“You shouldn’t be here. If Leo wanted to come looking for his brother, that’s on him. This is no place for you.”

  “I didn’t give him a choice,” I snark back.

  I try to focus on the anger I’m feeling at Josh because with him this close to me, with his enormous arms around me, my body is being a traitorous bitch.

  My knees grow weak, and I want to close my eyes, rest my head against Josh’s chest. But I can’t. This is only physical. He’s a hot piece of ass, emphasis on the ass. I can’t want him. He’s not a good guy.

  I tug my arms free and step away from him as Leo comes up beside me.

  “You two having fun?” Leo asks. It’s clear he’s not amused.

  He doesn’t greet Josh at all, and Josh responds in kind, maybe realizing it’s better that they don’t appear as if they know each other.

  “You plannin’ on going home?” Josh asks, his voice icier now. He looks at a watch on his wrist. “It’s getting late.”

  “We just got here, so we’re good.” Leo turns away abruptly and takes my elbow.

  He leads me to a corner where the crowd is a little thinner. There are no open tables or chairs, so we stand together, my back to the crowd.

  “I can’t believe that guy,” I say. “I don’t like the game he’s playing. Even though this is his business, this is our lives. Does he have any compassion? Any heart at all?”

  Leo is quiet, scanning the crowd and sipping his beer. If he’s thinking anything about catching me in Josh’s arms, he sure as hell doesn’t say anything about it, which almost makes me feel worse.

  “I wanna get you out of here,” he says. “I don’t know what the fuck we thought we were gonna accomplish. I don’t think this is safe.”

  “What? Leave now?” I ask. “We just got here.”

  I have an idea.

  “I think a cover story makes a lot of sense.” I give him a light shove and shake my head. Then I raise my voice. “Can you fuck off? We’re roommates, okay? I’m not your girlfriend. I’m allowed to talk to whoever I want.”

  I give him a look and turn away, heading back toward the bar. Sweet-talking my way into and out of anything is something I used to be able to do. It wasn’t something I’d had to do since I met Leo. But it’s time to see if I’ve still got it.

  I head over to the bar. There’s not an open seat anywhere, so I rest a hand lightly on the shoulder of a burly dude in a black T-shirt. “Mind if I slip past?” I gesture toward the table where I set down my empty beer. “I could really use a refill.”

  The guy looks behind him as if he’s checking to see if I’m alone or with anyone. “Yeah,” he mutters, not looking too interested in talking.

  “Thank you.” I turn on the charm and give him a smile. The guy’s older, gotta be nearing fifty. But guys my dad’s age always seem to love chatting me up at bars, so I trust this bruiser’s no different.

  I stand patiently between the big guy and the man next to him, waiting to catch the bartender’s eye. But I’m not trying too hard. I scratch my nail against the top of the bar, staring at the taps, trying to decide what else might be good. Basically doing everything I can to act cool, and finally, I think it works.

  “You here alone?” the burly guy asks.

  Bingo.

  “Roommate’s back there somewhere.” I motion toward the crowded room without looking back. “But we’re not here together, if that’s what you’re asking.” I give him a guarded smile. The kind that’s friendly, polite, but not over the top. I don’t want him to think I’m playing him for drinks or coming on too strong. I stare down the bar and make safe, polite conversation.

  “I’ve never been here on a weeknight before,” I admit.

  That’s another thing I learned in the year I spent on the road. Before I found a place to stay with Leo, I spent a whole year living out of my van with my pups. I learned a lot about people—for better or worse. Men especially.

  “I thought they had a decent dart game, but I might be thinking of the wrong place.”

  The guy on the barstool sizes me up. “Darts are over there,” he says, using his beer bottle to point to the games. “But they’re pretty closed up. Not a lot of space for newcomers.”

  “I get it,” I say. I shrug and toss my hair over my shoulders. Getting it off my chest will give the guy an unobstructed view of my cleavage. “Maybe I should roll. A girl could die of thirst trying to get a beer.” I move like I’m going to leave, like I’m getting impatient. I don’t look at the man, but I stare off at the bartenders as if getting another drink or deciding to leave is my only focus.

  The guy beside me nods. “Pat,” he calls out. “Another round—and one for the young lady.”

  The bartender looks at us both and nods.

  “Thank you,” I say to the man. I offer him my hand. “I’m Lia.”

  “Nice to meet you, Lia,” he says. I notice right away he doesn’t give me his name, but at the same time, he gets up off his barstool and nods. “You wanna have a seat?”

  Over the next hour, I talk to my bar buddy. I still don’t know his name, but that doesn’t matter.

