Page 68 of Keys

“My shit will still be there while we deal with yours.” JoJo winked at me, but I knew that everything she had going on, along with the dwindling timetable she was given, weighed on her greatly. I vowed to be a better friend now that my family shit was all out in the open and over with.

“If you don’t want to talk about your family crap, we can always shift focus to your boy toy.” She was teasing me, as any good best friend would.

I sighed, but it wasn’t in frustration. “Quickshot,” I started to say, but then stopped and looked my best friend right in the eye. “He’s my strength,” I admitted.

JoJo shook her head. “No. He adds to your strength,” she corrected. “That’s even better. It means you still have yours when he’s not around.”

That was true enough, I supposed. “You’re right, best not to give him too much credit. It will overinflate his far too healthy ego.” We both laughed again as I made the best man that I knew the butt of my jokes. He wouldn’t mind though.

“Yeah, that ego of his would run rampant with that kind of power,” she continued the joke at my boyfriend’s expense. “What’s that look for?”

“This look?” I asked as I pointed to my face. “Does it look panicked?”

JoJo chuckled, but nodded at the same time.

“I was just thinking that you were joking with me at my boyfriend’s expense.” She smiled at me as I spoke but didn’t need to say a word because JoJo understood. I had never had a boyfriend before. I’d been with men, sure, but only as disposable means to an end.

“So, you panicked over the label or the fact that he’s your first?”

“Hell, if I know. Both?”

JoJo glanced down at her cell phone and grinned up at me. “You need to hurry up because I have it on good authority that your date will be here to pick you up in a little less than an hour.”

“Shit!” I cried the word out as I simultaneously jumped up from my chair. “Shit! Shit! Shit! I forgot!” It was supposed to be our official first date since getting back from the fiasco with my family. It was also Quickshot’s way of taking my mind off the fact that the next day there would be a special session with the DA’s office, a judge, and my father’s new attorneys. It wasn’t lost on me that the bastard was trying to strike a deal to save his own ass and we were trying to keep in the loop to ensure that it didn’t happen. There was no way I would watch that bastard walk away free and clear. No fucking way.

“You have your angry face on again,” JoJo informed me. “I don’t think that has to do with your date though.”

“Part of the reason he wants to take me out is to keep my mind off of the potential deal my father might be making tomorrow.”

“We’ll deal with that when the time comes. You have a plan, and we have the means to see it through. Go, enjoy yourself. For what it’s worth?” The last bit sounded more like a question, so I tipped my chin up in askance of her solicited advice. “I think he’s good for you.”

I was starting to believe that too.

~*~

An hour later, I was dressed in my riding leathers and ready to head out with Quickshot. When I opened the clubhouse door for him, he didn’t even hesitate. Instead, the infuriating man – knowing how I disliked public displays of affection – grabbed me by the nape of my neck and pulled me in for a searing kiss that had all the women of the club who were present hooting and hollering out catcalls to us. Under any other circumstances, I might have been embarrassed. This was Quickshot though, and despite how hard I fought against it at first, he meant something to me. Even that was understatement. The man meant everything to me. It was high time I not only recognized it, but owned it.

“Missed you,” he told me quietly as his lips finally parted from mine. I was still too kiss-drunk to respond which only made his cocky grin appear as he tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. It was only fair that he should fix that since he was the reason it fell from the braid that I had my hair in anyway.

“Where are we headed?” I asked.

“About that, I need to know what you’re feeling.”

“What I’m feeling?”

“Yeah, are we riding separate or together?” I watched him for a few minutes, noting that his question was genuine and he didn’t seem to mind what my answer might be.

I grinned and crooked my index and middle finger at him repeatedly before I said, “I can ride separate any day.” He laughed at my masturbation joke while rolling his eyes before I managed a straight answer. “I want to ride with you.” I emphasized the word ‘with’ so that he knew that I meant I was riding bitch on his bike if that was where he wanted me.

“Good, because I need to feel you around me,” he admitted. The need to be honest with myself about everything was ever-present since the craziness my family thrust upon us, so I had to admit that being wrapped around him was a very much a mutual need.

As I was climbing on the back of Quickshot’s bike, I caught sight of JoJo standing by the side door of the clubhouse. At first, she seemed lost, sullen even. I nearly climbed right back off the bike to go to her, but just as I was about to do that, she glanced up and a broad smile bloomed across her face.

My best friend threw two thumbs high up in the air and then howled like a freaking wolf, head thrown back as if she was baying at the moon. Laughing, I squeezed my arms tightly around Quick as he took off into the early evening glow that painted the sky in places just before the day’s sun was lost over the imposing mountain peaks.

I wasn’t sure how much of a ride we would manage to get in because the air had that distinctly sweet smell that warned of an impending rain. Most of us were used to the temperamental wet weather that kept our little mountain town looking pristine and gorgeous. Before I had moved here, I knew that leaves on most of these trees remained green most of the year, but what I hadn’t known, what had shocked the shit out of my younger, fifteen-year-old self was that there were so many shades of green that came together to put on this show we got to see every day. Whenever I rode, it was one of the things that calmed me – those vastly different green hues that blended together, making this special place that I had come to think of as home. This was my heaven on Earth, and I would die to protect it.

I tipped my head back and lifted my visor, to catch the first drops of rain as they fell gently down on us. Quickshot squeezed my thigh once. It was a question that I understood well.

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