It had all been tequila and downing beers and smoking weed and fucking each other blind and good times and crazy parties and piles of money.
And then . . .
She would never forget, not ever, the look on that man’s face when she’d told him she was carrying Rush.
God.
Joy.
Pure joy.
And when she’d pushed their son out?
Fuck.
Really, she’d lost him then. The minute he held Rush in his arms.
But then came Tabitha.
More joy.
Even Tabitha coming right after Tack’s sister ODed. ODed under his watch.
But a little girl?
Tack was lost.
Lost to Naomi forever.
She remembered.
She remembered calling his name when he first held his baby girl, his fingers wrapped around her little baby throat like it was him making her pulse beat, not Naomi who gave that kid life.
He didn’t even look at her.
It was like she’d disappeared.
He was lost.
He had his son and he had his baby girl, and so he had it all.
Where was she in that mix?
She’d wanted what she should get.
His cock, his attention (all of it) and his money.
Really, kids grew up. Moved out.
It was her that should be his life.
Her.
But it wasn’t her. It was his kids. His little girl. Cleaning up the Club. Taking over.
He just couldn’t rest easy and let things lie.
It had been good. Fucking great.
Why did he have to fuck with a good thing?
She’d gone back to Tack’s name after her second husband, that deadbeat loser, bit it. She did it so Tack would hear about it and get pissed, or that stupid cunt he married would hear about it and get livid.
If he even knew, he didn’t care. Or if she knew, she didn’t care either. Naomi hadn’t heard word one about it and she spread that news wide.
They probably didn’t think about her at all, Tack so busy raising his second family and fucking his bitch and making tons of dough.
Now he wanted her to come down to Denver so he could say to Rush, to fucking Tabby, that he was looking after their mother?
Fuck him.
She could look after herself.
“Yeah, fuck yeah,” she spat. “I can look after my fuckin’ self.”
So she couldn’t move that shitty sofa in her storage unit alone.
She’d find some guy’s cock to suck, give it to him good, and before he spurted the last of his cum, she’d tell him he was helping her move and he should bring a friend.
First, she had to find an apartment.
She’d take the day off and find a place. She didn’t care where she lived, anywhere was better than here.
“I can take care of my own fuckin’ self,” she whispered, staring at her phone but seeing her ex-husband.
Remembering.
Remembering that joy in his face when she told him she was carrying Rush.
And trying not to remember that it lasted a split second before she was in his arms, he was twirling her, goddamn twirling her, his face shoved in her neck, holding her so tight, making her feel precious, making her feel like she was about to hand him the whole world.
“Thank you, baby,” he’d whispered in that rough voice of his. “Fuck, fuck, thank you, baby. We got it all now, Naomi. We got everything we’ll ever need.”
He had everything. Everything he’d ever need.
Rush worshipped his father, and Naomi hadn’t heard from her boy in years.
Tabby was the light of his life, didn’t lose that even when Tack had picked up that nasty skank.
Didn’t lose it.
Had all the love in the world for his girl.
All the love in the world for his wife.
Both those women, sitting pretty, basking in the glow of all the love Kane “Tack” Allen could give.
And that was a lot.
We got it all now, Naomi. We got everything we’ll ever need.
Naomi turned her head to look out the window, a stabbing pain hitting her in the gullet.
She ignored it.
She was good at it.
She’d been doing it for years.
This Was Not Free
Rebel
That same day, 12:17 . . .
“Well, uh . . . this is awkward,” I said.
The beautiful, redheaded woman with the cute blouse and tight skirt and classy, but oh so fuck-me heels—dressed like she worked at a fashion magazine, not a garage—stopped glaring out the window in her office and turned her eyes to me.
Oh boy.
I was going to kill Rush.
He said I was going to go to Ride to hang while he had his meeting with his brothers.
He did not say he was going to take me to Ride, dump me in his beloved, adored stepmother’s office, and go off to have his meeting with his brothers.
Well, looking at her, one could say the Allen men had a type. And that might skeeve me out, if she wasn’t a more sophisticated, more gorgeous, older version of me (with green eyes).
If I looked like that in twenty years, I’d count my lucky stars.
Hell, if I looked like that in ten, I’d be golden.
“Yes,” she said softly, looking me up and down, and I really wished I’d had the time at least to do something with my hair, maybe suss out a decent outfit instead of standing there in a Saliva baby-doll tee, ripped jeans and cowboy boots, or, say . . . have a freaking shower. “Yes. This is very awkward.”
Yup.
I was gonna kill Rush.
Rush
“Where’s Punk?”
When he realized Hop was talking to him about three seconds after he walked through one of the double doors to their meeting room at the Compound, he asked, “Punk?”
“Pretty Punk Princess with her lace dress and clod-hoppin’ motorcycle boots,” Hop explained.
Fucking shit.
“Get her to tell you where she got that dress,” Shy put in. “Gotta get one for Tabby.”
He was going to be sick.
“Fuck off,” he said to his brother, and brother-in-law, pulling a chair out from the table with the ratty Chaos flag (the first one ever stitched) set under Plexiglas in the middle.
