Nolan: Return to Signal Bend (Signal Bend)(9)

“And what’s that?” he asked and took a long swallow from his beer, killing it.

Normally, she kept her real answer to herself. It pissed her mom off, and most people just didn’t get it. She’d gone to college without knowing what she wanted to do with her life, and she’d graduated without finding the answer. But she told Nolan with a shrug, “It was interesting. I learned stuff. I guess that’s all I wanted.”

When Nolan laughed, she thought he was making fun of her, and she blushed and started fidgeting with that stupid Christmas headband.

But he was nodding. “If everybody thought of school like that, maybe it wouldn’t suck so bad.” He put his empty down and stood. “You want another?”

“Sure.” She still had half of the first one, but, as Nolan walked around to the other side of the bar, she put it to her mouth and tried to chug it.

He noticed, and the smile he gave her looked like it belonged on his face. While he opened two fresh Buds, she finished her first with one more try.

“So what’s next?” he asked as he sat and pushed a bottle toward her.

“Huh?”

“Now that you’re done with school? Or is that a shitty question?”

“It’s kind of a shitty question, actually. Everybody asks.”

“Sorry.”

Because it was Nolan, and they were having a real conversation that didn’t have anything to do with the club or their parents, and she wanted it to keep going as long as possible, she gave him another real answer. “It’s okay. I just don’t have much of an answer. I guess…I guess I just…don’t want much. People always want to know about my dreams and plans, and I don’t really have any.”

He considered her quietly, long enough that she began to feel self-conscious about blabbing too much about herself. “No?” he finally asked.

She dragged the headband thing back and forth over the bar. “Uh-uh. The future is just empty to me. I don’t understand how people can decide what their life’s going to be like five years from now. I’m excited to know what I’m going to be doing on Monday.”

Nolan dropped his hand over the headband, which by now Iris had arcing wildly back and forth. Embarrassed, she pulled her hand back and set it in her lap.

Then he picked the headband up and, with both hands, he reached over and pushed it onto her head, catching her hair and pulling it tight from her forehead.

He smiled—just a little one, a corner of his mouth drawing up a bit. “Merry Christmas, Iris.”

He leaned in and kissed her.

Iris’s heart completely stopped, and then it began to bang like a bass drum in her ears.

The kiss wasn’t much. He just laid his lips on hers for a couple of seconds and then backed off.

But he was staring at her, and something in his eyes—which were a dark, totally not-average shade of blue—was different. He put his hand on her face. His fingers slid over her cheek, under her ear, until he was holding her head. When he leaned in again, Iris leaned in, too, and the kiss was a lot more. His tongue slid into her mouth, and the stubble around his lips scratched her skin lightly, and Iris thought she might just pass out right there, just drop right off the barstool and onto the clubhouse floor.

He ended the kiss but didn’t go far, and they stayed like that, sort of leaning on each other, for a second that never seemed to end.

“Papa Bear coming up on your six.” Len’s voice, right at their side, blew the moment into fragments, and Nolan and Iris both reared back. She saw her dad talking to Badger and Isaac at the back of the Hall, near the side hallway. He didn’t seem to have noticed them yet.

Iris wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. “Hi, Uncle Len.”

“Hey, beautiful. Glad to have you home.” He kissed her cheek and turned to Nolan. “We gotta roll, brother.”

“Yeah, okay.” Nolan stood and met Iris’s eyes. “I’ll see you later.”

When she nodded dumbly, he also kissed her cheek, and he headed for the door.

Confused and actually, literally dizzy, Iris could only watch while Nolan walked away.

When she turned back, her father was standing at her side, staring at the door Nolan and Len had just passed through.

“Hi, Daddy.”

He turned to her, frowning. “There something goin’ on between you and Nolan?”

Everybody knew that her dad had almost killed Badger when he’d started seeing Iris’s stepsister, Adrienne. Badge and Adrienne had been married now for years, but her dad had beaten the hell out of him a few times at first. Iris knew that, if that kiss even meant anything—and who knew if it did—her father would not take it well if she got with a member of the Horde. Not that that would stop her.

She laughed, and she heard that it was way too high-pitched and manic. “No, Daddy. We were just talking.”

He stared hard at her, then reached out and pulled the stupid mistletoe headband from her hair and dropped it onto the bar. She’d forgotten all about it.

“Let’s take a look at your truck,” was all he said, and he held out his hand for her keys.





CHAPTER THREE


Len had pulled Nolan from the clubhouse because they were on patrol together. There wasn’t much to being on patrol, not these days. Since Signal Bend had no police force or sheriff substation, the Horde kept order. That had been true since long before Nolan had been Horde, or had even heard of the club or the town.