“I was looking at his feet.”
I shoved my best friend—one of them, anyway. “You can’t see his fucking feet from here.”
“Don’t need to. Look how he stands. That daddy has a wangaconda in those old Levis, I can tell.”
Jesus Christ. I searched for my smokes. “What do you care about the size of his dick?”
“Just being observant, my lord.” Rubi jammed a blunt in my mouth instead. “And cautious. I know you’re in charge these days, but I have to ask, did you clear this shit with the elders?”
Elders. Cam. Saint.Alexei. Bar Cam, I outranked them. If Alexei had a rank. If he even gave a fuck—he doesn’t. And right now, neither did I. We needed men. Good men, and my gut—and Rocco—told me these were the best.
I relayed this wisdom to Rubi.
He nodded. “Ranger’s all right. Bit of a dick when he’s got the hump, but ain’t we all? And big daddy can fight. I’ve seen that fucker put six men down on his own. What else do we know about him?”
“He’s tall?”
Rubi snorted. “Come on, Nashie. Cam trusts your judgement, we all do, but the accountant’s gonna want more than that. Hell, Saint’s gonna want more when he checks back into this life.”
Neither of us mentioned the possibility that he wouldn’t. We hadn’t seen much of Saint since the fire. He was a private brother at the best of times, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out he didn’t want to put himself back together with an audience.
Missed him, though.
The hugs he didn’t give.
The words he didn’t say.
I turned my focus back to the Crows. They were off their bikes, facing down the curiosity pinging at them from every direction of the busy yard. The hostility from old-timers who’d probably gone toe to toe with at least Ranger and Locke over the years.
Folk, though, he was a mystery, and I noticed that he paid zero attention to the stares raining down on him. He swept the yard with a keen gaze, taking it all in, then he found me in the crowd and nodded.
He approves. Couldn’t say why it mattered, and it didn’t to me, but maybe it did to the others.
“This ain’t gonna be easy.” Rubi reclaimed his joint. “We can’t just sling them into the pack and hope for the best. Carnage waiting to happen.”
“I wasn’t going to do that.”
Rubi helped me ease my grumbling body from my bike. I put my boot to the floor, ignoring the barb of pain in my fucked-up knee. “No?”
“No.” I steadied myself, inside and out. “Come on. Let’s go make some new friends.”
It sounded so simple. And with Ranger it was. Beer. A lazy blokes barbecue, and a long night under the stars shooting the shit. Couldn’t say he liked us by the end of it, but we understood each other.
Folk didn’t drink.
Didn’t smoke.
And he watched us a lot,dissectingus. If I hadn’t been used to men like Saint, I’d have distrusted him until the end of time. But we did have Saint. And we loved him. There was no reason we couldn’t love this clever fucker too.
It was close to midnight when I found myself next to Locke—as in, my willpower deserted me and I gave into the weird pull I felt to him.
He was sitting by the bunkhouse, back to the wall, one knee bent, elbow propped on top. His blond hair was a shade darker than mine, his face a few years older, more ink covering his tanned skin.
The tattoo on his neck caught my eye, a zodiac sign.
“Gemini?”
He turned to me, his face impassive. “Yup.”