Why the fuck now?

I didn’t answer her, and she demanded again, “Why?”

The anger in her tone fired me up. “You weren’t the only one disappointed we ended things three years ago. Did you ever stop to think about that?” I threw my words at her, instantly regretting the harshness of them and wishing like fuck I could scrub them away and start again.

“No, because you were the one who ended it!”

And there was the passion that had been missing before. I fucking loved her passion so even though she was mad at me now, I was on cloud-fucking-nine.

She still loves me.

I couldn’t hide it, I grinned. And that pissed her off even more. Story of my fucking life.

“What the fuck, Kick?” she snapped. We were still in each other’s faces and that fact didn’t elude me. She hadn’t moved away from me.

We can still make this work.

“I didn’t end it, baby. You ended it. Did you forget that?” I said softly.

Confusion flashed across her face and she frowned. I knew her so well it was like I could see her brain flicking through the memories. “I remember we fought and you said you didn’t want me in your world.”

“Yeah, and then you said you were done and we were done. You ended it.”

“No! You did. You didn’t want me!”

Fuck, I’d missed this. Evie arguing with me turned me way the fuck on. Any other woman yelling at me like this would piss me right off, but not Evie. “I didn’t want to bring you into my world. You knew that.”

“Jesus, I was already in your world. I fucking grew up in your world.”

I shook my head. “You know that’s not the world I’m talking about - ”

She cut me off. “I don’t even know why we’re arguing over this! It’s in the past, and it’s done.” Her wild eyes stared at me and her shoulders tensed up. Hell, her whole body was tense, and that made my day.

Evie wasn’t done with this.

If she were, she wouldn’t be lashing out like this.

I raised my brows. “You sure about that?”

She hesitated, and although she tried to act like she hadn’t, I caught it. “Yes,” she said with determination, but I knew it was more to convince herself than me. Half the time, I knew Evie’s next thought and move before her. After being the one she’d confided all her fears, worries and happiness in while growing up, I fucking knew how her mind worked.

Again, I shook my head. “No, you’re not, and I’m going to show you just how fuckin’ unsure of it you really are.”

Her eyes widened and she finally moved away from me. I’d expected her to put distance between us from the beginning of the conversation. The fact she hadn’t was just another sign she wasn’t done with this. When she spoke, it was like all the passion of a minute ago had been drained from her. Exhaustion had stepped back in. “Just leave it, Kick. We tried twice and we couldn’t make it work. And we’ve both changed. We’re not those kids who loved each other anymore.”

She didn’t give me time to say anything else before turning and walking away from me. My mouth opened to call out to her again but I quickly snapped it shut. I’d catch up with her later. I had no intention of letting her walk away from me permanently again, and perhaps I needed to take this slowly. Fuck, I wasn’t known for slow, but for Evie I would do anything.

And she was wrong.

We’d always be those kids who loved each other.

Underneath all the shit that was me today, I still loved her.

It was fucked up, though, that it had taken Jeremy’s death for me to admit that.

***

Darkness blanketed the clubhouse when I arrived back there at midnight to meet up with King. It was one of the club member’s birthdays, so most of the boys were out celebrating with him.

King stood leaning against his bike waiting for me, a grin stretched across his face. I pulled up next to him and waited for his instructions.

“Did you and Hyde get that job done this afternoon?” he asked.

“Yeah, the debt was settled. And it was clean.” We’d collected off one of our junkie customers who hadn’t paid in over a month. Surprisingly, no blood had been shed.

He nodded. “Good. Now, you ready for some fun?” he asked, a dangerous tone to his voice. I knew what ‘fun’ meant to King.

With a nod of my head, I said, “You lead the way.”

No other words were exchanged and his bike roared to life.

Our destination was fairly close, only about a fifteen-minute ride. When we pulled up outside the run down house with two bikes outside, my gut seized with a mixture of anticipation and concern. King was known for pulling some crazy shit in his time, but to fuck with fellow bikers was a little past crazy.

“What’s going on, King?” I asked as I walked towards him.

“One of these fuckers stole off my sister. Payback’s gonna be a bitch.”

I narrowed my eyes. “And?”

“And what?”

“I’m sensing there’s some other shit going on here. Don’t fuck with me, brother, tell me the full story so I know what the fuck I’m walking into.”

He lit a smoke and took a long drag. When his gaze hit mine, the grin from earlier was gone from his eyes and a hard look had replaced it. “You’ve got a sister, right?” He waited for my nod and once I gave it, he continued. “My sister is a lot younger than me, twenty-three, and one of these cunts was dating her and thought he’d share her around with his mates at a party when she was drunk. Lucky for her, a friend of mine was there and stepped in. The cunt fucked off and she didn’t hear from him again until three days later when he showed up at her house and beat her up and stole the money she’d been saving.”