Page 25 of Unhinged Obsession

"What do you say we stop for some ice cream on the way home?" I murmur, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. I see the surprise and then actual delight show on her face. She hasn’t had any sort of normalcy since last summer, and I want to make an effort to see that she does. "This won’t take long. Caiden isn’t much of a talker."

“I say, I’m in,” she tells me, still looking up at me as her fingers curl around mine a little tighter. “Is this your way of asking me on a first date, Elijah? Ice cream was always our thing.” She smirks, and I bend down to her height.

“Every single day I’ve ever been with you has been a date, in my mind… I just forgot to mention it,” I tell her, and I fucking love the way her face blooms with the prettiest blush. “Blair Winthrop, would you do me the honor of considering this our first official date?”

She doesn’t reply right away, but instead gives me all the confirmation I need. She brushes her lips against mine in a kiss so gentle I’m sure I don’t deserve it. “Of course. It’s a date.”

It’s only when a gruff voice bellows out my last name that I drag my attention back across the room. It looks like a fucking sea of cowboy hats, but I find exactly who I came here for.

The man, the myth, the eighteen million dollar bull rider. I think he fudged the numbers, but I’m not going to be the one to call him out on that.

He's sitting alone at the far end of the bar, one boot hooked around the stool beneath him, nursing a beer like he's got nowhere else to be. In truth, he probably doesn’t. This man has enough people running around doing side quests for him that he could probably sit here all day if he wanted to. Castlebrook Falls and all surrounding areas practically bend around the man. Half the people in here would probably throw themselves in front of a bullet for him, and he wouldn’t even have to ask.

My eyes drift past him toward the dance floor, and I have to bite back a sigh at who I see.

Of fucking course he would be here.

Hayden Lockwood is standing at the edge of the line dance floor with his arms folded across his chest like he's working security. Instead of, I don’t know, dancing with his girlfriend and making sure she has a good time.

Caiden is a scary dude if he doesn’t like you, but Hayden? The fucking stories I’ve heard about him can’t all be true. He’d be in prison, or dead, but you’d have to meet him to understand why I believe every single thing I’ve heard about him.

“Is that Madi Caldwell?” Blair asks me, pushing up on the balls of her feet to try and see what’s going on behind the Captain of the Castlebrook Kings. “I thought I saw Lilac too.”

Long, blonde and brown hair bounces, peeking out behind Hayden in perfect time with Any Man of Mine. Then I see Callum Grey’s massive frame towering behind as well. He’s patiently demonstrating the next set of steps and then goofily grinning as they try to mimic him. He’s Caiden’s cousin, and Hayden’s right-hand man. A psycho in his own right, but easy to get along with from what I’ve experienced.

Every now and then one of the girls misses a beat, and Callum starts over without so much as a complaint, swaying along to the music like he'd been born wearing cowboy boots instead of hockey skates.

A cowboy gets a little too close to the girls on his way toward the bar. And by a little too close, I mean he’s literal feet away and watching them intently.

Fuck. I don’t need to deal with a bar brawl before I can talk to Caiden. I just want to hear him out, get this Choosing Ceremony sorted out, and be on my way with my girl.

To my surprise, Hayden doesn't even say anything. He’s usually a screamer, a giant toddler throwing a temper tantrum, but he just grins at the poor fucker.

Ah, this is going to be less of a bar brawl and more of a “watch my girlfriend while I bury this body really quick” kind of thing.

Hayden’s mouth is stretched in a slow, almost friendly smile that somehow manages to make him look even more unhinged than usual.

Ah, there it is.

Hayden lifts the hem of his shirt enough to reveal the pistol tucked into the waistband of his jeans.

The cowboy's eyes widen, and he abruptly decides there's somewhere else he'd rather be. The poor bastard has no idea what he’s gotten himself into just because he was watching Hayden’s girlfriend wiggle to this annoying song. He might as well go outside and start digging his own grave, because there’s no way Hayden is going home without putting a bullet between his eyes.

Caiden has it under control because he whistles so loud it can be heard over the music, and Hayden’s eyes snap away from the cowboy to Caiden. I tug Blair behind me as we squeeze through the crowd. If something is going to break out, I want to make sure that she’s shielded behind me.

I understand being protective. Hell, if somebody looked at Blair the wrong way, I'd probably be planning where to hide the body before they even realized they'd made a mistake.

But Hayden?

Hayden is an absolute dipshit and would absolutely open fire in a crowded bar for simply looking at his girl’s ass.

“Do not shoot that gun in my fucking bar,” is all Caiden says to him.

Hayden pulls a face that looks a lot like a pout before his eyes settle on a chair at the table nearest the dance floor.

For fuck’s sake.

I already know where this is going before Hayden grabs the chair, with a grown man sitting in it, mind you, and dumps him on his ass before hurling it at the Cowboy’s head. The table of people near him has no reaction, which tells me he must be known around here, too. He turns, and with all the confidence of the dipshit he is, he gives Caiden a thumbs up. His girl stops dancing to wrap her hand around his bicep, and he lowers his tall frame to meet her much shorter one. I can’t tell what she’s saying to him, but from here it looks a whole lot like gentle parenting. She cups his cheek and gives him a quick kiss before grabbing Lilac’s arm and trying to follow Callum’s clunky movements.