Cyrus (The Henchmen MC 9)

I had gone out.

That was the plan, right?

I didn't say that I had to talk to anyone.

I just needed to show my face, let the chips fall where they may.

They fell.

And I was done for the night.

And week.

And month.

And, heck, maybe even the whole year.

"Thank God you're here," a deep, smooth, very serious-sounding voice said at my side, making me jump, and almost spill my half-full coffee down my hand. The blueberry and white chocolate were alright, if a bit too sweet, which was making it take extra long to get through it.

My head whipped to the side to find none other than the guy who had been on stage standing beside me.

And now that I got a good look at him, yeah, I maybe should have let myself discreetly stare at him while he was otherwise engaged.

He was worth staring at.

Total eye-candy with his longish blond hair, his full blond beard, his light blue eyes that one might actually call the color of ocean glass seeing as they had the slightest hints of turquoise and seafoam green in them as well. He was tall. And I was tall, so that meant he was definitely around six-two, towering over me. I would say what his clothes looked like, except that my eyes couldn't seem to move any lower than his face.

Yes, he was that good-looking.

The kind of good-looking where you didn't want to look away in case you missed a second of it.

"What?" I heard myself kind of whisper hiss at him, my brows drawn together, wondering if maybe he was confusing me for someone else.

"Thank God you're here," he repeated, lips tipping up suddenly, his brilliant eyes dancing. "I don't think that wall could hold itself up without you."

Caught off-guard, a strange, choked laugh escaped me as a smile pulled at my lips.

That was a good line; I had to give him that.

And there were things that flashed into my head to respond with.

For example - Oh, you know, I'm like Atlas. Except instead of the world, I carry coffeeshop walls on my back lest they fall, and we have a hoard of caffeine-deprived zombies walking the streets.

But did I say any of the dozen or so clever, or at the very least coherent things that crossed my mind?

Nope.

Instead, I made some humiliating choking-on-my-own-spit sound accompanied by something like "Ah."

It was a really refined moment, for sure.

Luckily - or unluckily given my sudden inability to make my tongue and voice box work together in harmony - he was unbothered by my response, smiling more, and holding out his hand.

"I'm Cyrus."

Well, this part at least I knew how to maneuver. Introductions and goodbyes were easy. It was all that pesky unnecessary stuff in between that I sucked at.

My hand reached out to be taken in his, finding his skin warm and calloused, something that was oddly appealing, feeling those hardened patches against my much softer palm. His fingers curled in slightly, giving me a small shake.

"Reese, I'm," I supplied, idiotically. Remember what I said about being good at introductions? I apparently spoke too soon about that. "I'm Reese," I corrected, shaking my head, wondering why this couldn't be the precise moment that some alien spaceship came to Earth looking for human women to take up, and be stored in their pods? Was that too much to ask? Sure, maybe I'd be used as a sex slave to some blue alien dude, but, hey, I was pretty sure that'd be more enjoyable than doing the small-talk thing with some random hot guy.

"This is the part where I'm supposed to pull out some cheesy 'come here often' line. But A) that's cheesy. And B) you seemed to know Jazz and Gala, so it's a moot point. How about instead, I kick my buddy Sugar there out of his chair," he suggested, "and we can sit and talk."

His arm was raised, indicating a spot behind him, and my eyes followed to find... oh no.

The dark-haired, grey-eyed biker.

Fiddling with this man's guitar.

My eyes shot back to Cyrus, looking down past his lovely face for the first time to see, yep, black jeans, a white tee, and a Henchmen cut. I didn't even have to see the back to know it said Henchmen on it.

Okay then.

Great.

Wonderful.

I was chatting with an outlaw biker who - if local legend was to be believed, and it was - ran guns. Meaning, he sold illegal guns. For a living. Like you see on TV shows. Or, in my case, read about in books.

How does one extract themselves from such a sticky situation?

See, normally I didn't get into one like this.

Because, well, I had two big brothers. And those big brothers each used to run the local Third Street gang. Which meant that everyone around who was anybody in the criminal underbelly that was Navesink Bank, knew that my sister and I were off-limits. To date, to flirt with, to even talk to, unless the situation called for a friendly hello or an offer of assistance in a bad situation. I once had Reign, Mr. Tall Dark and Dangerous, the president of The Henchmen MC, pull over in the pouring rain to help me change my tire.