Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 78329 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78329 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
A second later, his voice carries through the open bay doors. “Honey, I’m not here to fight with you dammit. I want to talk.”
There’s a short laugh—sharp as broken glass. The edge of a tired woman who seriously can’t believe she’s standing here listening to him. Same song and dance they have had for years. Honey.
And she is fired up this morning. The problem is Smoke is a brother in the Hellions MC and Honey, she’s Stud’s daughter. She is like having a little sister to all of us because she tells us like it is out of genuine care but without hesitating to bust our balls every chance she can. She understands our lifestyle. She accepts each of us with all of our flaws.
I wipe my hands on a rag and tilt my head just enough to catch the rhythm of it. I can’t see them from this angle, but sound travels in a shop like this. Every word bounces.
“You always say that,” Honey fires back. “Then you do exactly what you always do. We talk, I fall for every empty promise and within months your words mean nothing once again.”
“I’ve fucked up more than I’ve gotten right. But dammit, I want you, I want our family.”
She lets out a huff. “You’ve said that too.”
There it is. The argument that’s been circling them for years like vultures waiting for the death of their past to be final.
I lean back against the tool chest and close my eyes a second, listening without meaning to. Smoke’s voice has that edge—desperate and proud at the same time.
“Give me another chance. I’ll stay home. No more road trips. I’ll tell Country Boy no transports, no rides. No barflies. I’ll fucking work here with you if that’s what it takes.” He blows out a breath. “For our kids, come on, Tiff.”
“The ship sailed, Smoke.”
Silence. Not the peaceful kind. The heavy, breathing kind.
Before I can decide whether I should walk over there and make sure things don’t go sideways, boots crunch back toward the main garage. Smoke rounds the corner, jaw tight, dark eyes stormy.
He spots me and snorts. “Women ain’t worth the trouble if they can’t see when a man is laying it all on the line.” He tosses the words like they’re nothing. Like they don’t weigh anything.
I don’t answer right away. Because behind him, Honey steps into view. She’s got her hair pulled back in a high ponytail, curls wild behind her, grease on her cheek, and fire in her eyes. She catches me looking and lifts one brow. “Don’t,” she instructs. I can see the glisten of unshed tears that she refuses to let fall. “Just don’t, Miles.”
Didn’t plan on it. I don’t have a dog in this pony show and I’m not about to wade in between two people who are family to me. I hold up my hands in surrender.
“Ain’t my mess,” I reply.
She studies me a beat longer. Honey knows brotherhood. Knows loyalty. Knows how easy it is for men to circle the wagons around one of their own even when he’s dead wrong.
“I don’t want to hear about how he’s trying,” she says flatly. “Or how hard it is. Or how brotherhood means I should understand. How I need to accept the past and get over it like he only fucked up once. I don’t need to hear it, none of it.”
I nod once. “Wouldn’t say it.” And I wouldn’t. Because Smoke did her wrong. More than once. More than twice. And not just because he didn’t keep his dick in his pants. He crossed her repeatedly. The minute things feel too comfortable, he sabotages it all. It’s like he can’t help himself.
Honey ain’t the type to slam doors for nothing. If she’s done, she’s done because she’s bled enough.
I watch Honey a second longer. The way her chest rises and falls. The way her fingers flex like she wants to throw something. The way there’s still heat there—under the anger. That’s the thing.
Love and hate aren’t opposites like people think.
They are like living in a duplex. Separate but attached. It’s hard to hate someone if you don’t have love or care. Even to hate a stranger is about them crossing a line of some sort, to cross a line means someone cared enough to draw the boundary in the first place. You can’t hate if you don’t care. Period.
I’ve seen Smoke fight men with less fire than he uses when he fights her. And Honey? She doesn’t back down from anybody. Not customers. Not club whores. Not men twice her size. And definitely not him.
There’s a line between love, hate, passion, and pain so thin you can cut yourself on it.
I know that now. Because when I think about Danae, none of that feels like confusion. It feels like gravity. She holds me down when life wants to throw me around. She steadies me when the kind of man I am wants to run amuck.