Cyrus (The Henchmen MC 9)

Wasp, well, she bought her RV with it, and used more to help her start up her, ah, business.

Me, well, I never really needed mine.

Bills were low before The Henchmen.

Then income was high after we joined.

There was no reason.

"A hundred-grand?" he asked, watching my profile. "What'd you buy her? A fucking Porsche?"

"An addition for the library."

"Say again?"

"She's a librarian. The other librarians teamed up to kill her idea for a teen center she had her heart set on," I explained, remembering the way that she teared up telling me about it, looking out the window at The Creamery to try to hide the fact that it still affected her so much. "I fucked up with her," I went on, not giving him the whole story. "It was a, um, grand gesture."

Reeve turned to me, a rare smirk playing at his lips. "And it still wasn't enough? What'd you do, fuck her sister?"

"Haven't fucked anyone since I met her."

"Including her?" he asked, brows drawn low.

I couldn't even blame him. My reputation with women certainly preceded me.

"Including her. I was just planning on being her friend, man."

"And it didn't work out that way."

"You'd have to meet her to get it."

"Cy, your reaction to her says it all. Been a slut your whole life, but this girl, you don't put your hands on, even with all those days and nights you spent with her? Says she's something unique. What I can't figure out is why you're home forty minutes after you left to go see her."

Kinda what I wanted to know too.

"Dunno. She brushed off my offer of coffee, but agreed to meet me for ice cream tomorrow."

I could feel Reeve's gaze on my profile, knowing because I knew him, that his mind was working.

"So, let me see if I got the stories between you and Wasp right. She's a nice girl, shy librarian with her nose always in a book. You meet her, strike up a friendship. It doesn't seem like she's a girl with a lot of friends, so you are kind of opening up a world to her that she hasn't really seen much of outside reading it in a book."

"Ah... yeah?"

Where the hell was he going with this?

"One night, you start reading her smutty books to her, and she gives you the 'eyes.' You almost start something, but get interrupted."

"Again, yeah."

"God, you're fucking dense sometimes, bro," he said, shaking his head as he tilted it up, smiling a little at the sky. "She's not upset because her friend disappeared for a while. She's been upset because she had feelings for you, probably deep ones, and then you started to give her something more than friendship, snatched it away, and fucking disappeared on her. She's hurt. She's bitter. And she doesn't trust you anymore. So now you're back out of nowhere, big grand gesture in hand, offering to take her out again, and she doesn't want to get hurt again. So she's keeping you at a distance. But she doesn't want you to know that, so she's keeping up the charade, just on her own terms, and after a little introspection."

See, the thing about Reeve was, no one knew dick about him in the club. Reign, Cash, Wolf, and Repo had the inside track because they demanded to know our dirty laundry when we signed up, but everyone else just saw a somewhat sullen, distant, cold, and maybe even boring guy.

What they didn't know, though, was he had good reason to be all those things. For fuck's sake, he had good reason to be sitting in a corner rocking and humming soothingly to himself from now until he died of old age.

He'd endured more than any one should have to.

So he wasn't the man he once was.

That being said, he had his moments. He had his triggers that set off the chatty side in him, that made him dole out advice, which made him show a small spark of the fire that used to keep him warm.

But, perhaps because he was so staid, so quiet, he did manage to see a lot, to pick up on undercurrents that the rest of us were too busy to notice.

And he gave good advice.

You know, when I bothered to want to ask for it.

"You know, maybe you should rethink your career choice, man," I said, trying to lighten the mood slightly, the air between us feeling oppressive. "I mean, I think TV pseudo-psychology could use a man like you. Move over Dr. Phil, we got a younger, better-looking guy to take your place."

Reeve rolled his eyes, but his lips were still tipped up for a moment. But then he looked over at me, face almost hauntingly serious.

"Give her tonight because she needs it, but then you need to make sure she knows how you feel, that you want this to go somewhere. Don't fuck it up because of your ego or uncertainty. Life is short but vicious. Love is one of the few fucking things that make it worthwhile to endure."