Outside the Lines (Sons of Templar MC #2.5)(19)

“Do I have scratch marks on my face? Or are they invisible to the human eye?” I asked seriously.

He laughed and stepped forward. “Looks beautiful to me. Although, I know whatever you endure in there is not outwardly apparent,” he stated lightly, though his eyes held something that told me humor was the only way to deal with the reality of that terrible place.

I ignored the ‘beautiful’ comment, it made my slightly uncomfortable.

“Who have you got in there?” I nodded my head. “If you don’t mind me asking,” I added quickly, not knowing the etiquette for this particular social situation. Even in situations I did theoretically know the etiquette, I always managed to put a foot in my mouth.

“My mom, and I don’t mind you asking. It’s nice to talk to someone who knows, although I know my mom wouldn’t metaphorically rip me to shreds if she knew who I was. She was more likely to worry that I wasn’t getting enough sleep,” he said quietly.

“Your mom?” I asked softly. This man couldn’t have been much older than me, definitely not old enough to have a senile mother.

He looked at me with pain in his eyes. “Early onset Alzheimers,” he explained.

Out of reflex, I touched his arm lightly. “I’m sorry,” I told him genuinely. “I don’t have a mom, so I can’t imagine how hard it would be having her right here but losing her nonetheless.”

He smiled sadly at me. “That’s exactly what it feels like. It’s why I stand here a few minutes before I go in. To mentally prepare myself to visit my mom’s body. Her mind’s long gone, and to catch a glimpse of a pretty girl,” he added with a small smile.

I smiled back. Again, I thought about what a genuinely nice guy he was. Too bad I was currently infatuated with a biker. Even if I wasn’t, I wasn’t the kind of girl a man like that would end up with.

“But, you’re spoken for,” he continued. “That still the case?”

I nodded. Yes, this time I was spoken for, in the traditional sense, by one man instead of an entire motorcycle club.

“Thought so,” he said. He fished into his pocket to retrieve a card out of his wallet. He handed it to me. “That ever changes, or you just need to talk… use that.” He nodded at the card.

“Robert Frank, Attorney,” I read and raised a brow. “Very grown up and serious,” I commented.

I thought about what Hansen’s business card would say, ‘Carl Hansen—Biker, Hot Guy and all around Bad Ass.’ I furrowed my brows slightly when I thought about the fact I didn’t strictly know what he did to afford his small but impressive house, or to feed his muscled body with the protein it needed.

Robert took my frown as being at him. “Don’t hold the lawyer thing against me, I do my best to hide my scales beneath suits,” he joked.

I laughed, despite myself. My face turned serious. “I’m sorry about your mom,” I said sadly, squeezing his arm again.

He gave me a long look. “I’m sorry about your grandmother,” he said sincerely before moving to walk through the doors.

I watched him walk away for a second, feeling profoundly sad for Robert the lawyer and nice guy, and his mother.





The past two weeks had been nothing short of amazing. Hansen and I had spent almost every night together. Mostly at his place, because of his attitude toward my neighborhood, and the fact his house was way better than mine. I liked the quiet. The lack of sirens and gunshots was calming. And the fact it was Hansen’s. And I was there. And he treated me like it was going to be a permanent thing. He even told me to put my ‘girly shit’ in a drawer in the bathroom. Then I had commenced a freak-out, called Arianne who had almost begun a freak-out, then went and bought ‘girly shit’ to put in my newly acquired drawer.

We spent little time at the club, and I was glad of the fact. The transition from what I was to Old Lady was proving more difficult than I thought. Most of the other girls joked with me apart from a couple that gave me the stink eye, which I ignored. Still, being an Old Lady meant I wasn’t required to run after the other members, that I should theoretically, treat the other girls like I was somehow superior. Which I would never do. They weren’t better or worse than me. That would never change. Linda had even seemed to accept me into the fold, sharing a beer with me and chatting like we were old friends. I tried not to put my foot in my mouth the entire time. The fact I didn’t have a spike heeled boot embedded in said foot told me I’d succeeded.

Hansen treated me as if he hadn’t almost ignored me for the past year like he’d been with me longer than two weeks. Like I was where I was meant to be. The sex—sweet mother, the sex—was better than I’d ever imagined. It was something more than his talents in the bedroom, which were substantial, it was the connection we had, the intangible, unspoken something between us that brought so much more depth to it.

It was after one of these amazing love making sessions that I decided it was time to burst the bubble. Start living in the real world. I rested my elbow on his chest and put my head in my hands.

“Why no girls?” I asked him abruptly.

Hansen was used to me blurting things out without much warning or forethought, but his raised eyebrow showed he needed more information.

“Since you arrived from the Nevada chapter, there’s been no girls,” I clarified. “None from the club anyway, why?” I expanded.