Hell Fires (Age-Gap Romance)

“The three of them together is quite the sight. Maverick’s the oldest I think. You can tell by how they interact that they’re really tight.”

“Thank you, Jenna. I’m not sure why that was important to me. I don’t care about looks, I can only know people by their hearts anyway. But thanks for indulging me.”

“Anything for you, Sophie. Speak of the devil, here they come.”

“Who?” I asked her.

“The Connor brothers. All three of them just walked in the door.”

If there was one defense mechanism my life had taught me, it was resiliency. I knew how to keep cool under pressure, how to tough it out when life handed you a crap deal. Some people thought I was cold hearted, but I wouldn’t have survived if I’d given up every time I was knocked down.

I busied myself folding napkins and tried to ignore the striking shadow of three huge bikers bearing down on the employee meal table.

The energy shifted in the room as everyone turned their focus to the Connor brothers. They were received with a reverence that would make you think they were royalty. The brothers stopped and shook hands, greeted Tommy and Mandy, slapped the backs of other employees and surveyed the room.

I could tell when Maverick’s eyes landed on me.

Like in a power outage, when all the background noise goes silent. Maverick’s eyes zeroing in on me caused the rest of the world to fall away.

He walked over to me quietly.

“Sophie, when you’re finished eating, can I carry your records upstairs? I’d really like to speak with you if you’d let me.”

I wasn’t mad at him. Most people had the instinct to run from an overload of emotion. But having him ditch me like that was hard. I was scarred from feeling abandoned. I’d been so alone in my recent past and walking out on me seemed like the cruelest way to hurt me. It also made me wonder if I’d ever be able to trust him. If he took off when the going got tough, then I’d be navigating solo every time the seas turned rough.

“Suit yourself,” I said standing. He didn’t introduce me to his brothers, but it didn’t seem like the right time anyway. I could feel them trying not to stare, curious as to what the hell their brother saw in me. It was after six and I needed to run through my playlist.

I balled my napkin and threw it onto my plate, hitched up my huge backpack and tossed my dishes in the plastic bin by the waitress station.

When Maverick was in the room, it was like the barometric pressure had dropped, my sixth sense went into overdrive and I knew how he was feeling, like I could read his mood and it changed the whole room. But, if the way the dinner chatter and banter went on without pause was any clue, it was clear to me that I was the only one feeling Maverick’s temperamental changes.

“Tommy already had my equipment brought up. I’ve gotta get to work, but you’re welcome to do whatever you want, seeing as you’re the boss,” I told him. I heard one of his brothers pull in air through his teeth just like Maverick did when something was hard to hear.

I walked up the stairs to my booth not caring if they all thought I suffered from an acute case of attitude. I had a disability and if affected my life, no matter how much I liked Maverick, I absolutely could not afford to have someone walk all over me.

Chapter 9

MAVERICK

What I wanted was a drink. Old habits die hard and the urge to cut, the desire to fight and absolve myself in another man’s blood came at me immediately. I caved to the drink because I knew it would at least calm my flight response until I could get a grip and go fucking apologize. My brothers flanked me, shoring me up. We all ordered whiskey and stood at the bar. I talked business because the hustle ran in my blood. Conditioned like me, by our dysfunctional childhood, my brothers were immune to the half-naked strippers walking around—wanted no part of it. This, of course, made them all the more intriguing to the girls, but the more the women flaunted, the more the Connor brothers withdrew into themselves.

“I don’t think it’s as bad as you think. You didn’t ghost her, Mav. You have legitimate reasons for acting the way you did. Not even twenty-four hours have passed and you came back to atone for your sins,” Rafa told me.

I wished I could express to them what I felt under that full moon, but that was between me and only one other person in this world.

“She needs you, Mav. She’s defensive, but who the fuck wouldn’t be in her situation. She feels as strongly as you do, it’s written all over her face,” Malik told me.