Smoke and Steel (Wild West MC #2)(101)

After the food arrived, we ate Chinese in front of the TV, neither of us making a big thing I was there and had no reason to go back to my place except to pack.

That wasn’t weird.

Core and me just being, but doing it together?

As usual, we slotted right in.





24





MOODY





Hellen





I was in the closet, rushing through changing clothes because I was late getting home and Core and I were going over to dinner at Beck and Janna’s that night.

We were supposed to be there in five minutes. I felt shit that I’d lost track of time before I left the office, because no way would we be there in five minutes.

And I was looking forward to this.

I was keen to get to know Janna better. I was also keen to meet their kids. I was further keen to get beyond the last convo I’d had with Beck and move into a much better place with him.

But things had been crazy since Core and I got back together.

I’d been spaced out, dealing with our breakup, so I’d let work slide, and I had to catch up on it.

Not to mention, Xanthia had her own connections, she’d worked them and brought in five new clients (I was so right to hire her, she was sharp, had hustle and went the extra mile—she was the bomb!). But even if this was great for income, it was quite a bit of work.

Topping that, another of my clients heard we were expanding services and asked us to take over their website, newsletter and affiliate maintenance.

Further, Xanthia and I agreed the menu we were going to roll out, so it was full steam ahead on the conference we’d decided to host in Sedona next February.

In sending out a save the date, we already had seventeen clients that expressed interest, and considering we were thinking it’d be around ten, that was very exciting.

In other words, it wasn’t a great time for me to mentally check out due to having a situation with my boyfriend, and it meant a lot of work when I checked back in.

Because of this, I wasn’t getting home until after seven every night (and sometimes it was closer to eight), and I was working weekends, so I didn’t have time to swing by my place to do much packing.

I had the hall bathroom sorted and maybe a quarter of the kitchen. But the kitchen was always the biggest job.

Since Core didn’t need me to deal with the heavy stuff, he, Beck, Eight, Muzzle and Shim had driven their trucks to my pad, and now we had a guest room and furnished den at Core’s.

It was up to me to get the kitchen sorted and clean the unit, and I was facing the fact (and some panic) my once expansive three weeks to do this had now dwindled to only a few days.

I just didn’t know how I was going to be able to carve out the time.

Last on my taking-up-time-and-headspace list, Liane had sent a two-word text while I was driving home: Call me.

I hadn’t read the text until I got home.

This wasn’t very Liane, and it concerned me, but I didn’t have time to call her and change my clothes so we might be fashionably late, not offensively late.

I’d call her on the way over to their house.

On this thought, Core entered the closet and tripped over the shoes I’d just kicked off (and, truth be told, two other pairs I hadn’t yet put away).

I stretched my lips down in an eek expression while his face tightened.

“Sorry, I’ll put them away when we get home,” I said.

“Not a problem,” he grunted. “You close?” He then lifted his hand to show me his phone, and I took that as he wanted to call Beck to give them our ETA.

“Five minutes,” I said, yanking a pair of jeans off the shelf.

“Five real minutes or five Hellen minutes?”

I turned back to him, my lips beginning to curve in a smile, thinking he was being funny, but the serious look on his face did not say he was amused.

“Are there Hellen minutes?” I asked cautiously.

“Babe, when are we gonna be in the truck?” he asked in return.

“Five real minutes,” I said quietly.

He took off, head bent to his phone.

Nanook looked to me, to Core, experienced a moment of doggie indecision, then he followed Core.

I hurried in changing clothes, and to shave off time, made the very difficult decision not to switch my purse to one that matched my outfit (this was hard, but I told myself it was just two couples having dinner in a home, I wouldn’t be rated on accessorizing). Then Core and I were in his truck, heading to Beck and Janna’s.

He was quiet and it seemed a moody quiet.

“Are you mad at me?” I asked.

“Nope,” he answered.

I didn’t believe him.

“I know I’ve been getting home late. I’m sorry. I’m trying to catch up. But Xanthia’s fully in the saddle, she’s an amazing help, and it’ll calm down soon.”

He didn’t reply.

For some reason, this made me start babbling, and this babbling included being too honest in the current atmosphere.

“Though, the conference is going to be a lot of work, and we have a lot of new clients. If the take-up in new services is healthy, I may need to hire someone else. Possibly part-time. I didn’t expect Xanthia to have so many contacts and getting new clients rolling is always extra effort at first. But even though this is unplanned, it’s a good problem to have. I just can’t let our service slide in the meantime.”