Page 94 of Making Choices

“Go on,” she orders as her eyebrows lift. “I can feel a but coming.”

I try to smile at her, even as my heart sinks. “But you’re not allowed to hunt Zeke down and kill him when I tell you that he’s had Wyatt and Nate pack up my things from our house and drop them over here.”

Nadia’s reaction is instantaneous and fierce. Her lips curl into a snarl and she vows, “Oh, I’m not gonna hunt him down and kill him. I’m gonna go one better than that.”

“You can’t set him on fire, Nads, and melt marshmallows on his corpse.”

“Fire schmire.” Her eyes take on an evil glimmer. “I’m going to organise an old ladies’ get-together, dress you up in the finest biker slut couture I can find, then take you clubbing. Isaiah will be more than happy to document the night for my Insta. And I’m going to round up the hottest men I can find to dance the night away with you. If evidence of your night ends up online, maybe even with him accidentally tagged… well, that’s just too bad.”

“I’m hardly in the condition to go clubbing,” I remind her.

As is her way once she’s lost herself to a good revenge plot, Nadia waves away my concerns. “You’ve got a month to get yourself into dancing condition, or I’ll hire a male stripper to push you around in a wheelchair.” Her devious glint darkens before she adds. “Although, I’m kinda intrigued by your marshmallow corpse fire idea.”

“You would be since you’re a literal pyromaniac.”

She sighs dramatically. “I set one barn on fire—”

“It was three.”

After rolling her eyes at me, Nadia leans across the car and hugs me. “You’re going to get through this and he’s going to regret the day he walked away.”

“I’m not so sure he will,” I whisper into her neck. “He was so cold toward me in the chapel. He didn’t even mention the baby.”

“Have you ever known Venom to be cold?” Nadia asks. She gently grips my upper arms and holds me out from her. I shake my head to answer her question and she nods. “Exactly. If he’d destroyed all your shit and had the boys deliver the pieces, I’d believe he was serious about being done with you and that losing the baby wasn’t on his mind every second of every day. This cool calculation isn’t him… this’s a weird game that he’s playing. One where he forgot to tell you the rules.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“To paraphrase Toker, I’m always right, just none of y’all ever listen to me.”

Laughing even though I don’t really feel like it, I pull the handle to open my door. Once I’ve gingerly hefted myself out of her tiny hatchback, I brace my arm on the door jamb to lean down to tell her, “You know what? It makes so much more sense for you to brag about being right than Toker ever has.”

“I know,” Nadia crows. She turns the ignition and knocks the gear lever into reverse. “I’ve known Toker for almost eleven years and I’m yet to see him get one thing right.”

“Very true. He’s like an oracle for misinformation,” I reply, then slam the door shut.

She holds her left hand to her ear to mimic a phone. “Call me. Day or night. You need me, I’ll be here in twenty.”

“You’re the best.”

“And don’t you forget it,” my best friend hollers as she speeds backward down the driveway. “Day or night.”

“Day or night,” I yell after her.

Her brake lights illuminate at the end of Slash’s street. As Nadia drops out of view, Slash rides around the corner and pulls into his garage. He stops short when he sees Wyatt’s car in his space, and I watch the same understanding dawn on him as he takes in the boxes.

“Surprise.” I greet him with a grimace. “Looks like we’re housemates.”

After kicking down his stand, he dismounts his Harley and pulls his helmet off. The skull cap is barely hanging on his handlebar before he’s engulfed me in a warm embrace and is squeezing me tight.

“You’re welcome to stay here for as long as you need.”

“It’ll only be a few weeks until I find my own place.”

Slash growls low in his throat. Hands on my waist, he holds me in place while he leans down over me until his mouth is level with my ear. “Listen to me carefully… you are welcome to stay here for as long as you want. Forever if it comes to that.”

Seeing as his nose is swollen and bruised and he has stitches in his eyebrow, his offer really drives home how much of a disaster my life is right now. I’m single. Homeless. Scarred. Teetering on the edge of a mental health crisis. The Shamrocks are no longer my safe space. Between my father and Zeke, they’ve stolen everything familiar from me bar one thing.

Slash.

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