Give Me War - Kate McCarthy Page 0,5

how you couldn’t quite get that button done up on your favourite skinny jeans the other day? Yes, I noticed.”

Dammit. My nostrils flare. I wanted Jared to be the first to know. It’s his right. I’m fucking it all up by waiting this long to make it his Christmas gift. Me and my shitty ideas. “Jared doesn’t know.”

“I won’t tell him.”

The roar of motorcycle engines cut through our conversation, the noise blasting my eardrums. I turn my head. Two Harleys are pulling in beside me. One rider on the closest one. Two on the other. They roll to a stop in the park next to mine when there’s a whole parking lot free for their use. “I’ll message you when I get home and we can arrange a time and place to meet!” I shout into the phone.

“What?”

“I’ll call you when I get home!” I yell louder.

“What?”

“Ugh.” I hang up, and I’m texting her the same message, hitting send when the man beside me climbs off his bike, all faded black jeans, torn at the knees and thin white shirt covering a multitude of muscle and ink. He tugs off his helmet, leaving a halo of rumpled black hair.

He turns and I stumble backward, almost hitting the Hilux. “Renny.”

His grin is lazy, those dark eyes of his older, more knowing, as they travel down the length of me and back up again. He seems unsurprised to see me but there’s no time to ponder the anomaly.

He speaks in gruff voice. “Evie, babe.”

My hackles rise. I can hold a grudge for eternity and considering the last I saw of Wild Renny was his back when he left me for dead, that grudge throbs anew, flaying open old wounds. If Henry clapped eyes on this man right now, there would be no holding him back. Henry was the one who picked up the pieces after my ex biker boyfriend walked away.

My eyes flatten on his, as cold and icy as the arctic. “I’m not your babe. Don’t ever call me that.”

His tone is low and measured, something I always liked about him. He never talked shit. Only speaking if there was something worth saying, and those around him would always pay attention. “Still sassy.” Something he always liked about me. I know because he told me.

“Is you being here some kind of weird coincidence, or did you look me up so you could shoot the shit about old times? Like how your bike went off the road that one time and you almost killed the both of us? Or the fact that you waltzed out of that hospital like I was nothing to you?”

Renny shrugs, folding tattooed arms and turning his head out to the ocean while his friends remain on the other bike, seemingly content to just sit there. “Pissed about that, huh?”

“Pissed?” My brows almost fly off my face. “Pissed?”

His eyes find mine, dark and cold. “I was over the limit, Evie babe. They woulda put me in jail.”

“I wish they had,” I hiss.

He shrugs like it’s all in the past and doesn’t matter anymore.

“Why are you here?”

“I’m here for you.”

“What do you mean, here for me?” My eyes shift to his bike. The black paint work gleams in the early morning sun, but it’s the snake adorning the side that makes the breath catch in my throat. The Black Vipers. The biggest, baddest biker gang in the country. Panic begins to creep in. My eyes shift back to his, confused. I mean Renny was an asshole, but this? The Vipers? This isn’t him. He doesn’t belong with those treacherous, blood-thirsty bastards. “Renny? What are you—”

“I’m sorry, Evie.” He unfolds his arms and starts toward me, determination darkening his eyes. “But you’re coming with me.”

2

JARED

Daddy, more!” Wolf demands from his seat at the dining table, having chewed through his chocolate pancake.

I jolt, disturbed from my blank stare out the kitchen window. Giving my son a smile, I pour batter into the pan while Wolf squeezes maple syrup all over his empty plate. My gaze returns to the window while it cooks, my vision blurring.

I love Evie. Down to the bone. She belongs with me. But I’m losing her and I don’t know how to fix it. In the beginning, the distance between us was so slight it was easily dismissible. We’re busy. We both work. We have a kid. A big extended family. Life gets in the way. But each month the disappointment in her eyes would get a little