With that, I pushed away, nodded my thanks to Eddie and moved to Mag.
He took my hand, and connected, we walked out of that room.
Well down the hall, I started, “Danny—”
“We’ll talk when we get home.”
I looked up and saw how hard his jaw was, therefore asked tremulously, “Are you angry with me?”
He stopped abruptly, released my hand, turned to me, cupped my face and bent so his eyes were so close to mine, another inch, and I could give him butterfly kisses.
“No, I am not angry with you,” he decreed roughly.
But that was all he said.
So I replied, “Okay.”
“Okay,” he grunted, took control of my hand and started us walking again.
“Were you watching?” I asked.
“Got there around the time you made him look at you. Determined to give you space to do what you needed to do. Got done doin’ that when he said, ‘fuck you.’”
Well, one good thing about that, he already knew my brother was a douche canoe.
“So, I’m your boyfriend, huh?” he asked.
Oh shit!
He gave me a look I couldn’t quite read, though I knew it wasn’t bad, before he pushed open the door that led into reception.
We both stopped dead when we got into the waiting area.
It was crowded.
Not just with Lottie and Tex, Ryn, Hattie and Pepper, and Dutch and his two hottie-biker buddies.
But now also Mo, Boone, Auggie, Axl, a dude that at first glance I thought was Hank’s twin and another hot guy I would almost immediately know was Luke, Ava’s husband, seeing as she, Indy, Jet and Roxie were coming through the front doors as we entered reception and Ava went right to him and got a lip touch.
The other dude was Lee because he and Indy did the same.
Most of these people, I barely knew.
All of these people were mine.
Suddenly, I couldn’t wait for Gert to meet Mag, Mo, Lottie and the guys.
She was going to love them.
“I’m hungry!” Tex boomed. “I’m also feelin’ Mexican. Anyone up for Las Delicias?”
“Does anyone ever turn down LD?” Indy asked.
“I’m callin’ Nancy,” Tex stated, making his way to the door. “You call the gang,” he ordered Indy. “I’ll get the tables and extra chips and salsa.”
Then he was gone.
Guess he was hungry.
I looked up to Mag. “We should get you home.”
He looked down to me. “Feedin’ you first.”
“Honey, you were shot today.”
“I’m fine.”
“Danny—”
“Baby, what did I say this morning?”
That morning felt like ten years ago.
“Which part?”
“About a man who takes care of his woman.”
I clamped my mouth shut.
He seemed okay with me calling him my boyfriend.
But was I his woman?
I didn’t ask that.
But Mag asked a question.
“Do you like Mexican?”
“I love it.”
When he got that answer, he smiled.
Chapter Fifteen
Drop
Mag
Mag let himself and Evie into his condo, flipped on the lights, then made sure the door was locked behind her before he moved in, tossed his keys on the island and went direct for the Fireball.
His shoulder was killing him.
As the doctor ordered, he should have popped a pill and rested after Baldy got done with him.
He did not.
Now it wasn’t early, it wasn’t late, and he’d take a painkiller, but only when he knew Evie was settled after the day she’d had.
They’d not had the dinner he’d wanted to treat her to prior to taking her to a movie.
They’d had a chaotic dinner where people from the Rock Chick and Chaos crews descended from all around Denver, which meant around five hundred were in attendance, and the only reason it didn’t drive him around the bend was how obvious Evie made it that she was enjoying herself.
She made this more obvious by babbling at him the entire way home about how Axl and Hattie, Boone and Ryn, and Pepper and Auggie were dancing around each other, but she could tell the girls, and the guys, were interested.
Also, how great Lottie and Mo were together, how happy she was for them and how she couldn’t wait for their wedding.
As well as how, after starting to read that Rock Chick book at Fortum’s, she thought Lee would scare her with his over-the-top “alpha-ness,” but it was Luke who freaked her out.
And how she thought people in a motorcycle club were supposed to be terrifying, but Joker was “so cute” with his wife and kids.
She’d only quit babbling at him when she started talking on her phone after getting a call in the elevator.
He didn’t know she was such a talker, but he didn’t mind the babbling. It indicated she was getting more comfortable with him and he was all kinds of down with that.
Not to mention, it communicated she seemed to be happy about just about…everything.
In fact, the best part of the night was her babbling, seeing as he spent the dinner sitting next to her with her face the way it looked, his arm in a sling, putting up with people not in their crew sending them pitying looks, probably thinking they got in a car wreck or something.
Mag never thought he’d wish for a car wreck, but he’d prefer that to the reality that he’d let it get to the point where Evie had been dragged from her home, then tied to a chair and beaten.
He found the Fireball wasn’t in the freezer, it was on the counter.
Apparently, Evie and/or her girls had helped themselves to his crutch.
It was not as good at room temp as when it was chilled, but he wasn’t going to quibble.
He was pulling down shot glasses when Evie said, “Thanks, that’s really appreciated. You take care too. ’Bye.”
He had his hand wrapped around the bottle but his eyes to her when she took the phone from her ear.
“My apartment manager,” she explained. “He shared he was not entirely at one with the police coming and going, dusting for prints and the like. And he was definitely not at one with gunplay on the landing, but he assured me the window is all boarded up, my door is secure, and he’s promised to have that window replaced Monday, latest Tuesday. Even so, he was worried there might be something of value in there some other hooligan, his word, might wish to commit a crime to take from me and that boarded-up window might not be much of a deterrent. But since Lottie and Ava brought over my jewelry and three pairs of my Chucks, and the rest I don’t care about, it’ll all be good. Except the Chucks that were left behind, and no one will take those. Though I’d like to swing by tomorrow and grab my vinyl.”
She paused to take a big breath, then finished.
“And the rest of my Chucks.”
“We’ll do that,” Mag told her, and finally turned his attention to pouring the shots.
“I’ll do that. I’ll ask Boone or Auggie or Axl to go with me,” she said, approaching him at the island. “You’re gonna drink that shot you shouldn’t drink after losing a goodly amount of blood today, then you’re going to go lie down, and tomorrow, you’re going to rest all day.”