  He’s asking me a lot of questions, easy things I can answer. I can tell he’s feeling me out. He’s asking things like where I grew up, what I do.

  I get the sense he’s either trying to figure out whether I’m interested in him or if I’m a cop or something—maybe both. And that’s interesting information. Whether it’s useful or not, I’ll find out eventually.

  When he finally gets around to asking what I do, my answer seems to interest him. “I own a doggie day care,” I say. “Nothing fancy. I get to do what I love without feeling like I punch that nine to five.”

  “You a dog lover?” he asks. But something in the way he asks makes me think he’s still digging for information.

  “I am,” I say. This is no time to not be honest. I don’t know who this guy is or what, if anything, he may know about Juliette and Tim. But the fact that he was able to get me a beer and that a bunch of people shifted seats to make room for him when he gave up his stool for me makes me think he’s at least part of the regular crowd here. “Animals are a good business,” I say.

  Something in his demeanor changes. I’m not sure what I said or didn’t say, but it’s clear he’s done talking.

  “Well, Lia.” He stands and gives me a pleasant nod. “Maybe I’ll see you around here again some time.”

  “I’d like that,” I say. I can’t thank him by name because he never gave it to me. I am pretty sure that was intentional. “Thanks for the beer.”

  I watch him walk away and notice he and the bartender trade a look as he goes.

  Leo is behind me before anyone else can grab the empty seat. “You really know how to make friends,” he growls.

  I shrug. “Depends on your idea of a friend.”

  “Let’s go,” he says. He lowers his voice. “We’re getting the fuck out of here.”

  I nod and leave my empty beer bottle on the bar. I don’t see Josh anywhere until we’re near the door. I see him, sitting at a crowded table. He’s got his back to the wall, and a woman in black jeans and a black denim jacket is sitting on his lap. He doesn’t make eye contact with us. Whether it’s intentional or not, it’s probably for the best.

  We walk through the crowd and head for Leo’s truck. We don’t speak, and I’m too caught up in trying to think through my conversation with the man at the bar. Nothing. I come up with absolutely nothing. It’s not like I had any natural openings to ask if he knew a woman named Juliette. And I’m guessing from the tightness in Leo’s face, he didn’t learn anything helpful either.

  Once Leo pulls away from the parking lot, he seems to breathe a lot easier. “That was fucking pointless. And I was worried sick the whole goddamn time you were talking to that guy.” He sniffs hard and looks over at me. “I couldn’t even talk to anyone. All I did was stare at you two. All I could picture was him slipping something into your drink and carrying your ass out of there.”

  That honestly had never occurred to me. That I could be in some sort of danger like that. I was worried about finding Tim’s junkie wife, not about the guy who practically acted like he was forced to talk to me at the bar. While it’s sweet that Leo cares, I’m a little surprised he watched me the whole time.

  “Did you find out anything?” I ask. “Talk to anyone?”

  He grunts, and I take that as a no. “What about you?”

  I shake my head. “No. Nothing at all. The only thing I know is the guy I was talking to never told me his name. Most guys aren’t like that. They want your number, and they come on strong. Maybe it’s the place, maybe it’s me, but nothing really came of it. I don’t even know what I was hoping for,” I say.

  It all kind of starts to hit me now.

  “I’m so sorry, Leo. This was a stupid idea. Playing undercover cop or whatever. I don’t know what I was thinking. It seemed like the only thing we could do.”

  Leo doesn’t say anything, only stares straight ahead while he drives.

  “Who was that woman wrapped around Josh?” I ask.

  Leo looks at me, a slow stare that drags his attention away from the road. “Not Juliette,” he says. “And not his girlfriend. Some barfly. I don’t know. Somebody who’s sent him business in the past, no doubt.” His voice changes as he tells me, “Arrow stared you down almost the whole time you were talking to that guy. He’s into you, Lia.”

  He says it like an accusation.

  “Me?” I ask. “Weird.”

  “Right.” Leo’s voice is hard now. “It’s so weird that a guy would be attracted to you, Lia. Into you. It’s not like I didn’t see the two of you dancing. You looked pretty damn into him too.”

  “Wait a fucking minute.” I turn in my seat to face him. “We went to that bar to try to find your deadbeat brother’s wife, so we could maybe find a way to save your house. And you’re going to give me a hard time because I danced with your brother’s bail agent for like thirty seconds? You realize all he said to me was that we should go home?”

  I refuse to talk to Leo the whole rest of the ride. I was right earlier. There’s nothing shittier than being hurt by the people you love and trust most in the world.

  6

  Leo

  “Lia… Lia, wait up.”

