Page 27 of Zeke
“Country.” I walk over to him. I see Eden watching me, but I nod my head in the direction of our bedroom so she knows I don’t plan to be long.
“Hey,” he says, turning to me with a look of exhaustion on his face. “Everything okay?”
“Think so.” I try to give off the same chill attitude I had in the meeting despite not knowing a damn thing about who this guy might be. In my years as a nomad and in MCs, I’ve met many guys with eagle tattoos on their necks. It isn’t original. “You got a minute?”
No sooner do I ask than Julia walks in the front door with a smear of what looks like flour on her face.
“Hey,” Country says, his eyes lighting up.
“Hey,” she replies, an unusually girly smile crossing her face.
“Ahem.” I clear my throat to get their attention. Country seems embarrassed, but Julia gives me a withering look. “I’m actually glad you’re here, Jules. I need to talk to both of you.”
“About what?” Julia asks as Eden, Eli, and Zeke walk by. As they do, she shoots a glare that might make me cower at Zeke.
“First you tell me what that was about and why you missed Church when everyone else managed to be home for it,” I say as we walk into Eden’s empty office. I’m probably the only person who could get away with using it without her around. That’s the thing about being hitched to the Prez. You get a few bonuses others wouldn’t.
I perch on the edge of the desk and motion to the chairs in front of me. Country sits immediately, but Julia doesn’t. “None of your damn business,” she snaps, leaning against the doorway, refusing to take a seat.
“Either you tell me,” I say, “or I put a tail on you and have you followed everywhere you go. Or even better, I follow you and find out myself.”
Julia looks at me like she could kill me on the spot, something she’d been contemplating for a while now, ever since she found out about Eden and Walton. I’d already known when I got here what had happened, and I didn’t tell Julia. She hasn’t forgiven me. Not to mention, I got hitched to the person who killed him.
“Fine,” she says, throwing herself into the seat next to Country. “I got a job.”
“A what?” I ask, unsure what she means. “A job doing what?”
“A job at the bakery,” she replies defiantly, looking up at me with a dangerous expression, as though she’s waiting for me to give her a reason to attack.
“Why do you need a job at the damn bakery?” I ask, glancing at Country. One look at him tells me he was already aware of this. I won’t get help from him.
“I don’tneedit,” she says. “I want it. I’m going to make some friends and do something outside of a club. I already made one, in fact. Kira. The one who—”
“I know who she is. Why get a job?” I ask. “Can’t you just go nomad if that’s what you want?”
“Maybe I want a life beyond my bike,” she spits back at me. “Just because you don’t get it doesn’t mean you can boss me around.”
“I didn’t say a damn thing to boss you around,” I hiss, my voice low. “But Big Red’s right. We can’t go off on our own, even to some dumbass job at a bakery.” She starts to say something to shut me down, but I cut her off, looking at Country. “That’s where you come in.”
“Me?” he asks.
“You. I want you to look after her since I can’t always do it.”
“I’m not giving up my job,” she says.
“Fine,” I reply. “Country, you’re going to ride with her to her job, get her when it’s time to come back, and keep an eye on her during the time between work and other shit.”
“I’m not some little kid who—”
“You got takenonce,” I say, interrupting whatever diatribe she’d been brewing. “That’s all I’ll allow. You’re not going to be put in danger again.”
“I’ll do it,” Country says quietly.
I watch him look at Julia out of the corner of his eye. “Good. Because we don’t know if this is nothing or something to worry about, and Julia’s not going to be a casualty again. Got it?”
“Got it,” Country echoes while Julia seethes at me.
That’s all I have to say, so I stand and usher them out of the office before locking it behind me. I run into Eden at the bottom of the stairs. The first thing she does is lean her head onto my chest, and my arms go around her like we’d rehearsed it. We hadn’t, of course. We were just in sync, connected, and we’ve been like this since the first night in the alley.