Crash (Brazen Bulls MC #1)(88)
The thought that she wasn’t just late took up more of her head with each passing hour, and working around laboring women all day, she had been quickly going crazy, trying not to let on, and not doing so well at that. So she’d taken a test at work.
She was pregnant.
She’d calculated her due date: the end of March. She and Rad were going to be parents at the end of March. A little less than one year from the first anniversary of the day they’d met.
The most surprising thing: she wanted this. And so did Rad. Her carefully curated and guarded little life was taking wild turns almost every day, and she was okay with that. Since she’d joined Rad’s life, she’d taken her hands off the wheel—or the handlebars—and was just enjoying the thrill of the ride, hoping they wouldn’t crash headlong into disaster.
oOo
Griffin was in the way more at work than Wally or Slick ever were. He was curious and, rather than hang out and watch television in the waiting room the way the prospects did, he poked around behind the desk, alternately flirting with and badgering the staff, asking about codes and chart notations, and the function of equipment. A couple of times, he’d been caught lingering at birthing rooms, when their doors had been left ajar. Otto—who was a lot bigger than Griffin but probably not as bad—had gotten pretty aggressive with him the third time he’d been eavesdropping like that.
Otto didn’t mind Slick or Wally, but he’d decided almost instantly that he didn’t like Griffin.
Most of the other staff didn’t seem to mind working around him—probably because most of the other staff was female and straight, and Griffin was handsome, with long, dark hair, dark stubble over a square jaw, an easy, flirtatious smile and more charm than was reasonable. That kutte didn’t do him any harm, either. Pretty bad boys were the mainstay of romance novels and chick flicks for a reason.
But when Willa had to get between him and Otto, she grabbed his kutte and pulled him into the staff lounge. “Griff, you can’t perv out on women giving birth! What the hell?”
“I wasn’t perving out—shit! I was just listening.”
That didn’t make it any better, so Willa made a face that said so, and Griffin actually blushed.
“I’m interested. In what you do. I love hospitals.”
Since that was an even more bizarre statement—in her experience, not even hospital staff liked hospitals, no matter how much they loved the job they had in them—Willa made another face. “What?” Griffin opened the staff fridge and started rooting around in her colleagues’ lunches. She pushed him away, closed the door, and leaned against it. “What is your problem, Griff?”
“Hospitals are awesome. They’re full of heroes. Doctors and nurses are amazing. Every single minute, all around you, people are saving lives. Even here, with the moms and babies, I bet you’re a hero every day. At least to the women you help. There’s nothing else like a hospital, a whole place filled all the time with people saving people and making them better or just helping them not hurt so much. I wanted to be a doctor when I was a kid. I couldn’t handle the math even in high school, so I knew I couldn’t ever be. Plus, my folks barely had money for basics, much less college.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the counter. “I wasn’t perving. I wasn’t even looking. I was listening to the doctor and nurses.”
Charmed and moved, Willa felt guilty—but he still couldn’t do it again. “Okay. I get it. But it’s not cool. You need to leave patients their privacy. Especially in Labor & Delivery, they don’t get much of it.”
“Yeah, okay. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. You can go bother Alice if you want. She likes your ass.”
He grinned that yeah, chicks dig me grin of his and strolled out of the lounge.
oOo
The Bulls on the run were expected home late in the evening, so after her shift, Willa went back to her house, with Griffin, changed into jeans and a t-shirt, took Ollie for a walk, with Griffin, and then put her dog in her truck and drove to the clubhouse, with Griffin riding behind.
As soon as they turned onto Third and Ollie saw the Sinclair station, he got excited. The clubhouse was now one of his favorite places—full of new friends to love on him.
Though this was only a one-day run, which wasn’t a big deal, the Bulls were likely to arrive sore and exhausted after riding as much as twelve hours in this single day. So the women were greeting them in the way usually reserved for longer runs—waiting with open arms, a good meal, and plenty of booze.
Willa had learned that times like these, with the clubhouse comfortably full of patches and the people closest to them, weren’t really parties. The festive friendliness was just their normal way of being. All these unrelated people were a family.
According to Rad, she hadn’t experienced a Bulls party yet. Not even the night she’d gotten so drunk with them. He wasn’t enthusiastic about her having that experience—which made her both a little hesitant and a lot curious.
The kind of cooking that the Bulls expected was the kind of cooking Willa was good at—what restaurants called ‘homestyle.’ Meat and potatoes, bread and vegetables. Nothing fancy, but fresh, tasty, and hearty. On this night, they were marinating ribs, and would send Gunner to the grill in back—that was what that big metal bull was on the patio, a barbecue grill—when they had word that the men were close. With the ribs would be corn on the cob, cornbread muffins, watermelon wedges, and a huge vat of potato salad.