He didn’t call out.
He looked out the French doors to the patio, and when he noted they weren’t out there, he turned his head toward the hall that led to the bedrooms.
He started that way but stopped, eyes at the end to the opened door to their room, hearing the noises coming from there.
Apparently, Mol and Mad were working out a different way.
He turned back toward the kitchen, on his way to get a beer, when his eyes fell on Molly’s laptop on the island.
He stopped again and stared at it a beat before reaching to the back pocket of his jeans and pulling out his phone.
He went to texts, saw the group one on the top, in that position seeing as he’d told Molly and Maddox he was going to the gym after work, and they both replied in their ways (Mol: Okay, honey, see you when you get home. Mad: Right. Later).
D went to the text under that, not a group text, that one just from Mad, and he opened it.
It was a picture of a ring and a link to a website where you could buy it.
Under it Maddox had texted, This is the fucking one.
It had been a week and a half since Molly had gone down to Tucson.
As expected, Maddox’s parents had been all in to float them a loan for Molly’s ring. In fact, D had another text string that was a lot of emojis of hearts, happy faces and blowing kisses from Erin, that was how excited she was they were buying Molly a ring and getting down to business.
The picture on his phone was the fifth one Mad had sent to him in the last week and a half.
And it was the only one that was perfect.
A square diamond with the sides rounded off, elevated from the base, entirely surrounded by smaller diamonds, with even more of the stones embedded in the band as well as some scrollwork type stuff the website called “filigree.” It was classy, pretty, feminine, substantial without being flashy, and very Molly.
It was also nearly thirteen thousand dollars.
D moved to Mol’s laptop, opened it, powered it up and got a beer while it was chugging. He went back to it and put in her password.
Then he logged into the websites he wanted.
His bank account.
And Maddox’s.
Clicking between the two, he felt a weight hit his gut.
Mad had nearly four K in savings.
D had a little over two.
Not only did this not equal thirteen thousand dollars, it clearly shared the discrepancy between his and Mad’s earning power.
He logged out of both accounts, shut down the laptop, clapped it closed and turned his head to stare out the window over the kitchen sink after slugging back some beer.
How they were going to find seven thousand dollars to cover Molly’s ring and the money to give her a fantastic honeymoon, D didn’t have a clue.
He was all in for Erin and Bob to kick money their way so they could get the ring without Molly knowing about it.
He wasn’t in at all with them owing Mad’s parents seven grand.
But that ring was perfect in the way that now, D knew, no other ring would do.
“Fuck,” he whispered as his phone rang.
In order not to disturb what his man and woman were doing in the back, he quickly took the call as he moved toward the French doors to the patio.
But he saw who the call was before he put the cell this ear.
“Yo, Mistress girl,” he greeted quietly, shifting through the doors and closing them behind him.
“Hey, D, how’s things?” Sixx asked.
D pulled up the good ole boy and said through a forced smile, “Movin’ and groovin’, like always. Wake. Work. Fuck. Sleep. Rinse. Repeat.” He heard her soft laughter as he eased himself into a slider. “How’s things with you?”
“Good . . . great, actually. Wake. Work. Fuck. Sleep. Rinse. Repeat. What could be bad about that?” she replied.
He’d been taking a swig while she talked.
He swallowed it and said, “Not a damned thing.”
“It’s been a while,” she noted.
It had.
After their gig at the Bolt, they’d seen her and her man a couple of times, accepting her invitation to go to the gladiator games her man, Stellan, ran out east, having Sixx and Stellan over for dinner.
Since then, they’d gone their separate ways.
Sixx texted every once in a while, being a smartass and keeping a connection. He’d texted back, returning the smartass and the connection.
But that was it.
As far as he knew, she didn’t keep in touch with Molly or Maddox like that.
Though he’d never asked.
“Yeah,” he agreed, but said no more because there wasn’t anything to say.
“Listen, I need to ask a favor,” she told him.
“Shoot,” he invited.
“I’ve got a job, and I’m sorry it’s not more notice, but I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do tomorrow night. I need backup. Just eyes and ears, making sure things are copasetic. It isn’t dangerous. But it could take some time, an hour, most two. If you can help out, I can pay in cash.”
Pay in cash.
Diesel sat straighter in the slider.
Sixx was a private investigator. She worked in-house at a law firm, but also took on private jobs. He and Maddox had helped out with one when she was on the case of a drug-dealing, flesh-peddling asshole at the Bolt. It had been serious cool, a major high, and they’d done nothing but pass information, give her cover and act as muscle when she needed it.
Still, it was tons of fun.
“What’s the job?” he asked.
“It’s a client for the firm. I need to do a bit of breaking and entering and on-the-spot hacking. It has to be at night. It has to be tomorrow since the person I’m B and E’ing will be otherwise engaged. But the locale is populated and I’m not totally sure when he’s going to come back. So I need someone on the outside while I’m on the inside and my normal backups are otherwise engaged.”
“I’m in,” he stated immediately.
“Not a Bolt night?”
He looked to his knees.
They’d only been back to the Bolt once since Maddox had worked him with Sixx observing. They usually went two nights a week, the first for D to work Mad, during which he earned his retribution, which would happen the next night.
After that one time they’d gone, and how disconnected he’d been during that particular shesh, not one of them had even suggested they head to their club and he wasn’t so up his own ass he didn’t know why.
Molly and Maddox were looking after him.
They knew the scene before had fucked with him.
So they weren’t pushing it.
“Nope,” D said shortly.
“Cool,” Sixx replied. “We’ll meet up tomorrow. I’ll text you the address. Around eight. Like I said, you should be done at nine, latest ten. That work for you?”
“Yup. You need Maddox too?” he asked.
“No, just one of you. Though appreciate the offer.”
“It’ll be me. You need us again, Maddox can have the next go unless it’s fucking someone up, then I’m calling it.”
He heard her laugh again and he envisioned her face as he listened.
She was nearly as pretty as Molly, but in entirely the opposite way. Tall, angular, short hair, all edge.
“Stellan and me’ll have to have you guys over for dinner sometime soon. I’ll talk to him about it, we’ll set something up,” she said.
“Look forward to that, and I’m sure Mol and Mad will too.”
“Great. I’ll let you go and send the addy via text. See you tomorrow.”