CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
*Baylor “Bae” Secretary*
Kal, Vee, Kio, and Chaz exit the endo track, each passing Lace on their way out. But when it is my turn to pass her, I stop, breaking the formation and cutting our crew in half. Brodi, Zane, and Coty stop behind me. Her focus bounces between us yet refuses to reach my eyes.
“Get on,” I grind out. She has always been way more receptive to directives when they come packaged a little prettier, like in the form of a question or with options, for example, but this time there is nothing pretty about it. A tense sense of urgency to run swims in her brown eyes, and I refuse to give her the opportunity.
Panic churns with that underlying urgency as she darts a look over her shoulder, searching the swelling crowd for Jess. My tongue touches the top of my mouth to secure her with a demanding, “Now,” but when Jess is nowhere to be found, Lace rushes forward, taps down my passenger peg with the toe of her platform, and mounts my bike before the word leaves my lips.
Thankfully, the parking area is just on the other side of the vendor booths; any farther away and the fact that she is keeping her hands on her thighs rather than wrapping them around me for support would have to be addressed.
We regroup with the others soon enough even though we get a little hung up in the early lunch crowd walking from their parking spaces to the event. Our numbers have dwindled by two, though; Coty and Kio have disappeared. Kio is still here somewhere, his bike parked with the rest of ours, but Coty must have left, his Duc nowhere in sight.
Chaz is already approaching us on foot, ready to take Lace shopping as promised. I pat her knee, and she dismounts. While I turn off the bike and put my kickstand down, he wraps a protective, yet imprisoning, arm around her shoulders.
Having Lace in our custody and nothing else pressing on the schedule today, I feel like I can finally breathe properly again. Just to make sure, while getting off my bike, I reset by sucking in a huge lungful of salty and exhaust-filled breeze. On the exhale, I walk forward to stand in front of Lace.
Chaz drops his arm, releasing her, then steps back to give us a moment alone.
Her focus immediately angles away. I would take it personally but have witnessed her act similarly to a couple of the other guys more than once today.
Is that behavior acceptable, though? No.
“Eyes on me,” I instruct.
Lace presses her lips together and her small nose flares, but she obeys; amber orbs boring into mine, she finally acknowledges me.
“Thank you,” I whisper, my focus dropping to scan the rest of her beautiful face. When I look up again, her eyes are ardently tracking mine. Inside them, all the questions in the Universe are popping up like fat stars ready to burst. I have always loved that about her — that hunger for knowledge. Not right now, though. Not when all those questions are dark with accusations.
Her harshly inquisitive eyes follow every movement as I reach inside my jacket and take out the piece of surgical cloth Brodi instructed me to keep handy just in case my stab wound reopened. “Your lipstick smudged,” I explain, dampening a small part of the material with my tongue, curling her bleached hair behind her ear, and bringing the cloth up to the corner of her mouth.
A very unexpected upward tick of her lips gives me pause. My hand freezes and my focus flings back up to her eyes. Gaze sparkling, she chuckles warily and says, “You should see the other guy.”
Trying not to laugh, I continue cleaning up the mess Kal made of her — something we have all been doing for a few years now.
Moving her mouth as little as possible, in classic Lace fashion, she prods: “Where did he run off to, by the way?”
“Back to the saloon. That guy, Jude, was only holding down the fort long enough for us to do the demonstration.” Finished cleaning up the smudge marks, I chuck her on the chin, fold the cloth, and slide it back into the inside pocket of my jacket flush against the assignment folder.
Once again tracking my movements, she nods and thanks me, but her thoughts travel somewhere else, her eyes widening slightly, and a tease of clarity lighting them up. With a newly determined set to her shoulders, her gaze meets mine again. “Can we talk?” She raises a single brow. “Alone?”
I want to tell her yes, but whether or not we can talk about the things she is often so curious about is always up in the air, depending on the sensitivity of the topic.
I steal a glance around to assess the situation; with six out of eight Hell for Leather men loitering, everyone is keeping a wide berth from us, but even still, the location is not ideal. Plus, I assume by alone she probably means away from the other club members, too. “Later perhaps.”
Well-practiced in our ways, she accepts my vague decision and finds Chaz over her shoulder to let him know we are ready to browse the vendors.