He planted his ass in the chair.
Shy grinned at him.
“Gotta say, outside the Rock Chicks, never seen a woman shovel attitude at Eddie Chavez. Impressive,” Dog grunted.
“Too bad I missed that,” Big Petey muttered.
“Multi-tasker, givin’ a good cuddle to her hippie-chick, freaked-out, old-lady landlady and throwin’ ’tude at Chavez, all this wearin’ underwear as outerwear. Full package,” Brick said.
“Why you late for the meet, Rush?” Arlo jumped in to give him shit.
“We can stop talking about Rebel now,” Rush growled.
“I wanna talk about her some more.” Even High was getting in on the act. “I mean, I know you got yourself some speeding tickets, brother. Physically incapable of going slow. But movin’ a girl in on a first date?”
“Maybe you need a reminder of that dress,” Joker said to High. “Someone should have taken a picture.”
“When’s your wife due?” Rush asked Joke. “Like, pretty much any day now?”
“I got my girl,” Joker replied. “She’s givin’ me a family. My baby loves bein’ pregnant. She’d keep our kid in her belly for a full year, she could get away with that. But she still practically asked me to draw a picture of that dress when I told her about it.”
Rush shot him a kill look.
He turned that look to his father who was sitting at the head of the table. “Don’t we got important shit to talk about?”
“Sure we do,” Tack agreed amicably. “Though, life’s way too short not to fully explore giving shit. And we might as well wait until the sandwiches
get here.”
Rush sat back in his chair, setting his jaw.
His father smiled at him.
Fuck.
Rebel
“I can go, you know, hang out in the store,” I offered Tyra Allen.
Her green eyes strayed back to the window.
“This is not good,” she said to the window. “This is indication of years of hurt. Maybe I need to start taking Valium now.”
I decided not to respond.
“Tab, well, with Tab, I screwed up.” She looked back at me. “She’d lost Jason in that car accident right before their wedding. So young, too young to sustain a loss like that. Got hooked up with Shy. Good guy. Good brother. He still had to build a new pitch, he’d played the field so much.”
Before she found her husband, Rush’s sister had lost a fiancé in a car accident?
Man, these people had been through a variety of circles of hell.
And they were still together, tight, loving.
All my mom and dad and brother had to do was accept Diesel for who he was.
And we fell apart.
“I shared my feelings about that, how I thought she might not be making the right decision about Shy after her loss. She let me know. Boy, did she let me know,” Tyra went on.
Hmm . . .
I bet that hadn’t gone so good.
Her gaze moved back to the window.
“Miz Allen,” I murmured.
“This,” she whispered. “I don’t know how, but this is worse.”
I shut up.
“He’s moved you in,” she stated to the window.
“Temporarily, until the danger has passed,” I said swiftly.
Her eyes cut to me and I braced.
“You know, Benito Valenzuela targets vulnerable girls. Gets them hooked on drugs. Takes payment in pussy. Whores them out or does it a different way, filming it.”
“I know,” I told her.
“He did that to your friend?” she asked.
I nodded but said, “She was already gone on drugs when his people got their hooks in her.”
“And you thought it was a good idea to go work for him?”
I shut up again.
She moved from where she’d been standing in front of a couch that was in front of her window to behind her desk.
But she remained standing.
“I have three boys,” she declared.
Three?
I thought Rush said he only had two little brothers.
Oh God.
Their circles of hell.
Did some horrible thing happen to one of her kids, making him not there anymore so Rush wouldn’t talk about him, but a mother would always claim all her kids, even if one was gone?
“And I thought it would be easier,” she continued. “You worry about the girls. You worry about what man they’ll choose. Will he play around on her? Will he take out the garbage? Will he pitch in with the kids? I didn’t think it’d be so much worse, learning I needed to come to terms with letting go of one of my boys.”
Oh.
When she said she had three boys, she included Rush.
That was sweet.
“We’ve only had one date,” I told her.
“You’re living with him.”
“Temporarily.”
“You read the Rock Chick books?”
I really needed to read those books.
Hell, Hank and Eddie were heroes in those books. They each had their own one.
Though, I had been kind of busy risking my life to find a murderer.
I shook my head. “No.”
“Temporary is a non-existent word to certain kinds of men. The kind who find what they want at the same time find themselves in a position they have to protect it.”
Why did that make me super freaking happy?
And super freaking freaked.
“You’re the one,” she declared.
More super freaking happy and just . . .
Well.
Super freaking happy.
“Maybe not,” I replied.
God.
Why was I assuring her I might not be the one?
“Chaos has safe houses. If you weren’t the one, Rush would move you into one of those, and if he was still interested, come visit.”
“Oh,” I mumbled.
“How do you let go of your boy?” she asked abruptly.
“You don’t,” I answered instantly.
She stared at me.
“I mean, he adores you. He talks about you all the time. And his dad. His sister. His little brothers. He loves you guys.”
She said nothing.
Then again, she knew all that so there was nothing to say.
