I took an envelope and opened it, peeking inside.
Cam’s name greeted me, complete with glittery stickers.
Orla winked. “I got your back.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you going back to the house?”
I patted my pockets for cigarettes. “Cam’s house?”
“That’s where everyone else is, right? This place is a ghost town.”
I glanced around, then up at the bedroom windows that looked over the compound. “Who’s here?”
“Mateo. He’s in the bar.”
“Drinking?”
“He wasn’t. Then I told him Embry had gone home with Cam and he opened a bottle of Jack.”
There was a lot to digest in that sentence. One, Embry had left the compound—good news. Two, Mateo was day drinking—bad news. Sunlight and booze made him ragey as fuck.
I sighed and swung my leg off my bike, but Nash stopped me. “You should go home.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve spent enough time being the last man standing, and Cam will want you with him.”
Lines blurred. It dawned on me that Nash didn’t mean the van in the woods where I slept alone. He meant Cam’s cottage. Where Alexei was. Because it made sense to him.
And it made sense to me too, but responsibility held me in place. Nash was tired and Mateo was probably going to spend the day chucking knives at the ceiling.
“You can take these with you.” Orla pressed the rest of the envelopes into my hands. Cam, Alexei, Rubi, Embry. “Give them all the good news.”
“Thanks, but I’m not going anywhere. You can do it later.”
“Thanks, but Nash already told you to go bone my brother and his lover, so off you fuck, Malone.”
Orla was the only woman I’d ever met who could swear like sin dressed in silk. The only woman who could sway me with words and a gentle shove.
I got back on my bike and fixed my gaze on Nash.You sure?
“Go,” he said. “I can handle Mats if he gets lairy.”
I knew it. Nash was the most capable fucker I knew. I dipped my chin at him and kissed Orla’s cheek. Then I gunned my engine and roared away, chasing the rising sun.
Daylight beat me to Angel Cottage. Mist rose from the sea and swirled around the thatched roof, merging with the smoke seeping from the chimney. Cam’s SUV was parked outside. Rubi’s bike too. And I sensed Alexei’s presence like a live wire in my soul, drawing me in.
The front door was on the latch. I slipped through it and shut it behind me, toeing my boots off in the hallway.
In the living room, I found Rubi on one couch, frowning at Alexei’s laptop, headphones jammed over his ears.
Embry was asleep on the other, face turned to the flickering fire, smooth and peaceful and free of the pain he’d been in the last time I’d seen him. I crept closer and knocked a blanket from the back of the couch to cover his legs, then backed off and followed my instincts to the kitchen.
Cam was at the table, scowling into a mug of coffee.
I swiped it from him and dumped it in the sink. “Bad night?”