looked out at us and said, “I still want you boys to take every precaution; be certain you do your part to make sure this run goes off without a hitch.”
“You know we will,” Murphy assured him.
“That’s what I wanted to hear.” He stood as he said, “You know what needs to be done to get things ready for the morning. Make sure it gets done.”
“Understood.”
As soon as Gus left the table, church was over. Each of us left the conference room and headed to prepare for the run. It was the same every time—inspect the weapons and ammunition, check the contents of each crate, and prep the trailers we’d use to haul the load. We all did our part in getting everything sorted for each and every run. Murphy and I had just finished checking all the munitions with Hyde when Shadow, the club’s enforcer, came over to us.
“Everything set?”
“Yeah, we’re all good here.”
“All right. I’ll let Gus know.” A smirk crossed Shadow’s face as he asked, “How’d it go with the move the other day?”
“I think it went pretty well.” It’d been almost a week since the party, but I could still remember the smile on her face when she talked about her place. “She seems happy with it.”
“She’s more than happy,” Clay added. “Hell, I haven’t seen her that excited since she was a kid.”
“Glad to hear it. Sorry we couldn’t help out. Alex had a big shipment come into the bookstore, so we were pretty wrapped up.”
“Don’t worry about it. We managed just fine.” Clay gave him a pat on the shoulder. “You missed some good eatin’ though. Murphy made us one hell of a burger.”
“Hate I missed it.”
“We’ll do it again soon. Landry has been wanting have everyone over at our place.”
“Sounds good.”
As Clay turned to leave, he said, “I’ll see you boys in the morning.”
“Have a good one.” Once he’d left, Shadow turned his attention back to me, and I could tell by his expression that he had something on his mind. “So, what’s Clay think about you and Alyssa?”
“What about me and Alyssa?”
He cocked his eyebrow. “You know.”
“Nah, man. There’s nothing going on between us.”
“I don’t know, brother. From what I’m hearing, she was all about the Bone the other night at the party.”
I knew he was just fucking with me, so I shook my head and said, “Bullshit. You and I both know better than that.”
“I don’t have any idea. I wasn’t there.” He studied me for a moment, then asked, “Have you seen her since?”
“Yeah, she made me dinner.” It seemed all my brothers had it in their head that something was up with Alyssa and me, and to my surprise, none had seemed to have an issue with it. That was something I didn’t quite understand. I would’ve thought they’d have told me to steer clear; instead, they seemed to be encouraging it. I could see the wheels turning in his head, so I quickly added, “It was no big deal. She just wanted to do something to thank me for helping her find a place.”
“Mm-hmm. Sure,” he scoffed. “Whatever you say, boss.”
He gave me a brotherly slap on the back, then turned and walked away, leaving me wondering if I’d been wrong about this whole dinner. It was a thought that stuck with me as I headed home for the night. I won’t deny that I was intrigued by the idea of there being something more going on between us, but I’d already gone over it a million fucking times. There was no way in hell it would ever work, so I wasn’t going to waste any more time thinking about it. Besides, I didn’t have time for distractions. I needed to be focused on the run and nothing else. I held that resolve as I made it to the house and went straight to bed. It felt like I’d just gone to sleep when the time came for me to get up and head back to the clubhouse. Not wanting to be late, I forced myself out of bed, grabbed some coffee, and minutes later, I was on my way.
When I pulled through the gate, I saw that Murphy was already busy checking the trailers. I parked, then walked over to give him a hand. “Hey, brother. What do you need me to do?”
“You can start bringing the crates over so we can get them loaded.” He motioned his hand towards the clubhouse garage. “Shadow and Riggs are