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Red cocked his head to the side and narrowed his eyes at Patriot thoughtfully, his overlong dark brown hair falling onto his forehead. It made him look like a boy band bitch.
“I wonder if this isn’t just some ploy she’s using to get back into your bed,” Red remarked, making all the muscles in Patriot’s body tense.
It wasn’t the first time Patriot wondered the same thing, just never out loud.
Grunting, he thrust his fingers through his loose hair and cursed.
“Jaime isn’t like that. If she says some asshole is bothering her, then some asshole is bothering her. If anything, she sees this as an opportunity to try her hand at getting me to stick close. But she knows the score between us—” Red snorted, rolling his eyes, “—and she knows games won’t ever work on me. Besides…unless she’s an Oscar winning actress, that fear I saw on her face this morning was real. She was terrified, man.”
Red stared at Patriot silently, his striking midnight blue gaze too knowing—and with all the shit he saw in the depths of the internet, Patriot wasn’t surprised the man had knowledge.
“Right,” Red finally said. He tipped his chin toward his central monitor that had a blurry image of a man in all black, head covered in a hoodie, face covered with a hockey mask, and sleeves pulled all the way down to wrists that met with black gloves. There wasn’t a single identifying feature about the man other than he was skinny, about five-feet-eight-inches, and he knew where to park out of the view of the camera.
Neither Red nor Patriot could see anything in the ninety second footage that gave them any clue as to who the man was.
“So, what do you want to do now?” Red asked, leaning back in his creaking leather desk chair. “This footage is a bust, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other cameras in the area that might have caught something.”
Patriot nodded. “Yeah. Look into that.” He didn’t have to add when you have time. They both knew that club business took precedence, and Red was elbow deep in investigating two new potential prospects and eight potential new brothers from Bone Dogz for any dark secrets they may be hiding. Unchained weren’t one percenters, but that didn’t mean they were squeaky clean. And that meant that any man looking to be a member had to be vetted. They didn’t need one of the fucking alphabet agencies getting a mole in their club.
Turning to leave, Patriot caught sight of a poster on the wall nearest Red’s bed.
ALL BLACK HATS LOVE A LITTLE BACKDOOR ACTION
Curling his lips, Patriot shook his head before leaving the club tech perv to his business. Patriot had a “boyfriend stuff” date to plan for a woman he didn’t actually want to date, just so he could uncomplicate his life enough to date a woman he actually wanted to date.
Fuck.
His life was a goddamn mess.
He just hoped his plan to take Jaime out in Clarks Summit meant that Cilla wouldn’t see…that she wouldn’t know. He couldn’t imagine her confusion with his kissing the shit out of her one day, then taking Jaime out on the next.
Once it was all done, he’d sit down and explain everything to her—from his mistake three years ago with Jaime, to the dumpster fire of his current problems.
Cilla’s cool, she’s sweet; she’ll understand.
Fuck.
Well, so much for his commanding her not to avoid him.
Patriot not coming around the last three days made not avoiding him that much easier.
Apparently, he finally realized that his duty as Horde’s wingman was fulfilled, and he didn’t need to bother with silly ol’ Cilla any longer.
That’s what she wanted, it was why she’d avoided him those days after the party in the first place—to put space between them so she could move on.
Mission accomplished, right?
She should be satisfied, feel victorious, right?
So why did she feel…empty?
Lonely.
She never realized how deep and agonizing loneliness could feel until Patriot was no longer there, chatting with her in the diner, running into her at the grocery store or Roseanna’s, invading her space in her house, kissing her….
Pinching the bridge of her nose, she squeezed her eyes shut to force out that last thought.
He’d kissed her out of some weird obligation—there’d been no attraction there, on his part, anyway. Maybe his absence meant his quiet disgust of her could no longer be hidden—he’d forced himself to kiss her, had grossed himself out, and now couldn’t face even looking at her again.
