Page 82 of Knot Without My Permission
That’s why we’re projecting the meet up to be toward the end of the month. It’ll give him a few more weeks to heal his wounds without Ransom yelling at him to sit the fuck down. Lore’s hand has got to be feeling a bit twitchy, but now, there’s nothing he can fucking do about it.
“Where is he?” I ask, not hearing his voice.
“He’s in the basement, smoking,” Storm says, rolling his eyes.
Lore tries not to smoke where Marie will be able to smell it. She gives him hell for it.
“Fantastic,” I sigh, walking to the door and yanking it open.
More fucking stairs.
“What do people even do with their basements?” I muse. “Right now, we’ve been using it to hold our renovation shit.”
“I was looking at that actually,” he says. “We could turn this into an in-home gym so we don’t have to leave the house. We don’t really need a theater when we have that comfortable as fuck couch in the living room. We can also put in a safe room, and a room that we can turn into a play room in the future. Once we have rugrats, the nest’s openness could be an issue. We’ll need to install a door that locks and arrange for childcare during that time.”
“Damn, you really have been thinking about this. No, this is good,” I admit. “The basement is huge. There is room for all three things. A safe room, a gym, a playroom, and maybe a secret closet for a gun safe that can only be opened by a thumbprint.”
“I like that. Okay, that’s what we’ll do then. Not all of this needs to be right away, but the gun closet is a great idea before we bring babies into the world. Right now, we have weapons fucking velcroed under the tables. That’s not going to be possible once we have little people toddling around.”
“Do we have any leads on enemies we may have?” Lore asks, smoking in the dark out an open window. Even though there are a few windows that peek out to the street level, lighting is low down here.
“Not a peep yet,” I admit. “Toad is still taunting Devon, but he doesn’t know all his old cronies are dead. The club is keeping that under wraps.”
“Toad is still banned from the clubhouse,” Ransom adds, drawing my attention in his direction.
Due to the bond, I knew he was there, but it’s as if he just appeared otherwise. It’s difficult not to flinch even with what I know.
And they call Lore the ghost. That’s amusing.
“I doubt that’ll last as long as we’d like,” Storm grunts.
“What’s on your mind?” Lore asks.
“Your resurrection,” I say before realizing what that sounds like. “I mean?—”
“I know what you meant,” Lore snorts. “I wasn’t dead for three days, only a couple of minutes. No need to be dramatic.”
Growling fills the basement, and I realize it’s not just me, but also Ransom and Storm.
“Bad joke,” Lore apologizes. “Do you want to announce sooner?”
Lore’s wearing a long sleeved black shirt with his jeans today, but I can tell he’s still moving stiffly.
“No,” I say quickly, almost too much so. “It’s something else. I think we should have a smaller meeting before we tell the entire club.”
“This way there are already supporters before we announce it,” Storm adds.
“It could get ugly because of how sick Marie was,” Ransom explains.
“I still kick my own ass every day for that,” Lore mutters. “What about having Back Alley Pussy, Burner, and Arsenal over?”
My lips twitch at Nick’s road name, but his choices are ones I’d suggest as well. Nick’s also good at getting the club to see things his way, for better or worse.
“He insisted on introducing himself as Nick,” I say, smirking.
“Well, he’s right. Marie can’t fucking call him by his road name,” Lore replies. “He’s got a good head on his shoulders. I might not get shot at by the three of them when we tell them.”
“The club misses you,” I admit. “I’m a very poor substitute, no matter what they tell me.”
