Decoy materialised beside me, vigilant and strict. Had I not known already that he had been a soldier once, I would see it now in his stance.
“Your daughter is joy,” I told him absently. “Cam and Saint love her very much.”
Decoy nodded. “She loves them too. Saint built her a cabin bed when I had no money and too much pride to take a handout from the club. He’s her fucking hero and I’m okay with that.”
“You can have more than one hero.” Didn’t I know it.
Decoy was silent a moment, letting me solidify the person he needed me to be for whatever he said next. Then he handed me the leather-bound ledger he seemed to take everywhere he went. “Nash asked me to show you this. It’s the accounts from the timber yard since you last looked at them.”
I took the ledger and opened it. Decoy’s pristine records warmed my battered soul. “Did he say why?”
“We’ve got twenty blokes needing a wage now we’re not working the motorway sites anymore.”
I’d been dimly aware of Cam actioning his desire to pull his men from the Sambini contracts, despite their loose promise to provide honest work. The consequences had passed me by. I did not know how Cam kept his focus on so many things at once when I could only think about him.
And Saint.
Him and Saint fucking.
The numbers swam on the page. I forced them into focus. “The timber yard is profitable because it is immaculately run, but I can tell without looking at the numbers that you do not have the capacity to employ twenty extra men.”
“I know that. But we could do more if we had the infrastructure to transport bigger loads further distances.”
“Haulage?”
Decoy nodded. “I’m not talking Eddie Stobbart shit, but I just had to turn down a ten-grand order because the external transport fees made it pointless. If we had a couple of trucks and a bigger space for custom measurements, we’d eliminate a lot of middleman costs.”
“Did Nash have this in mind when he asked you to speak with me?”
“Fuck no.” Decoy laughed. “He has a panic attack counting to ten. But he wants to give these guys work, and I think the club could do it if they expanded in the right places.”
I agreed and I knew how important it was to Cam to take care of his membership. “You will need a plan, with costing and resources that pose no risk to what you already have.”
“That part makes sense to me, I just wouldn’t know how all that banking shit works well enough to make it happen.”
“I do. Put something together and we can take it to the table when the time is right.”
“Okay.”
Cam returned to me as Decoy reclaimed his ledger and moved off. I couldn’t tell if he’d overheard our exchange, and I did not care. Cam would speak on it if he wanted to, and if he didn’t, it did not matter.
“When are you leaving for the Sambini meet?”
His dark eyes took me hostage. “As soon as you agree to come with me.”
“Did I not answer that question already?”
“Your answer was based on an incorrect assumption about Mateo.”
I thought about conceding his point, but that meant admitting I was still entranced by him and Saint.No. I gave him a casual shrug instead. “Whatever you want.”
Cam’s eyes narrowed. “That was easier than I thought it would be.”
“Are you implying that I am difficult?”
“More that I ask unreasonable things of you.”
“I do not agree.” I broke his stare, instinctively searching for Saint, the third point in the triangular shape my existence had become.