Page 25 of Link (Dragon Riders MC 1)
Until I pulled into my driveway.
“Link?” I asked. I watched him stand from my porch before he walked to my car. “Link. What are you doing here?”
He opened my door for me as I cut the engine on my car.
“I was hoping to catch you tonight,” he said.
I shook my head. “Is everything okay?”
He offered me his hand. “You hungry?”
“What?”
“Are you hungry? I brought food for us to cook.”
I took his hand as he nodded to the porch. When I saw the grocery bags sitting at my front door, my stomach growled. I hadn’t eaten all day. I’d been so preoccupied with other things that it didn’t even occur to me to stop and eat.
“Wait, where’s your bike?” I asked.
He led me to the porch. “I parked it around back. Can’t be too careful right now.”
“They might see your bike from the woods.”
“Men like Skeleton don’t patrol anywhere they can’t take their bikes. Trust me, it’s hidden just fine back there.”
I wish Hope would’ve known that.
“So, how are things?” he asked.
I helped him get the groceries into my kitchen before I locked the entire house down. With Link’s eyes following me everywhere I went.
“Well, my sister’s in some dingy cellar near the site of some burned down house in the middle of nowhere and I’m here. So, I’m sure that tells you exactly how things are.”
He nodded. “She got too paranoid staying here?”
“She said the one thing the Jags taught her is to never stay in one spot for too long.”
“Well, it’s a smart move. Stay on her toes to keep them on theirs.”
I shook my head. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
He pulled out the chicken. “Did she agree to speak with me?”
I nodded. “Yep. You and Ash. But no one else. I didn't prepare her for anyone else.”
“I’m assuming she’ll want to do it at this cellar you’re talking about?”
“I honestly don’t know anything beyond what I just told you. I’m still trying to process everything that happened this afternoon.”
“Want to talk about it?”
I paused. “I don’t think so. At least, not until I can make sense of it all.”
“All right. Well, how was work?”
I slowly looked over at him. “What?”
He shrugged. “We won’t talk about your sister. So, how was work?”
My eye twitched. “I had to leave early because of my sister and the panicked episode she had just before lunch.”
“So, not good, then.”
I snickered. “No. Not particularly.”
“Where do you keep your pans?”
I pointed. “Down there. Is this the time where I ask you how work went for you?”
He grunted. “You can, if you want. That’s usually what people first talk about at the end of their days.”
“All right. I’ll bite. How was work for you today?”
He set a pan on my stove. “Hectic as hell. The bars are bringing in scores of money, even after putting in all of the orders I had to put in today. But I can’t seem to find more people to come in and bartend full-time. The bartenders I have now are about to quit on me because they can’t handle the workload.”
“That sounds… oddly normal.”
He grinned. “Hey. I’m not always getting into shit with the guys.”
“Not always, huh?”
He winked at me. “But beyond that, it was a pretty normal day.”
“Apart from me storming some meeting this morning.”
“Yes, apart from you interrupting a formal meeting with my crew.”
I watched as he searched around for the things he needed. Oil. Salt. Pepper. Cooking alongside him was oddly domestic, and it made me wonder if he’d ever thought of having a life like this. A life where he worked a nine to five, then came home and had dinner with his family.
“This suits you, you know,” I said.
He passed me the tomatoes. “Can you chop those up? I need them diced for the alfredo sauce.”
I reached for a knife. “Have you ever thought about it?”
He turned the chicken. “About what?”
“Having a life like this?”
“You mean, a house with a backyard and a regular job?”
“Yep.”
“What makes you think I don’t already have that?”
“You mean, other than the crew that keeps you a shade grayer than the law I uphold with my job?”
He snickered. “Yep. Other than that.”
I diced the tomato. “Nothing, actually.”
“Do you always make assumptions like this in your line of work? Or is this something special with me?”
I giggled. “I didn’t mean to make a bad assumption. I was just trying to make conversation.”
“Well, on that same train of thought, have you ever thought about giving up your entire life to put on a leather jacket and hit the open road on a motorcycle?”
I grinned. “What makes you think I don’t already do that?”
He chuckled. “Call it a hunch.”
I nudged him playfully and he bumped me with his hip. We bounced around from topic to topic, not stopping once. Not even to eat. We talked through our mouthfuls of food. He told me stories that almost made me choke, I laughed so hard. For the smallest moment in time, things in my life felt normal again.
