“I asked, she wouldn’t give,” Diesel told them.
“I asked, and she wouldn’t give it to me either,” Molly said quietly.
“That means not only are they ranting all their bullshit hurt and anger to her, they’re probably trying to push her to talk some sense into me or get me to come home so they can do it,” D surmised. “And she’s trying to shield me from all that.”
Maddox ran his hand over the side of Diesel’s hip. “Brother, don’t let their bullshit sink under your skin. Rebel’s tough. She’s got your back. She’ll be good and we’ve got her all weekend. We’ll get in there.”
“We all knew this would happen. Rebel knew it better than any of us, except you, DD,” Molly put in.
“Yeah,” D mumbled.
Molly pressed into him. “We’ll all get through this, Rebel too.”
“They’re gonna push her until they lose her,” D replied.
“Their choice. Rebel’s too,” Maddox said carefully.
“I know, still sucks.”
“Honey, it isn’t you that’s tearing your family apart. It’s them,” Molly pointed out.
“I know, baby,” Diesel said gently. “It still sucks.”
“Yeah,” she whispered.
D took in and then let out a huge breath.
After that, he shared, “Loved watchin’ her walk off that plane. Loved rappin’ with her in my truck on the way home. Loved watchin’ you two welcome her like she’s your own sister. It’s what I can give to this. What I can give to us.”
“Part of what you can give, D,” Maddox rumbled.
“Yeah, but a good part,” D returned. “And their shit is fucking with a good thing.”
“You need to let it go, honey,” Molly advised.
“No, darlin’, D needs to let it out,” Maddox revised. “This is big shit. Not good shit. And just gonna say, man,” Maddox slid his hand back and gave D’s ass a squeeze, “I’m glad you’re talkin’ it out.”
“Yeah, me too,” Molly added. “Forget about me saying you need to let it go. Unless you let it go all over us.”
Her words made Diesel’s body start shaking with laughter.
And that made Molly slap at his chest. “And no, you can’t make a comment about letting it go all over me.”
That was when D felt Maddox’s body add to shaking the bed.
“You can’t either, Mad,” she snapped, twisting her head to look at her man behind her through the shadows.
Mad’s voice was also shaking when he reminded her, “Wasn’t me he shot all over fifteen minutes ago.”
“Does everything have to be about sex with you two?” she asked snippily.
“Yes,” Diesel answered.
“Totally,” Maddox said at the same time.
“Jeez,” Molly muttered.
Her men kept laughing.
Maddox used his arm around them to pull them in tighter.
Diesel did the same with his arm until Molly was practically crunched between them.
Molly let out a big sigh and whispered, “I love my guys, even when they’re completely annoying.”
“Back at you,” Diesel replied.
“Same,” Maddox said.
“When am I annoying?” Molly asked.
Neither man was going to field that one.
Molly snuggled in, murmuring, “Yeah, even when you’re completely annoying.”
Diesel grinned in the dark.
Maddox gave his ass another squeeze.
He returned the gesture.
Then D closed his eyes, settled into the warm tangle of bodies, and he fell asleep.
Maddox
“You find you like it, D, I’ll talk to Branch at the Honey. He’s their operating manager. I think they have their security tight, but I’m sure he always needs good people on his radar. They get an opening, he might want to talk to you,” Sixx said.
It was Saturday night.
They were talking about D’s taking extra work at the Bolt as a Dungeon Master while sitting around Sixx and Stellan’s huge-ass, kickass dining room table that spread out along a row of arched French doors with a view to a pool deck. All of this was in a massive great room that was in a gigantic mansion in Paradise Valley.
The place was fucking amazing.
It also wasn’t surprising.
Sixx was a badass but she was a stylish one. She dressed like a model, was graceful, confident, sharp and she made edgy, which was not Maddox’s thing, hot.
Stellan, her man, on the other hand, was pure class, including classically handsome. His woman dressed like a model, he just looked like one (though he dressed like one as well, his clothes were just as sophisticated as he was, and he was off-the-charts with the urbane).
The dude was obviously dripping in money.
He was also straight-up good people.
He didn’t act like he’d welcomed them for some amazing dish of salmon covered in some sauce that was like heaven on your tongue and an open, stocked, top-shelf liquor cabinet, his backyard landscaping, to Mad’s professional eye, exceptionally designed and maintained, his big pool lighting the area, including clean-lined deck furniture, like it was a resort.
When they’d arrived, Stellan and Sixx made it clear they’d entered a home, not a showplace.
They also made it clear they were not only welcome there, but wanted there.
Like family.
Stellan Lange was interested, interesting, and even though he did not hide even a little bit he was a total snob, that shit wasn’t about being elitist. It was just a part of who he was.
He could afford the good stuff that allowed him to be a snob about having good stuff.
But he wasn’t a snob about people.
The entire time—from arriving, getting drinks, chatting over some cheese melted with some jelly in puff pastry spread over crackers that was unbelievably delicious, then sitting down where they were to a dinner Stellan and Sixx let them all help carry to the table—had been great.
Except, as the night progressed, and Rebel’s purse chimed, then vibrated, it was also coming clear that Stellan was not wealthy as fuck because he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth (though Mad had a feeling he was).
He was entirely clued in.
To everything.
Including Rebel’s increasingly tense manner that got increasingly tense as her phone kept going and she was running out of ways to hide she kept checking it.
The table could sit twice their party, and then some, but they only occupied one end, with Stellan at the head, Sixx to his left, D next to her. Rebel was to Stellan’s right, and Maddox had made Molly sit next to Rebel and took the odd man out seat at the end of their side.
He still heard Rebel’s phone buzz in her purse hanging on the back of her seat, something Stellan’s gaze wandering to her chair told Mad he heard too, as Molly answered, “That’d be cool, Diesel. Working security at the Honey. Wow. I’ve always wanted to see what it looked like inside there.”
“A tour can be arranged, I’m sure,” Sixx replied.
“Just turn it off,” Diesel bit out.
On his trek to look that way, Mad caught Stellan’s gaze cutting to Diesel.
Sixx’s did too.
But Maddox felt Molly’s eyes on him.
It didn’t have to be said, throughout the day, they hadn’t gotten Rebel to share how much crap she was taking from D’s family.
But the texts, calls, and vibrations when she turned the ringer off were not lost on any of them.