Rush (Carolina Bad Boys, #5)(46)
Shy needed rest, and I just needed to be with her.
I put half an inch of space between us when the hunger grew too hot.
“Want me to go home?” I whispered against her hair.
“Nope.”
“Good, because I wasn’t going to anyway.”
“Gonna bring some stuff over, huh?” she asked.
“Yep.” I grasped her ass in a firm grip, smiling smugly.
“First you tell me we’re exclusive and now you’re moving in? You sure do move fast, Handsome.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Shop Girl
“YOU SURE YOU’RE OKAY wearing this for a few hours?” I watched Shy as she put on one of the prosthetics she’d had refitted.
She’d gotten a clean bill of health from her oncologist two days ago with the added prescription to take it easy.
Taking it easy clearly was not a phrase Shy was familiar with. While she’d been on bed rest she’d gone for a walk every morning along the waterfront outside her building using the crutches she hated but for once accepted.
As well as my help.
Because I was completely, one hundred percent involved.
That meant I’d drafted the dudes to complete the final kitting out of her store, which was opening tonight.
Shy had ordered us around, bullied us, and downright laid down the law until the shop was fully stocked with clothing she’d sourced from sought-after vintage duds to hipster-chic shit—or as Shy called it, her inventory.
Being part of her brute force posse did have its comic moments. Like pretty much all of them.
Boomer reverentially positioning pairs of wicked high heels on glass-topped tables. He made sure the shoes were arranged just so, his big hands lingering on the strappy sandals.
“Thinkin’ about buying some for Rayce or what?” Cole had called out.
“Yeah. Maybe.” Boomer’s face had flushed like he’d been caught mid-triple-X fantasy. “None of your damn business.”
Tail blowing long hair out of his face as he sat surrounded by boxes of flashy girly gear he sorted through.
“Trying to see if they have your size, Tail?” Kinkaid had shouted from across the store.
“Fuck you. You’re the one with the shiny man-thongs, stripper.”
Coletrane unwrapping and hanging dresses with the lightest of touches, all the while cursing about the fiddly fuckin’ hangers he had to deal with.
“That might be a good look on you,” I’d casually remarked when he squinted at a flimsy, filmy white sheath decorated with a sunburst of sequins to make sure it hung correctly.
“Blow me. I don’t do sparkles.”
“But they go so well with your eyes and shit.” Tail guffawed.
Tucker polished his handlebar mustache in front of one of the long mirrors. “You know what’s missing from this scene.”
“Brodie,” we’d all sounded off at the same time.
Because if he’d been present—number one jackass—absolutely no work would’ve gotten accomplished.
Brodie had taken paternity leave . . . from life.
The dude was so wrapped up in Roxy, Cara, and Ashe he appeared to have dropped off the face of the MC earth to take care of his family.
Couldn’t say I blamed him one single bit.
He did, however, find time between diaper changes, homework and carpool duty, and being on-demand massage therapist to the new momma, to blow up our phones with an endless feed of photos.
Cara wearing her I’m the big sister shirt, smiling down—braces and all—at her l’il sis.
Ashe caught mid-doze with Roxy snuggled on her chest.
Then the picture that launched about a million text messages:
Little Roxy in her My dad’s a biker onesie complete with a pink Harley emblem propped side by side with her slightly older cousin, baby Danny. He boasted his own custom onesie that said My dad rides an Indian Chief bearing the classic red and gold headdress design.
Shy had gotten quiet after that pic, received just a couple days ago.
I’d shut off the phone, placing it aside. “What?”
“I might not be able to have children.”
Her heartbroken expression pretty much tied knots in my stomach.
“I know.” I pulled her palm to my lips, kissing the soft center. “I’m so sorry about that.”
“Does that make me less of a woman?” Tears had spiked the tips of her eyelashes before dropping to splash on her cheeks.
I gulped hard, staving off my own waterworks. “Never. C’mere, Shy.”
She’d melted into my embrace, crying softly, letting go of all the things she might never experience.
When she’d calmed, I tilted her face to mine. “If you were any more of a woman I probably wouldn’t be able to handle you.”
A light sparked in her eyes, the shiny depths dilating slowly. “Oh, you think you can handle me, do you?”
“Wanna find out?” I’d smoothed my hand up her inner thigh, cupping her heat hidden by the frailest barrier of lace panties.
Shy had thrown herself back into the shop opening, redirecting her creativity with a determined force that awed me every single day.
The guys and I had done the grunt work, but the whole party-planning gig? Completely beyond our scope of questionable expertise.