

“What he said.” Tracker pointed to Lock while still laughing.

“Seriously,” Ty added with a choked chuckle. “You think you’ll get hitched before Curly?” He glanced around the table. “Should we put money on it?”

“Jesus Christ.” Scott sank back into the chair and let his face fall into his hands. Here he was coming to his supposed family of badass bikers with a very real problem, and all they wanted to do was gossip about his woman like a bunch of high schoolers in the locker room. “We’re not getting fucking married,” he said through his fingers. “We’re just fucking around.”

The second the words left his lips, the betrayal in them hit him in the back of the head like a car rear-ending him. Liv told him she loved him, and what did he do? Not only did he fail to return the words, but he just told the most important people in his life, aside from his sister, that she was nothing but a hot piece of ass.

Fuck.

“Mm-hmm,” Ty said. “Just screwing around. Right. Keep telling yourself that, brother,” Ty said, rolling his eyes.

“Seriously,” Tracker added. “I’ve fucked a lot of women. Like a lot of women. And not once did one of those lucky ladies have me trying to act like a better man or some shit.” He gave a dramatic shudder. “That is some rom-com level commitment.”

Nothing about this damn meeting made sense. “Tracker, what the hell are you talking about?”

“He’s right,” Ty said, with a pensive purse to his lips. He scratched his three-day-old graying beard. “Since you guys stopped sniping at each other and gave in to the sexual tension, you’re like a new man. You’re a team player, you’re calmer, you control your temper… kinda, and you’re fucking communicating. Either it’s Livy’s influence or aliens kidnaped you.” He smirked. “Any dreams about being probed that might not have actually been a dream?”

Scott flipped Ty off.

“Yeah, man,” Tracker said. “It’s freaking us out, you being all in love and shit.”

“I’m not—” The rest of that lie lodged in his throat like a hunk of steak.

“What’s that?” Tracker cupped a hand around his ear. “Didn’t hear you.”

Scott closed his eyes and pictured Liv’s face. It was that or rip Tracker’s smug face off his body.

Enough with this shit. He had a legitimate problem, and if his brothers couldn’t take it seriously, he had no problem taking his ass to Chicago alone. The only reason he’d come to the club in the first place was out of respect for Curly and the club. And because it’s how Liv would want him to handle it. She’d worry herself sick if he ran off on a solo mission. Hell, before he met her, he’d have…

Well, shit. That was his brothers’ point, wasn’t it? Pre-Liv, he’d have run off half-cocked and gotten himself in a world of shit for killing her ex-fiancé in a blind rage.

He opened his eyes to find Tracker smirking at him with a raised eyebrow as if to say, “Catching on yet, asshole?”