“Yo,” he responds as I enter the garage.
“You’re helping the prospects today,” I tell him, turning to walk away.
“The prospects?” he asks, an edge to his voice.
“You got a problem with your orders?”
I stop and face him, inside begging for him to say something—just one little thing so I can smash his fucking face in.
“They’re grown ass men, but hey if you want me to order them and tell them how to spread gravel on the parking lot, I can. You’re the boss. Seems like a damn waste of time to me,” Gunner says, arms folded.
“No. You don’t order them. You will work with two prospects and spread the gravel. I’m taking the others with me.”
Gunner’s eyes narrow and I don’t blink. Say something motherfucker, just give me an excuse.
“Fine.”
“Fine,” I growl, pissed he didn’t give me a reason to ram my fist into his face. He starts walking away, whistling.
“When you’re done with that you can make sure the security cameras on lot seven are clean. Scorpion said the picture was blurry.”
Gunner stops and he looks at me. We both know that the only way to get to the cameras on lot seven is to walk—a long walk at least six miles one way and on a steep incline. The bastard actually laughs.
“If you think this is funny, I can find more work for you to do,” I warn him.
“I’m just wondering something,” he says with a shrug.
“What’s that?”
“If I get all this just for telling your girlfriend the room down the hall was empty, what am I going to get when you find out she asked me to take her into town tomorrow?”
“You’re not taking her anywhere,” I growl.
“She asked, it’d be rude to turn her down. Besides she needed to go into town to pick up a few things. You might not have noticed, but she didn’t exactly have a lot of things with her when Dragon picked her up. She’s been borrowing shit off of Dani and Torrent since she got here.”
Guilt hits me. I guess I hadn’t really thought about it. I was just focused on getting back to her and claiming her… Fuck.
“Rory can’t leave, it’s too dangerous. There’s a reason we’re on lockdown,” I tell him.
“I told her that, but she was adamant.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
“Now, there’s a novel idea,” he says—the fucking smart-ass.
“Maybe I’d talk to her more if you’d leave her alone.”
“I help guard her, Diesel. You asked me to do that.”
“That doesn’t mean you get chatty with her. She’s not your concern. She’s mine.”
“I don’t think she knows that.”
“She will,” I promise him and I stomp off.
“Am I still on gravel duty?”
“Yeah, and if my mind doesn’t change you will be for the next year.”
“That’s a lot of gravel, not sure our parking lot can handle more than what we’ve got to spread now,” he yells. I don’t turn around. I’m going to find Rory and put an end to this crap.
“I wasn’t going to order more. I was just going to have you shovel it back off the drive and then spread it again,” I growl and I slam the door to the club on the fucker’s laughter.
If Rory gives me any shit, I just might kill that man.35DieselMy anger lasts me until I get to my old room, I open it and find Rory still in bed. I’m about to wake her up, but instead I stop and stare down at the beautiful woman who I want back in my life. Her dark auburn hair strewn across the pillow, her pale skin relaxed in sleep, long lashes brushing against the rise of her cheekbone. She’s breathtaking, there’s no other way to put it, but that’s not what makes my fucking heart stop beating. Ryan is curled into her, his head resting against her chest. Rory is holding him tight and my boy…
Fuck, even in his sleep, my boy is smiling.
My boy rarely smiled before Rory came into our lives. Even with everything he has been through… he’s smiling now in his sleep. How is that possible? How does Rory give him good dreams after the nightmare that he has endured?
“Noah?” she whispers and that burn starts anew. Noah. My eyes close and I drink it in deep, so fucking deep it feels like my heart begins beating for the first time since I woke up in the hospital.
She’s still half asleep, her voice soft, her face tender… she looks like she does in my dreams. Dreams that have been haunting me from the moment I woke up in that damn hospital bed.
Without thinking or questioning myself I walk to her side of the bed, I bend down, cupping her neck in my hand and let my thumb press into her cheek, capturing her and not letting her pull away.