“I’ll go first,” I say, taking her face in my hands, I stare down into her eyes. “I love you, Katrina. You’re fucking it for me.”
“Ry,” she breathes, her eyes filling with tears. “I love you too. Both of you. So much.”
Laughter gets louder from the living room and we’ve little choice but to break apart, although not until I’ve given my girl another knee-weakening kiss that does little for the hard-on I’m trying to sink.
“Later,” I promise.
“You better bring your A game, Montrou.”
“When the fuck don’t I?”
“Ryder, man. You’ve been taking a shit for twenty minutes. We need to go,” Styx calls, making Kat laugh.
“Fuck,” I grunt, forcing myself away from my girl.
“You really need to tell him so you can stop pretending you still live at the compound.”
“We’re on it.”
With one more long lingering look at my girl, I head out, readjusting myself once more.
“About fucking time,” Zach quips, a knowing glint in his eyes.
Diesel is going to fucking castrate us all when he discovers that he’s the only one who doesn’t know what’s really going on here.
Or maybe, just maybe, he’s already figured it out.
I meet his eyes, and hold my head up high.
“Sorry, that curry I had last night was no fucking joke.”
“Jesus. Kat through there?” River asks, hitching a bag up on her shoulder.
“Sure is,” Styx agrees. “Left her trying to choose what to wear.”
Diesel’s expression hardens, but River manages to wipe it away when she turns and plants a filthy kiss on his lips.
“Play nice, Daddy D,” she whispers, although not quietly enough, and I snort my amusement at the nickname.
“Shut the fuck up,” D grunts while River says goodbye to Zach and Jax.
“Let’s go before Zach makes an excuse to follow her and fucks her on your bed Styx,” Jax says, heading toward the front door with D hot on his tail.
“Not my fault. This place smells like sex and it makes me want it. Ow,” Zach complains when D hits him upside the head.
“You did not just say that.”
“Stop trying to convince yourself that your sister is anything different to our girl. You don’t have an issue getting down and dirty with her daily, so why should Kat not get—”
“Enough,” D booms, throwing his leg over his bike and gunning it away from Styx’s house before the rest of us are ready.
“You’ve got kevlar under that shirt, right?” Zach asks me with a knowing smirk. “Because something tells me you’re going to need it.”
* * *
The bar Styx and I chose for tonight is the one we used to sneak into as teenagers to play pool and attempt to convince the owner we were old enough to drink. We clearly weren’t but if he were in a good enough mood then he’d slip us the odd couple of beers to share. Good times.
Nostalgia hits me the second we walk in. It might have changed hands a few times over the years, but somehow, it still smells the same as it did back then and it immediately makes me feel like that kid once more.