Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 156796 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156796 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
I gaped at her.
“How do you even—”
“Know?” she finished for me after gulping down the rest of her coffee like a frat boy chugging beer. “Oh, there’re no secrets in the club. Especially when Lucky has anything to do with it. He has the biggest mouth of us all. He loves gossip more than Perez Hilton. We’re like a hive mind. It’s a bit crazy, but you’ll get used to it. We’re pretty fucking awesome too, if I do say so myself. And I took it upon myself to be the welcome wagon.” She paused. “And I may be escaping my teething baby and letting my husband deal with it. But I was the one up all night and he was the one away on a run, so it served him right for having those fucking strong swimmers.”
Her phone buzzed in her purse for like the hundredth time.
“Uh, do you need to get that?” I asked, hoping she would so I could escape the situation. Because I feared that this kind, beautiful, and almost definitely a little bit insane woman would yank the truth out of me. The one I’d been ignoring.
She grinned, glancing at her purse. “Oh no, that’ll just be Brock freaking out about what diaper rash cream to use. For a big bad biker, he seems to get pretty stressed about such things. It’s character building. Plus, he’ll be pissed at me when I get home. And that means angry sex.” She winked.
I blushed into my tea. Not that I was a virgin—that had been taken care of with an awkward, fumbling, and painful encounter in college—but I wasn’t exactly open to talking about it in public with a woman I’d just met.
Not that I was judging.
I’d always kind of dreamed of having those Sex and the City moments with my girlfriends in a café, talking about men, supporting each other, and laughing over nothing, crying over everything.
But I wasn’t a woman who had girlfriends. Nor was I a woman who had men to talk about. I didn’t laugh over nothing, and I couldn’t cry, because if I did, I’d never stop.
“So now that we’ve established that I know everything about you threatening to have Gage arrested—absolutely kickass, by the way—him dragging you into his room—that came from Gwen, not Lucky, and she thinks you’re kickass too—and him picking you up and dropping you off at your place of work even though you can almost throw a stone and hit the offices of the Amber Star.” She smiled as Lacey wordlessly placed another coffee in front of her and swept away her empty mug. “Definitely changing Elijah’s name,” she muttered, staring dreamily into the mug.
She jerked after a second of silence. “Where were we?” she asked, not waiting for me to answer. “Right, you were about to tell me about you and Gage. And just to let you know, this isn’t because I’m nosy.” A pause. “Okay, not entirely because I’m nosy, but because I’ve been through this before. And as much as I love my husband, and I really do, it’s a hard road to get used to being an old lady. The title itself almost broke Brock and me. Calling me old. What are they, suicidal?” She shook her head. “But it’s hard, and not something you can get through without emotional support. I’m here for that. And, of course, because I’m nosy.”
She waited expectantly as she sipped more of her coffee.
I watched her, a little dumbfounded, but a warmth had settled around me at her constant and easy chatter. At the fact that she seemed welcome, opening. Not like those women who were polished and intimidating and judgmental. Who lived for pointing out other women’s insecurities just because it made them feel better.
So I told her.
Everything.
And I had convinced myself it was nothing.
But I was on my second cup of tea and she was on her third cup of coffee—no idea how she wasn’t shaking—by the time I was finished.
“And now, well, I have no idea what the heck is going on,” I said, glancing down at the lukewarm liquid in my mug.
I looked up and she was gaping at me.
“Holy shit,” she whispered. “I’m gonna level with you here, babe. This is gonna get worse before it gets better. Partly because Gage is a patched member of the Sons of Templar and this courtship hasn’t had so much as a shooting, let alone a car bomb.” The casual and serious way she said that disturbed me slightly, but Amy soldiered on. “But mostly because this is Gage, and he makes everyone else look tame and well-adjusted.” She reached over to squeeze my hand. “He’s a good guy, don’t get me wrong. But he’s fucking insane. The best ones are.” She patted my hand. “I’m never gonna be about judging a book by its cover because I think it’s a total dick move, but I’m gonna take a shot in the dark and say your life has not been about fucking insane but hot-as-balls bikers who like to blow things up.”