Page 31 of Riding Hard

“Fun?” I ask. “I’ve been accused of being a lot of things, but never fun.”

Alex snorts, and when I look over to him, he opens his mouth, then snaps his lips closed before he shakes his head once. Elodie clears her throat, leaning forward. My attention shifts to her and I arch a brow.

“Fun, Juliette. Plus, I think that you might like it here.”

Admitting it out loud shouldn’t be scary, but it is. Terrifying, actually. What if they don’t feel the same way about me that I do them? What if they don’t think that I’m amazing the way I think they are?

“I love it here,” I whisper, and the words do scare me, but not in a bad way. It’s more excitement than actual fear.

“I bet you do,” Alex grumbles.

Elodie lets out a sigh. “You’re not going to harass her. She’ll tell us if she wants to,” she snaps.

Alex snorts. “She doesn’t have to tell me shit,” Alex announces. “I already know who she did. I just want to know if it was good.”

“You do not have to respond to that,” Elodie states, then she turns to Alex. “I cannot believe you just said that.”

I shift in my seat, unsure of what to say or how to say it. Because Alex saw the way Slade looked at me, the way he watched me across the room. Anyone and everyone saw that. There was no hiding it. So now I need to figure out what exactly to say in response to that.

Picking up the blueberry muffin, I lift it to my lips and take another bite. I chew but don’t even taste the pastry. I can’t. All I can do is think about my future, about Slade, and about these two people whom I want to be my friends so badly I can taste it.

“Does this mean I can stay on?” I ask.

“I would love for you to,” Elodie says. “And Alex would, too.”

Alex leans forward. “My wanting you to stay comes with terms and conditions,” he says.

“It does?” I ask, lifting my brown sugar drink to my lips.

Wrapping my lips around the straw, I wonder if this is going to be good, but when the sugar hits my tongue, it’s like it has a direct line to my veins. Wow. That’s probably more sugar than I need in a full day, but it feels very worth it.

“Yeah,” Alex says, his lips twitching into a mischievous smile. I already know what he’s going to say, but I make him say it anyway. “I want to know, was it as good as that look Loot gave you from across the clubhouse promised?”

No.

It wasn’t.

I lean forward and decide if I don’t tell them, Alex for sure will annoy it out of me. I can already tell that’s just his personality. I don’t get the feeling that he’s going to do anything nefarious with the information. I just think he wants to know anything and everything about everyone.

He’s what my grandmother would call a Nosy Nelly. I get it. I’ve got a lot of secrets, and while I might not be great about hiding the fact that I do have them, I’m pretty good at hiding what they are, mainly because I’m embarrassed as shit about them and how stupid they make me seem.

“It was better than he could have ever promised. Better than I could have ever dreamed to imagine. The best I’ve ever had.”

Silence.

And then… they smile.

“Wow,” they say simultaneously.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SEVEN

LOOT

The paperwork in front of me is constant. Numbers are always black and white. They always tell the truth. There are no lies, no ways around things. They are always what they are. Yes, you can hide things in them, but even those things that are hidden can be found if you look hard enough.

Today, I have to get all the money ready to distribute to the men for their monthly allotments. The insurance collections are behind. We also have two more contracts that need to be signed and the fires scheduled. We’re all behind.