Page 321 of One More Kiss

Miles

“The fuck are you doing?”my dad bellowed from the doorway of the garage.

I took a deep breath and sighed. This wasn’t what I needed today. “Fixing the Ford,” I called back.

“The fuck you are. If you release that, the whole engine is going to shift.”

As if I hadn’t been working in this garage since I was twelve. Fuck that. I knew what I was doing and he was wrong. “The fuck are you talking about? This isn’t even attached to the motor.”

Dad stomped over to see where I was pointing. “I thought you were on the other one.”

Most people would’ve shit their pants to see my dad coming toward them but I was used to it. Dad was huge—just like me. He had the dark hair and eyes thing going on like I did too but I wasn’t scared of him.

I shrugged. “Maybe look closer before you start barking.”

Dad raised an eyebrow. The thing about his was, when he yelled, he wasn’t so angry. It was when he got really quiet that people had to worry. It was the quiet rage that was dangerous. I’d seen it firsthand many times. Never at me, my siblings, or my mom. He didn’t yell unless he was far away and had to so we kids would hear him. Because he didn’t need to yell. When he said something, we already knew to listen.

That was when I was a kid. I wasn’t a kid anymore and I was his brother in the club now, so his hold over me had shrunk. As the Sergeant at Arms of The Splintered Souls, he had a lot of power over me, but it was different now. In some ways, I was his equal.

Instead of sniping back at me, Dad raised one corner of his mouth before laughing out loud. He slapped me roughly on the back then headed off to do whatever the fuck he did.

“He watches you like a fuckin’ hawk, doesn’t he?” Alex Black asked as soon as Dad had left the garage. Alex was as big as me with the same coloring. People sometimes said we could be blood brothers but our moms usually gave those people death glares.

Alex had come into the club the same time as me. Actually, we’d grown up together our entire lives. I’d always been seen as the fuck-up. Even among my actual brothers. I had two and while I was the oldest, they would definitely be part of the club one day.

“Don’t know why.” The fuck I didn’t, but I wasn’t going to admit that to him.

Alex’s road name was hilarious and completely accurate. Saint. Because he fucking was.

According to Dad, they’d named me “Miles” because it worked both ways. It was my name, but I’d already put on more miles than most grown men before I’d been born. It was a whole thing with him and Mom that I hated hearing the details about.

“Sure, you don’t.” Alex slapped my back as he passed.

Alex and I had been friends since birth, or rather since I’d been born, given that he was a year older than me. We’d done a lot of shit together, only he was smart enough to pull back, whereas I still pushed forward. Gotten me into a lot of trouble.

And now I was still proving myself, even though I’d already patched in fully. I didn’t need a babysitter anymore.

There was only one thing that got me out of my own head when I was second-guessing myself.

Trinity. I began to wonder if she could get away tonight.

I fuckin’ hated that she was part of the Skulls. I knew full well how they used their women and Trinity wasn’t your average club whore. She wasn’t one at all. She only did what she had to to survive.

That fuckin’ brother of hers deserved whatever he got for letting his club use her the way they did.

“Daddy set you straight?” Caleb Forbes asked as he came around the car. He definitely didn’t look like us with his dirty blond hair and blue eyes that made bitches weak in the knees.

Caleb, another younger member, and Alex’s best friend. There was quite the group of us who’d grown up together, but since I’d fucked up the most, I tended to be on the outside a lot.

“Fuck off,” I told him as I went back to work. As if I didn’t know how to make sure a motor didn’t fall out of a fuckin’ car.

He snickered. “I’m just fuckin’ with ya. He’s just used to you fucking things up.”

Yeah. I knew that. I was the family fuck-up and by family, I meant the club, too.

“What are you guys doin’ tonight?” I asked Caleb.

“I’m helping my parents at the house,” he told me.

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