Page 29 of Encore

“Yeah, and I’m not sure how I feel about it to be honest,” Beast adds as Iris cuddles against his broad chest and sticks her thumb in her mouth. “Gray’s worked for me since he was a kid. He’s family. Besides, he didn’t even takemyoffer of a promotion. What makes you think he’ll take yours?”

I catch Pen’s eye and she nods, giving me permission to elaborate. “Lena.”

“Lena?” Beast questions, adjusting Iris in his arms as her eyelids start to droop.

“Ah, I get it,” Grim remarks with a knowing look.

Beast looks over at her. “Get what?”

“You can’t be serious?” Grim chuckles, rolling her eyes. “And there’s me thinking you were pretty insightful when it comes to Gray.”

For a moment Beast looks blankly at Grim, but then it suddenly dawns on him. “Oh shit! So this is some kind of elaborate match making opportunity because Gray can’t pull his finger out of his arse and finally admit what he feels for Lena. I get it now.”

“Arse,” Iris mutters in her half-sleep state and we all laugh.

“Well, it’s partly why we want to offer him the position of managing Twisted Bullet for us, but not the main reason,” Pen explains with a rueful smile.

“What’s the other reason? You lot opening up yetanotherclub? If we didn’t fucking love you so much, we’d start getting pissed off at all the competition,” Beast says.

“Fuck, no,” I reply, swiping a hand through my hair. “That’s thelastthing on our minds.”

“What then?”

“Dance,” Xeno says.

“Dance?” Beast snorts. “If it hadn't slipped your notice, Gray has two left feet. Did you not see how fucking awkward he was at our wedding? The guy might be a badass, but he ain’t no dancer.”

Pen giggles. “Not Gray.Us. We want to dance.”

“And you need to hire Gray to do that?” Grim asks, cocking her head.

“Yeah,” I confirm. “We haven’t danced since we opened up Twisted Bullet. It’s taking a toll.”

“But why haven’t you danced?” Beast asks, shooting us a questioning look. “Ain’t that your thing? I mean, don’t you all just go home and prance about in your studio or whatever?”

“Okay, first of all we don’t prance, big guy,” I admonish with a shake of my head.

“Well, I don’t fucking know. It felt like prancing about to me when you forced me to learn that dance for our wedding.”

“That’s not what you said at the time,” I retort with a smirk. “Pretty sure you said something along the lines of, ‘fuck man, this dancing lark is better than sex.’ Right?”

“What? Better than sex withme?” Grim questions, feigning hurt as she presses a hand against her chest and widens her eyes.

“Don’t listen to that conniving bastard, I didnotsay that dancing is better than having sex with you. Nothing is better than having sex with you,” he says, glaring at me.

I hold in a laugh. “What, not even having sex with yourself?”

“Shut the fuck up, man. You’re gonna get a guy in trouble!” Beast grinds out.

Grim shakes her head, leans over and whispers something in Beast’s ear, something that’s clearly dirty given the look on Beast’s face. He’s getting lucky tonight, that’s for sure. Beast clears his throat, smothering a smile.

“You know it, baby,” he murmurs, before turning his attention back to me. “Okay, so you guys want to dance, and you need the time to do that, hence wanting to hire Gray?”

“Exactly,” Xeno agrees. “We’ve been focusing on the clubs, and we haven’t had time for each other in the way that’s important to us as a family. We’re hosting a dance competition at the club in a couple weeks. We want to put together a performance.”

“You’re entering the competition?” Grim asks.

“No, that’s against the rules as hosts. But we do want to perform. We need to,” Pen adds.

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