Dream Keeper (Dream Team 4)

“She’s still stonewalling you,” Axl guessed.

“Said it before, Axe. She’s got a kid. I get it. If you’re a mom,” like Pepper was a mom, he didn’t add, not like my mom was a mom, “you protect your kid.”

“She’ll get there,” Axl declared.

Auggie was beginning to doubt it.

“Seriously, man, she’ll get there,” Axl pressed.

Aug rolled his head on his shoulders and looked back to the dance floor, but not to Pepper and Juno, just the general wave and hum of happy people expressing that happiness physically.

Then he said, “If she doesn’t, she doesn’t.”

“She looks at you when you’re not looking at her, Aug, and when she does, she has the same expression on her face you just did.”

That got Axl Auggie’s full attention.

“No shit?” he asked.

Axl shook his head. “Would I shit you about that?”

No, he would not.

“You haven’t noticed it?” Axl asked.

He hadn’t.

Aug couldn’t stop it. His eyes shot right to Pepper.

And damn.

When they did, he caught her quickly looking away.

His gaze dropped to Juno.

She didn’t look away.

She was staring right at him, big grin, and when she got his attention, she waved.

He returned her smile and waved back.

The song changed to “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” and suddenly Hattie was in her man’s space.

“Babe, not gonna—” Axl started, right before she yanked him out of his chair.

“You too!” She pointed at Auggie as she dragged Axl to the dance floor.

She kept her eyes on him while waving at him to hurry it up even as she shoved her man where she wanted him to be.

That being among the dancers forming a big circle, and when Auggie noticed Pepper bending forward and pressing her hands between her knees, her mouth wide open with laughter, he got off his ass and joined the party.

When he did, he saw, in the middle of the circle, Smithie was cutting loose. And probably unsurprisingly, considering the man ran a club, he could bust a move.

Dorian joined his uncle in the circle, snapping his fingers and moving practically nothing but those and his shoulders. Even so, Ian ratcheted up the cool factor of this mess immeasurably. He was just that guy.

They faded out when Jagger and his woman, Archie, took Jag’s little brother, Wilder, in, and Wilder did what the kid often did. He went wild.

But Archie’s moves took cool to a place where it was hot.

Jagger’s brother, Dutch, was dragged in by Dutch’s girl, Georgie, and they crashed that particular party.

Bikers and their babes cutting a rug.

Only at a Dream Team wedding.

As the song carried on, it went like that with Lots’s brother-in-law, Eddie Chavez, standing on a chair at the edge of the circle filming it on his phone, which was good.

Mo and Lottie were undoubtedly down with whatever they were doing right then.

But they wouldn’t want to miss this.

It ended as it should.

Hattie heading out for a solo.

She’d lost the four-inch heels, and partly because she was classically trained, partly because she was Hattie, she pulled off something that was hip-hop, disco and classical ballet that had everyone hooting, shouting, catcalling and clapping, it was just that damned awesome.

But Aug stopped watching Hattie in order to watch Axl doing it.

And…

Auggie also wanted that.

Pride.

And lots of love.

Aug felt something which made him swing his head the other way to see Pepper glancing away again.

When he caught that, it wasn’t the first time he did it that day.

It wasn’t the first time he did it genuinely that day.

But it was the best one he’d felt that day.

He smiled.

* * *

Pepper

“She’s got a talent with it,” Auggie teased, his black eyes lit with a playful light as he gave guff to Ryn.

“I gotta admit, she does,” Boone agreed on a mutter.

“Uh, becoming a gazillionaire flipper doesn’t work if you buy a fabulous house that you maybe change a chandelier in,” Ryn remarked. “The house needs to be a mess. A disaster. It wouldn’t be fun if it wasn’t a challenge. So yeah, I have a talent with finding a challenge or why would I do it at all?”

“We could have called Guinness with the amount of rat droppings at this current flip,” Auggie put in. “And that was before Hound nearly fell through the floor in the bathroom after they pulled up the linoleum.”

“Yeah, that sitch with Hound wasn’t awesome,” Ryn mumbled.

I stifled a giggle.

“Is that your goal, to become a gazillionaire flipper?” Now it was Boone who was teasing.

“No, love of my life,” Ryn retorted, and at hearing those words uttered by his woman, Boone didn’t look as roguish anymore. He looked something else and that something else was dreamy. “My goal is not only to become a gazillionaire flipper, but also to have my own show on some DIY network.”

With that last bit, Boone was no longer giving his woman loved-up eyes.

He was giving her WTF eyes.