Though I sensed the problem was not guarding me.
It was having a thing with Ryn.
Even so, I looked to him and said, “It’s been days since I’ve been kidnapped. Not to mention, Danny and me went to my apartment yesterday to check it out. It’s still a mess, but I have a window and the mess was the same mess, not a new one. So hopefully I’m out of the woods and you boys will be off Evie duty soon.”
He just grunted again, but this time it formed no words.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Sure,” he lied.
Hmm.
Time to take the direct approach.
“So, um…Pepper said you and Ryn had a thing. Is everything all right with that?”
He said nothing.
“Not my business,” I muttered, turning to look out the windshield.
After a long while, he announced, “We all got it, you know.”
I looked to him again. “Got what?”
“Issues,” he stated. “After shit we’ve seen, shit we’ve done.”
“Right,” I said softly.
“We share, talk it out.”
I was glad they did that.
Boone kept going.
“Mag’s told us you’ve seen him lose it.”
Hmm.
“It is what it is, Boone,” I replied. “I can’t say how right now, but as his friend, I want to assure you, I like him a lot, so I’m determined we’ll find our way.”
“Me, it’s sex.”
I blinked at his profile after he shared this in a way he sounded like he didn’t want to, he had to, and I whispered, “Sorry?”
“Sex. For me. Outside talking to the guys, that’s how I work it out.”
“Okay,” I said softly. Then quickly, I went on, “You don’t have to—”
“And control.”
I pressed my lips together.
“You get what I’m sayin’ to you, Evie?”
“I don’t know,” I replied carefully.
“You don’t need this shit,” he muttered.
That was when I really looked at him in the dashboard lights.
And what I saw was that he was messed up.
“I can take whatever shit you wanna give me, Boone,” I told him quietly.
“Yeah, that’s you. You lived your whole life taking shit. You don’t need mine.”
“Well, the shit I took was from people who didn’t care about me. You just gave your Sunday night to keep me safe. You tackled the bad guy for me through smoke grenades billowing. In this kind of thing, it isn’t tit for tat. But just to say, you’ve given yours, but that isn’t the only reason I’m down to give mine.”
He didn’t say anything.
“But if you don’t want to share, Boone, I won’t be hurt. Promise.”
“I had it in me, you know, before shit went down when I was in the service. It went into overdrive after.”
“It?”
He glanced at me.
He looked back to the road.
Another glance at me.
Then back to the road and, “I’m a Dom.”
“A Dom?” I asked.
“A Dominant. A Dom. In sex.”
Okay, so we weren’t sharing.
We were sharing.
“Boone, I—”
“She’s a sub.”
“Ryn?” I asked in surprise.
“Yeah,” he said.
That didn’t track.
Outside Lottie (and Mag), Ryn was one of the most dominant personalities I knew.
Then again, I didn’t know how these things worked, maybe she was so in charge all the time, she had to find ways to let go.
“You really don’t have to share this with me if you don’t want to,” I told him quietly.
“Am I making you uncomfortable?”
“No, I mean, you just watched me strip for eight hours.”
“Yeah.” He was back to grunting.
Hmm.
I had a feeling the guys weren’t much happier than Mag would be, watching me strip.
Then again, whenever I caught them out in the crowd, they weren’t looking at me but scanning the area.
And I was learning, such was the brotherhood, they’d do anything for Mag.
And possibly, for me.
“But like I said, I’m happy to listen if you want to talk,” I told him.
“It’s not that I wanna, it’s that I gotta. Shit festers. I learned, you get it out.”
“Well, I’m here to lay it on, Boone.”
Another grunt, this time forming the word “Thanks.”
Light dawned and I said, “The lap dance.”
He gave a jerky nod. “I’m into her. Made that clear. She’s putting me off. And that’s okay. Her prerogative. Not how my mind works, though.”
Oh boy.
“So you kinda already in your head think Ryn’s yours, and she’s giving lap dances.”
Another grunt with his “Yeah.”
This was a problem because, like all of us, Ryn worked at Smithie’s because she had to.
“It’s not the stripping,” Boone declared, like he could read my thoughts. “I’m down with look, don’t touch. And she’s gotta make a living. I’m not that kind of Dom where I inject myself into shit like that. It’s the lap dances. That’s not in her control, or mine. And that’s not good. It fucks with me.”
“Well, Boone—”
“You don’t give lap dances,” he noted.
“Only the girls who are okay to do that, do that,” I shared.
“Yeah, so she could not do that.”
I couldn’t argue that, though I had to admit, even if I sucked at it and it was major euw, in times when I was hurting financially, I’d considered it. It mega upped your tips.