“Stop it.” I flicked him away, gritting my teeth against the sudden pain that shot up to my shoulder.
He just laughed and scooted closer, wrapping his arms around me.
Pain. Pain.
I ignored it, stiffening until he said, “Come on, Heather. Tell me what’s wrong. You know you want to.”
I tried to keep my stern face, but when he did stupid things like this, I melted. My damn hormones. They always thought he was adorable, and looking up at his face, I had to admit he was. The sun had highlighted his hair with golden streaks, and he’d gotten a few tattoos. He wasn’t wearing a shirt today, and I studied the new tattoo on the inside of his bicep. He joked that when he got built, the paw would get larger. It was just over the size of my hand right now.
He had more building to do.
“You never told me why you got this tat.”
He let out a sigh and wiggled his fingers against my cheek.
I knocked his hand away, feeling a burn as one of my cuts grazed against his arm. Shit.
“Hey. What—” His hands darted to my arm, yanking it out in front of him.
Yeah.
I looked at it too.
It wasn’t supposed to be there. I wasn’t supposed to be that girl.
But I was.
He ran his thumb lightly over a cut. “I thought you stopped.”
I didn’t respond. The words burned in my throat.
Channing cocked his head to the side. His eyes darted to where Brandon was sucking face with Melanie, then to me.
He sighed. “Yesterday?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to, and I didn’t think I could even if I had.
My mom had come back, then she’d left. Again.
Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of her leaving. The second time.
“Heather.” His tone was soft, luring me.
I moved so our eyes could meet. Our lips were an inch apart. One movement, one twitch, one lick, and we’d be kissing.
We hadn’t kissed.
We’d started holding hands. We hugged. We cuddled. Channing crawled into my room at night and wrapped his arms around me in bed. There’d been slight over-the-clothes grinding sessions a few times, but no kissing. Not yet.
I knew it was coming. He knew it was coming, and his eyes were dark now. They always turned that way when we touched, but he held back. I held back.
I think we were both scared of the next step. Once we crossed that threshold, it’d be different for us. We wouldn’t be the best friends we were now. We’d be more. We’d be official, though we’d been unofficial for a long time. Everyone knew: Channing and I were together.
“Channing,” I whispered back, feeling a tear fall.
I didn’t want to talk.
He cursed, then reached out and lifted me up until I was straddling him.
I moved my arms over his shoulders, sliding my fingers through his hair.
He searched my eyes, dipping to glance at my lips before looking back up. “What do you want to do here?”
I didn’t want to think, that’s what I wanted, and I was too goddamn young to be thinking like that. I said instead, “Forget.”
“Okay.”
He cupped the side of my face. “So let’s forget together.”
I swallowed.
I saw his intent on his face.
He moved forward, and I closed my eyes.
His lips touched mine.
They were cool, but soft, and a zing went through my blood.
It shouldn’t have been perfect.
But the reason we kissed wasn’t.
Maybe it was for that reason, maybe it was because I felt like I’d been waiting since third grade for this kiss, but whatever it was, I let my mother go.
I kissed him back.
25
Channing
Present day
“We either make this time work… Or we need to walk away…”
I might’ve joked about shitting when Heather said those words last night, but I swear, I almost did. Right then and there.
Heather Jax had balls of steel. If she said it, she meant it, and I’d been sweating the last six-pack I downed at her place ever since.
“There’s the guys.” Heather leaned forward and pointed at a group of cars lined up on the side of the road.
I slowed, stopping alongside Moose’s truck. He got out and came over as Heather rolled her window down.
If he was surprised to see her, he didn’t let it show. He raised his coffee in greeting. “Morning.”
If it was good or not was yet to be seen. I dipped my head. Heather had slept a little, maybe an hour, but not me. I’d been busy pissing myself since she’d uttered those words. But crew was crew. We had to work, so game face on.
“Morning,” I grunted back.
I could see Scratch with him back in the truck, holding a wrapped breakfast sandwich.
“You guys stop and get food?”
“Yeah. You eat?”
Heather shook her head, holding up her own coffee. “I made this right before we left; that was it.”
A car door shut behind us, and Congo appeared next to Moose. He waved a pack of chew in the air. “You want some?”
Heather shot her hand out. “God, no. Get that away from me.”
“She’s trying to quit smoking, dumbass.”
He cocked his head. “When did you start chewing, Heather?”
She groaned, sliding down in her seat.
I barked over her, “It’s a goddamn trigger—smoke, chew, booze, fucking, all of it. Put that shit away.”
The fact that Heather boozed it up, worked where there was smoking and drinking, and had sex on the reg wasn’t something either of them brought up. At this moment, Heather could react to seeing a piece of grass blow in the wind, and I’d clobber anyone who cooed that it was pretty. I’d rip the whole damn lawn up if I had to.
“Oh…” Congo was still frowning, but he put it away, shrugging. “Sorry, Heather.”
A light tap on my window, and I rolled it down.
“Hey.” Chad’s red hair whipped around so he looked like a Chia pet, and he tucked his hands up under his pits.
“You cold?”
“Nah. I’ve got the shakes. I drank too much when I was visiting family.” His grin was crooked. “You know us Catholics. We like our wine.”
“And everything else,” Congo piped up from the other side.
“Am I supposed to come over there too?” Scratch yelled, still inside Moose’s truck. “What’s the deal?”
Heather snorted.
I leaned forward. “Why are you here? This is crew shit.”
Scratch shrugged, holding up his sandwich. “Moose promised me food, and besides, anyway you split it, if it affects the bar, it’s my business too.”
He had a point.
“Besides, I’m your goddamn family.” He pointed with the sandwich. “And Heather’s here. She ain’t crew.”
All the guys straightened. Someone said under his breath, “Oh, damn.”
I opened my mouth to respond, and Moose opened his mouth. But before either of us could say anything, Heather leaned out of the window.
“When you’ve been fucking one of the members for years, you can have a say,” she hollered. “They might not listen, but I can have a say. Until then, keep eating your damn sandwich. Thank you.”
It was a big deal that Heather was here. The guys knew it, but Scratch—he hadn’t always been around. He’d only come back into the fold one or two years before we took over the bar.
Some days it felt like he was crew, but mornings like this reminded me that he’d grown up somewhere else.