Flock (The Ravenhood #1)(64)

He’s dressed in his usual attire, jeans, a T-shirt, his hair picked through, delicious. “You good?” He asks with genuine concern, as strong arms haul me tighter to him.

“I’m good.” I see him visibly relax with my reply.

“Yeah?” One side of his beautiful mouth lifts. “Made peace with the devil inside?”

“Trying to.”

He rubs his thumb along the edge of my lips. “Had to wear that fucking lipstick, huh?”

“You like?”

“You’re going to pay for that later, come on.” Loosening my grip on him, he grabs my hand and leads me toward the crowd.

“What’s going on?” I ask, just as we break through a line of tall, tattooed men, some of the faces familiar.

“Waiting on Dom to leave,” Tyler answers, giving me a dimple and a lift of his chin. Of all of the crew, Tyler and I have grown the closest. We have a lot in common and recently bonded over our shared love for all things nineties, while he helped me up my pool game.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” Russell chimes in. “’Sup, Cee.”

“Hey, Russell.” The warm reception from them helps my shaky confidence and I embrace it for what it is. They seem to have accepted me as one of their own, and it’s a foreign but welcome feeling.

“Hey, you.” Layla appears, breaking through the line and bumps into my shoulder. “Been a minute.”

“Hey, Layla,” I say, my gaze back on Sean who’s looking at me in a way that feeds my soul. A look that says we’re still us, and that’s truly what matters most to me. It’s still very much beyond my comprehension that he could be liberal with me and still look at me the way he does. In a hypocritical way, my romantic heart is disappointed he would, that he did. But so far, he’s practiced to the letter what he’s preached. He liberated me that day because he wanted me to have what I wanted. And that’s a different way, maybe Sean’s way of showing affection.

Not only that, it turns him on.

A scenario I never saw myself living in.

But I am, and my heart starts to kick up as we gaze on at each other as though we’re the only two people in the parking lot.

“Let’s get you a beer,” Layla says glancing over at Sean. “I’m taking her for a minute. Girl talk.” Sean only nods, his eyes still fixed on me, his tongue tracing the ring on his lip.

She pushes past the wall of men and pulls me into her side as she walks toward the guy manning the keg. He pours us each a beer. And Layla remains quiet as I survey the crowd of at least twenty guys. “What’s going on tonight?”

“Waiting on Dom, as usual. He takes his fucking time, on no one’s schedule.”

“Are we late for something?”

“Not really, a meetup.” She looks me over. “You look good, girl.”

I tear my eyes away from Sean, who’s now talking animatedly amongst his circle, and study Layla. Her dress coordinates with mine. She’s in jeans and a tee that shows her toned midriff. Her blonde hair is sleeked back in a high ponytail. “Thanks. So do you.”

“Couldn’t miss that exchange if I was blind. So, Sean, huh?” She gives me a knowing grin.

And Dom. I hide my flinch at the knee-jerk thought, and she reads my posture.

She draws her brows. “Undecided then?”

I take a sip of my beer. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Do they…am I?” I shake my head, frustrated. These are clingy chick questions.

“They?” She reads my face, my posture. “Ah, oh, okay, I got you,” she says through a laugh.

I just told my secret, in a look, with a single stuttered sentence. A part of me is relieved, the other is horrified I spilled it so easily. I’m not good at this, not at all.

In truth, I’m relieved. I’ve been bursting at the seams for a little female perspective, other than my own.

Layla isn’t close to me, so this is as good as it can get. She taps the bottom of my cup, encouraging me to drink. I take a hearty sip and exhale.

“Okay, first of all, don’t freak out, I’m no saint. Not by a long shot. Second, I’m the vault. Whatever, and I mean whatever, you tell me will never, ever reach anyone else. That’s code. But let’s get some distance to make sure I’m the only one who hears it.” She walks me over to the abandoned side of the garage, where everyone is out of earshot.

I’m still unsure of what questions I truly want to ask. She helps me by speaking up. “Sean is an open book in a sense. He’s going to be honest with you, about everything he can, even if it hurts. And you won’t have to do too much to try to read into him. Dom, well, he’s a different story. He’s both bark and bite and trust me—you don’t want to be on the receiving end of either one. But he’s got heart, and we’ve all glimpsed it at least once, but rarely twice. He’s literally the male version of Fort Knox, a born loner.”

I sip my beer and she tilts her head. “What do you really want to ask me?”

“Am I just another…” one. Just another one. But I can’t bring myself to say it.

“That I can’t tell you, but from what I’ve seen, the house has been quiet lately.”