Angel's Halo (Angel's Halo MC 1)

I drop my head into my hands, my fingers clasping my bald head. Fuck it’s times like this that I want hair so I can pull it out by the fistful. “Willa … She’s my past. I can’t talk about Willa …” I suck in a sharp breath, trying to calm my racing heart at the thought of Willa. Sweet, beautiful, too good for a bastard like me.

I’m not good enough for her. Bash fucking isn’t either!

“How did you find out?” I demand.

Raven grimaces. “Tanner was running his mouth. Said Bash went to get his daughter and Tasha’s sister. Colt had no choice but to tell me.” She brushes a few strands of her long blonde hair back from her face. “They’ve known about him living with her for weeks now, and no one bothered to tell me. It just brought home how much more important the club is than I am to them. My feelings don’t seem to matter to anyone, if they ever have. I needed to clear my head … Are you sure you don’t care if I stay a few days?”

“Stay as long as you want, babe. I’ll take care of you.” She’s the only one to ever give a shit about me. Raven’s special. She may act all tough, but when she cares about someone, she loves you deep.

I’m a lucky bastard to have her care about me.

Raven

I spend three days at Spider’s before my brothers start showing up.

They try to get me to come home. I, of course, tell them to fuck off and leave me the hell alone. I’m not ready to go home yet. I can’t trust them any more than I could Bash. A girl needs to know that her family will put her feelings first, and I doubt they’ll ever do that with me.

Bash has been blowing up my phone, but I blocked his number. There’s nothing he has to say that I want to hear. His chance to tell me the truth had come and gone and I’m over it. Over him. Over the shortly lived fantasy of starting a family with him and his daughter.

Okay, so maybe I’m completely over it. Maybe I’ve spent a few hours crying while Spider was at work so he wouldn’t feel sorry for me.

Felicity drops by to see me

before her classes the day before, and I find out that Hawk talked Gracie into staying at our house for the foreseeable future. I’m okay with that. It makes not going home easier because I know that Gracie will take care of my brothers. I also know Bash returned with his kid and female from wherever the hell it was that he’d been shacked up for the last year.

My friend informs me that Willa is definitely as beautiful as everyone always said she was. Also, that the lovely Willa seems really sweet. Oh, and sweet, lovely Willa is sleeping in my bed!

What. The. Hell!

Willa doesn’t care for Tanner and Matt, so she and little Lexa are sharing my room. Looks like I don’t have a place to sleep even if I do decide to go home.

“I brought pizza!” Spider announces as he walks through the door of his two-room apartment. He drops a box of pizza at the foot of my bed along with a six pack of cold beer.

I ignore the food but quickly grab a beer. I need it after dealing with both Colt and Raider just a few hours before.

Seeing that I’m making alcohol my dinner for the fourth day in a row, Spider snatches the beer from my hand. “Eat, Raven. Don’t make me put you over my knee.”

I grin up at him. “That might be fun.”

“Oh, babe. I know it would be.” He winks and downs the rest of my beer in one gulp. “Now eat.”

Laughing for what feels like the first time in a lifetime, I reach for the pizza box and snatch a slice that’s covered in meat of every variety, along with green olives. “Woot, woot!” I can stomach anything on a pizza as long as it has green olives on it. “Thanks, Spider.”

He shrugs, already flopped down on his stomach with the remote to the flat screen in his hand. “Anything for you, babe.”

I’m half way through my first slice when I noticed the bruise on his jaw. “Who had the balls to punch you?” I demand, picking an olive off the pizza and munching on it.

“Only a handful of men got those kind of balls, babe. This one came from the boss man himself.” He touches two fingers to the bruise rapidly changing color. “He met me at the door as I was closing up the shop. Two punches and then he was back on his damn bike.”

The pizza suddenly tastes like sawdust, and I toss the half-finished slice back into the box. “Sorry, Spider.”

“This isn’t your fault, babe. If anything, this is about Willa. Not you.”

Spider and Bash are now fighting over Willa. That must be the case because Bash hasn’t bothered to show up here. Sure, that doesn’t hurt. I’m old news after all. Bash has his new female and his kid with him now. He doesn’t have to bother to win me back with Willa around.

Nope, doesn’t hurt one little bit.

“Okay.” I pick the pizza back up and force myself to finish eating it. “Tomorrow is Thursday. It gets pretty busy at the bar. I guess I better head into work and help out my brothers.”