“And I’m out of that thing. The one with Valenzuela,” I assured her. “I was acting crazy. Thinking I was Superwoman. I just missed my friend and I was sad and mad and I’m tight with her parents, so I got it in my head I could do something good to wipe out the bad. But I get it now, that was the wrong thing to do. I just forgot to tell my AD.”
I remembered Rush’s question earlier and explained.
“My assistant director. So I had to call her and Benito had called me because I didn’t show on the set this morning, and I’m usually the first person there. And Rush and me thought it would be good to call him and see how he reacted considering we thought he might be behind the, uh . . . events of yesterday evening. He wasn’t, by the way. Or at least we think he wasn’t. So . . . well, we slept in late and with all the calls, and, um . . . such, I didn’t get the chance to take a shower and find a killer outfit.”
She again did not speak.
So I kept babbling.
“Though I gotta say, he said I’d be hanging while he had his meeting. He didn’t share I’d be hanging with you. I totally would have swiped on mascara and at least found a decent blouse if I knew I was going to meet his beloved Tyra.”
She had no reaction to my wording, but I still lifted a hand and went on quickly.
“And I don’t call you ‘his beloved Tyra’ to be snarky or blow sunshine or anything. You just are. I mean, beloved. By him. Rush. And now I met his dad after the, uh . . . not-so-fun events of last night, and you, in my Saliva shirt. They’re a rad band. But, you know, he could have warned me so I’d put on a flipping blouse.”
I decided to shut up.
She kept standing there in her awesome outfit, staring at me.
And for some reason, this made me keep blathering.
“I’m not tight with my folks. Not because I’m difficult or anything. I mean, I’ve blocked them on my phone so I won’t get any daughter-of-the-year awards.”
Oh God!
I needed to quit talking.
I kept talking.
“Just that . . . family stuff,” I decided to leave it at that. “And my brother, well, he’s unconventional, so his commitment ceremony is coming up and when it’s done . . . but it’s already kind of the way, they’ve all been together for years, but anyway . . . when it’s done, he’ll have two sets of in-laws and I kinda was looking forward to that. For me. Though just one set. When I found my guy. NotthatRushisthatguy.”
I said that last all together, I was talking so fast.
Then I kept doing it, just not as fast.
“I mean, I’m not sure he’s for real. He’s, like, the coolest guy I’ve ever met. He’s sweet. And he listens. And he gets me. And he’s super smart. And he . . . he . . .”
I could only think about how good he was in bed.
I cut my losses on that and continued freaking jabbering.
“But you know that. So, it’d be cool if he was that guy. But anyway, I was looking forward to that. Having in-laws. You know, having a family that’s cool rather than one that’s like mine, and that’s a long story. If you wanna hear it one day, I’ll share. It’s not a secret. But just to say, I’m glad Diesel has all of that. Diesel’s my brother, by the way. It’s really beautiful, what he has. But I’m jealous of him a bit too.”
>
I shut up again.
She didn’t say anything.
Again.
So my mouth kept running.
“So you know, if I’m that person for him, he won’t lose anybody. But I’d get some good folks. And that’d be sweet.”
I petered out and stood there, thanking God I had enough time to spray on some deodorant and do something about my sex hair.
Finally, she spoke.
“Your brother is going to have two sets of in-laws?”
“He’s, uh . . . bi,” I said quietly. “There’s three of them. Maddox and Molly and Diesel. They’re very much in love.” I shrugged, watching her closely, and finished, “It’s gorgeous really.”
“Does he look like you? Your brother?”
“No, he’s kinda big. Like,” I made a hulking gesture with my arms in front of me (Lord help me), “tall and huge and has light-brown hair. We kinda have the same eyes, though.”
“Where did you get your hair?”
“I don’t know. No one in my family has red hair. My dad’s a bigoted racist, so I’m kinda hoping I have another dad somewhere who voted for Obama, marched on Washington for gay marriage and has red hair.”
She burst out laughing and the tight ball that had formed in my stomach loosened.
Then she sat her ass in her tight skirt in her desk chair, asking, “Did Rush feed you?”
I shook my head. “We had a kinda busy morning, the hour of it we’d been awake before we got here.”
“Chill’s getting lunch. Did Rush order sandwiches for you?”
I shook my head.
“Right,” she muttered, reaching for her phone. “Go,” she waved across the office. “Get a donut. Pour yourself some coffee.”
Coffee.
Thank God.
“I’ll get Chill to get you a sandwich,” she declared. “What do you want?”
My stomach had not quite recovered from meeting the gorgeous, beloved, class-act stepmom and being shoved, with no warning, right on the spot (it seemed to be going okay now, I was still gonna kill Rush).
“A Reuben?” I asked like she knew what I liked.
“Excellent choice,” she said to me then in her phone that was now to her ear. “Chill. Hey there. Can you add two Reubens to the order? And a roast beef and swiss on sourdough, grilled. Three more bags of chips, a selection. Don’t let them forget the pickles. And three of their big cookies. Chocolate chip. Snickerdoodle. And oatmeal. Got that, darlin’?” She waited, nodded, and finished, “Good. Thanks, Chill.”
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