Page 43 of Misguided
“You do.” I take her by the shoulders and spin her around. “Now get whatever the fuck you were about to get out of that drawer, and finish getting made up.”
“What’s the point?” she moans.
“The point,” I say with a smack to her ass. “Is I’m goin’ back downstairs, and when you get there, Dog will be the one waitin’ for you. Because as much as Koen likes hanging out with Mel, Dog wants to have a bit of fun with the hot-as-fuck president’s sister, too.”
She chuckles as I head for the door. “Can he handle fully-made-up Mel, though?”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
Although judging by the rush of adrenaline that has my gut twisted up like a sailor’s knot, I’d say I’m pretty certain I’ll conquer that challenge.
I round the top of the sweeping staircase at the same time as Crackers steps onto the bottom riser. His head lifts as he realizes I’m there, and he stills, beckoning toward the chapel with a jerk of his head.
“Spare a minute?”
“Sure.”
I follow the Fort Worth VP into their meeting room, marveling as I always do at the work of art encased at the end.
“What can I do you for?” I ask as I turn away from the sculpture of a rider kick-starting a panhead.
“Anything I should know?” He takes his usual seat, seeming reluctant to sit in Hooch’s even in the president’s absence.
“Don’t think so.” I stop on the opposite side of the table, my hands braced on the back of the sturdy timber seat before me.
“She seems not all there,” Crackers muses.
“She just found out half her family’s dead, man.”
“Aside from that.” He rolls his eyes, leaning back in the seat.
Crackers kind of reminds me of what I imagine I’ll be like when I’m older: same blond hair, same cocky attitude, and same reluctance to let anyone into his inner sanctum.
I sigh, and pull the chair out, dropping onto the seat. “She’s a bit lost without everyone else on his or her throne,” I tell him. “She says she doesn’t know what the point of being here is, but I think the truth is she doesn’t know how to lead on her own; she’s used to being Hooch’s, and even Judas’, accessory.”
Crackers nods, mouth turned down as he appears to think it over. “What you reckon? She needs somethin’ to do?”
“She needs someone to be.”
He frowns. “What do you mean by that?”
I shrug, picking at a divot in the table with my stubby nail. “Give her a role, man. But make sure it’s one where she feels like she’s giving back. Mel feels like she owes these people something, for whatever reason.”
He chuckles, jamming the tip of his tongue into his back molar as he eyes me. “You seem to know a bit about her, Dog.”
“Happens when you spend time with someone,” I counter.
I know what the asshole’s digging at. He can speculate all he fucking likes—he won’t get jack shit out of me.
“Make the most of it,” he drawls. “You’re going home tomorrow and she’s staying right here where she belongs—in Texas.”
I eyeball the fucker, knowing full well he’s not being an asshole for the hell of it. We protect our own, and that possessiveness only deepens the thicker into the club you get. Lincoln protects Lincoln, LA protects LA, and Fort Worth protects Fort Worth. Don’t even start into how fierce families are about loyalty.
That pig-headed devotion is what I love about these people. What I crave.
Is more than I’d ever have elsewhere.
“Still got plenty of hours to kill between now and the morning, though, brother,” I say as I rise from the seat. “Plenty of liquor to have, too.”
He chuckles as I toss a wink his way. “That we do.”
“So what the fuck we doin’ in here?”