Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76807 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76807 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Maybe normally it wouldn’t bother me, since I’d always been around to babysit them all.
It was just… things were different now.
My priorities had shifted.
Sure, the club was still fucking important to me. But I was starting to see that it couldn’t be my everything. I’d really been narrowing down my life for years.
Suddenly, with Cali’s reappearance, it felt like it was breaking wide open again.
I no longer wanted to spend every night of my life babysitting prospects, putting kinks in their plans, being the wet blanket to their nonsense.
They were grown-ass men.
They could take care of themselves.
And if they overstepped a line, they lost their spot.
It didn’t need to be more complicated than that.
I didn’t have to be their fucking drill sergeant anymore.
Fuck.
That thought landed like a damn punch to the gut. Because that’s exactly what I’d been since Fallon had given me my title. A goddamn drill sergeant. Nitpicking, bossing people around, keeping my standards so high that no one could meet them, no matter how much they tried.
I’d become exactly what I’d been trying to run away from when I’d joined this club instead of going into the military.
I’d become my father.
“You good?” Voss asked, making me look over, not realizing he’d moved in at my side.
“Yeah, why?”
“Cursing to yourself,” he said, shrugging as he tipped back his beer.
Had I been?
I wasn’t surprised.
Not with a fucking realization like that.
How the hell had I missed it? How had I let that happen?
All those years of hating that man for putting me through hell, of never thinking I was good enough, of never being allowed to let loose and have fun like everyone else my age. All the while swearing to myself I wouldn’t follow in his footsteps, I wouldn’t become what he wanted me to be.
Then I did exactly that.
Just in a different capacity than I’d been expecting.
A grumble moved through me as I went around the bar, finding a rocks glass, and pouring myself something stronger than the usual one beer I ever allowed myself.
If there was ever something to drink about, realizing you’d become the man you’d loathed your whole life was it.
I pounded the one round and poured another as Fallon started to move to the center of the room, ready to start church.
There wasn’t really much to talk about. But church was a tradition that helped keep the club members on the same page, even when we all had very different jobs. Especially now as the club was investing in more legitimate businesses in an attempt to wash our money and stay under the government’s radar.
Conversation was only just starting to quiet down as people sensed the meeting about to begin, when we suddenly heard a car door slam outside.
I glanced around, trying to figure out if anyone was missing, but all the members were accounted for who were usually around.
Was it one of the OG guys coming to hang out?
The princesses knew to stay away on church nights.
Even as I was still trying to figure out who it might be, though, the door was flying open, and my heart was dropping to my feet to see Cali standing there, her eyes wide with panic.
“Here we go,” Fallon said with a smirk and a head shake.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Cali
I was second-guessing myself the whole ride back to my apartment. The bigger part of me wanted to turn the car into each jug handle I passed, to head back toward the clubhouse, climb into Brooks’s bed, feel him curl his arms around me, and stay the night with him.
The other part, though, that was trying to be smart and rational, knew that I needed to be in my own place to be able to get ready for work in the morning.
Maybe, if things progressed the way I was praying they would, I could keep some basics at the clubhouse. Just enough to allow me to get myself ready for one day of work. That way, I could crash if I felt like it.
But I didn’t feel like we were at a point yet that I could ask for that kind of thing.
“God, get a grip,” I grumbled to myself as I sat at a red light.
It was one night.
I was acting like I was never going to see the man again.
He would be coming over to my place to spend the night in just, what, twelve hours or so.
I had to stop being so needy.
Things were too new.
I mean, objectively, it wasn’t exactly new like most relationships were new. We’d been close to each other most of our lives. It wasn’t like I didn’t know the man and was walking around with heart eyes already.
But I just didn’t want to scare him away with the intensity of my feelings. While I may have been in love with him since I was old enough to be capable of things like that, he’d always seen me as his best friend’s little sister. Not a valid love interest.