Cress gasped and held an agonized hand to her heart.
H.R. giggled.
“Satan kicks ass,” Mute decided to say.
We all stared at him for a second, surprised he’d spoken and even more surprised he’d read such a difficult book.
To my infinite joy, he blushed and looked at me to explain, “King liked it so I read it.”
His best friend slung an arm around his shoulders because that was how he operated, close and casual, even with a man who didn’t like to be touched. “I fuckin’ agree. Satan’s the shit. And hey, if Mute’s read it then H.R., you gotta too.”
She rolled her eyes. “Unlike you, I’m not trying to get into Cress’s pants so I’m gonna pass.”
All of us, even Mute, laughed.
King smiled smugly and tucked Cress under his other arm. “Who said I was still tryin’?”
It was Cress’s turn to roll her eyes. “The second you stop trying is the second I’m gone.”
King winked at me, completely unperturbed by the threat. “She’s fulla shit. Got my fuckin’ words tattooed on her skin. She knows she’s my Queen for fuckin’ life.”
I laughed at their banter as I always did and started to unwrap a cherry lollipop. I noticed with feminine satisfaction that Zeus’s burning gaze immediately landed on my mouth. I pretended not to notice him as I rolled the round red treat between my lips then sucked it hard into my mouth.
He groaned softly and the hand in mine pulled away so he could tuck it into the back pocket of my jeans and squeeze my ass.
I was so distracted by his wicked grin that I didn’t notice when we all pulled up in front of Bones Barber Shop. It was only when the bells chimed over the door as we entered the old-fashioned wood-paneled space that I stopped to take in my surroundings.
There were brothers everywhere. Men in leather cuts with long hair and long beards looking hungover as shit because it was the first day of the New Year and they’d partied hard in only the way true rebels know how to party the night before.
I frowned at them all.
“Stella’s is down the street,” I informed them.
“Nothin’ funny,” Nova declared, wincingly holding his handsome head from where he was sprawled half in and half out of a chair. “In fact, no fuckin’ talkin’ ’less it’s absolutely necessary.”
“Hit the bottle too hard last night?” Cress laughed at him.
He grinned. “Two bottles of Patrón and a pair of twins up from Vancouver. Was fuckin’ worth it.”
“Seriously, what are we all doing here?” I asked, turning to Zeus because he was being conspicuously silent.
He stared at me with his arms crossed, his booted feet spread apart like a general about to issues orders for war.
“Told the brothers why I cut off my hair. They’re here to do the same.”
I blinked at him and in that time, the tears came.
Fuck but I hated to cry but fuck if this wasn’t the time to do it.
I brought my fist to my mouth to stop the sobs and turned slowly again to face the twenty odd bikers coalesced in the room. They all stared at me with varying degrees of solemnity.
“Don’t try an’ talk us outta it, Foxy,” Buck grumbled from his chair. He had coarse grey hair he wore in a short queue at the back of his red neck. “Not askin’ your permission. Just figured you’d wanna be a part of it.”
I took a deep breath, in and out as I felt the Garros surround my back and H.R. came up beside me to take my hand.
“Cress and I are cuttin’ ours too. Just to our shoulders but we got long hair and we’re gonna donate the clippings to the cancer foundation that makes wigs for chemo patients,” she explained in a sweet voice I only heard from her rarely, usually when she was speaking to her dad, brother or Cress.
And she was using it with me. While holding my hand. And telling me that she was going to cut off half of her thick, crazy-beautiful hair for me.
“This is way too much,” I whispered because my voice wouldn’t work properly past the lump in my throat.
Zeus’s heat hit my back a second before his arms wrapped around me and his voice moved through my body as he said, “Nothin’s ever too much for family.”
I deep breathed as I stood in the circle of Z’s arms, in the circle of his blood family and within the greater circle of his chosen one and I knew then if I’d ever doubted it before, that I had made the right choice in choosing Z,and more, in believing enough in myself to have made that choice at all.
He waited a beat to let me collect myself then stepped forward, rolling up the sleeves of the black Henley he wore under his cut and saying, “Let’s get this show on the fuckin’ road so we can hit Stella’s for some fuckin’ grease and pancakes. Someone hand me one of those fuckin’ shavers. I’m doin’ Nova’s hair. That pretty boy’s always had it comin’ to ’im.”