I had the patience of a crack-addicted hamster, but every once in a while, logic won a round of guerrilla warfare with my brain and made space for the man Rubi needed me to be.
We moved out, rounding up the masses and riding for home.
Riding hard. Rubi’s bobber was better built for cruising than racing, but he pushed it all the way home, gassing up the horde as much as he dared with Orla among us.
We reached the compound.
He pulled up at the entrance, shepherding the crowd past. With so many riders on the road and Orla to see home safely, only Embry slowed, but Rubi waved him on.
“Go.” He jabbed his thumb. “I’ll talk to you later.”
Brothers kept rumbling past. Less than we’d started the day with, but more than there’d ever been, a fact that probably pissed Rubi off as they kept coming and coming.
“Shit the bed.” He flipped his visor. “Since when did the grumpiest O’Brian that ever lived have so many fucking friends?”
“I thought I was the grumpiest O’Brian?”
“Naw, you’re a sweetheart.”
Another flood of bikes obscured our view of each other. By the time they’d rolled through, we were no longer alone. Alexei had joined us on his matte-black Ninja, and stone me dead, of course he wasn’t wearing a club cut.
The last of the riders trickled through.
Sensing an unexplained urgency, Alexei raised a brow. “Explain.”
Rubi filled him in.
Alexei tilted his head. “And how are you planning on transporting this cat home? Perched on your head?”
“Fuck a duck.” Rubi wheeled the bobber around and shot down the driveway.
Alexei turned his attention to me, giving me alook.
I ditched my cut and ate the last of my Tangfastics, hyped up togowhen Rubi came back with whatever solution he had to the very real problem Alexei had pointed out. “Don’t come at me with your cryptic shite. Get to the point or fuck off.”
Silence.
I licked sugar off my fingers and braved a sideways glance.
Alexei’s expression hadn’t changed, but as the sun caught his grey eyes, I got a flashback of the first time I’d ever met him. When my brother’d had a bullet in his shoulder and Alexei had cared more about easing his pain than anything else. It had taken a long time to understand the gravity of that dark day, and maybe I never wholly would. But I understood Alexei.
He lived for Cam.
He lived for Saint.
He lived for all of us, even me, and the exasperation he skewered me with now was nothing but love. “Whatever you’re thinking, little brother, youareworthy of this. Now stop wasting time.”
Alexei gunned the Ninja and blasted away, zipping into the weekend traffic the way only sport bikes could. Rubi rolled up half a second later, a cat carrier wedged on his lap.
“Still not ideal, boo.”
Of the two of us, I was the unreasonable gremlin who couldn’t be trusted not to jump off a fucking cliff. Cut Rubi open and he bled common sense, every moment of his life except the ones he truly didn’t—when his giant squishy heart got the better of him and he turned into an unmanageable bear on roller skates.
He ignored my warning, revved his engine, and shot off, leaving me to roll my eyes to the heavens and trail behind, all the way out of town and to the inland animal shelter.
It was already closed for the day. Rubi ditched his bike and sprung from it like he had Embry in his legs.
I caught up with him at the side entrance. “Calm down. They said they’d wait for you.”