  I follow Lia into the house, but she’s moving at warp speed. Goddamn, when she gets mad, she gets mad.

  “Lia!”

  I lock up the garage and the truck and let myself into the house. Lia’s already in the backyard, letting the dogs out.

  I head out back and grab a lawn chair. I drop down into the seat and stare up at the stars. Lia is walking through the grass barefoot. She’s kicked off her shoes, and when she bends over to pet the dogs, the curve of her ass cheeks peek out of the bottom of her shorts.

  I look away from her and stare at the backyard of the only home I’ve lived in since I was five years old. The memories keep coming back to me. Tim and me after we lost our parents. Moving in with my grandparents. Learning about engines and cars and boats—anything that moved—from my grandfather.

  How and why Tim went astray…I don’t know. Who the fuck knows how my prank-loving, life-of-the-party older brother got hooked on drugs? Maybe he always had problems. I don’t know. Seems like as soon as Gramps was gone, Tim started acting erratically, racking up debt against the business. That’s probably when he got into drugs, but I don’t know the details. Probably never will unless we find him.

  My brother and I were close growing up, but people change. They go through their own shit. I don’t know if I ever really knew what he was struggling with, how things could get so bad. He never cared enough to come to me. To share it. Maybe he meant to keep it from me. Maybe he thought he could deal on his own.

  All I know is I fucking hate secrets.

  And I have to find him. I’ve got two weeks to do it.

  As I watch Lia play with the dogs under the stars, I realize how much this house has come to mean to me. It’s more than just my gramps’s old place. A place where I could live and not have to worry about rent or where my next meal was coming from.

  Since she moved in, this place has changed. It’s not only the place Tim and I lived, not just the roof over our heads that we needed when we lost our parents. It’s a place where I can see a real future for myself. A future that includes the MC, work that I care about, and a home. A home, I have to admit, that includes Lia.

  Pretty soon, we won’t have a fenced-in yard for the girl crew. We won’t have each other. She’ll move on to a new place, maybe with Morris and Alice, maybe on her own, or hell, even with Tiny.

  I won’t have anything.

  Any stability I’ve created for myself over the last year is gone now. It’s over. Tim has taken the only things that were ever really mine. Now, instead of everything I could have wanted, I’m going to have nothing.

  Homeless.

  No business.

  No future.

  No Lia.

  Suddenly, there doesn’t even seem to be a reason to fight. Not with Lia, not for her. I walk into the house and head straight for the kitchen cabinet. I fill a tumbler with whiskey and drop an ice cube into it. It’s cheap stuff, so the ice will make it go down easier, but right now, all I want is to not feel. The sting of shitty booze won’t hurt nearly as much as losing everything I have does.

  I finish the glass, standing in the kitchen, leaning against the counter. Everywhere are signs of the life I’ve made in this house. In the fridge—the marinated chicken for a dinner I was supposed to make and all kinds of green shit that Lia makes into smoothies. The kitchen floor has six dog bowls, one for food, one for water—one each for each dog in Lia’s girl crew. Those dogs have different water dishes outside and in the living room. I can’t go into a room without seeing a disemboweled dog toy, loose stuffing, or a hard plastic bone. Lia’s hairbrush or those endless ribbon hair-tie things she wears on her wrist and slips over doorknobs. The proof of a settled-in life is all around me. I can’t believe shit’s about to get upended.

  I fill my glass again, this time not bothering with the ice. The first tumbler took the edge off, but this time, I want to go numb. Feel the burn of the alcohol and the long, vacant nothing of the buzz. Maybe that’s what Tim’s been chasing all this time. Something to numb the pain. The way I feel right now, I can’t say I totally blame him.

  I kick off my boots and drop onto the couch, finishing off the second whiskey in a few sips. I stumble to the kitchen for another refill, but this time, I grab the bottle.

  “Leo…”

  I can hear her voice, but I don’t want to open my eyes.

  “Leo, come on. It’s midnight. You need to go to bed.”

  I crack my eyes open and see I’m surrounded by girls. The dogs are tucked in beside me on the couch and are sleeping. A light blanket has been tossed over my legs. I stretch and realize I’m still feeling the whiskey I chugged. I’m fine, a little sleepy, but not at all numb like I was hoping for. Opening my eyes and seeing Lia, I’m not numb at all.

  “I’m all right,” I mumble. “Gonna sleep down here.” I roll over onto my side and tug the afghan to my chin.

  Lia has showered and changed into a sleep tank and shorts. She’s sitting across from me in a chair, and she’s watching me. Her damp hair trails down her shoulders and leaves little wet marks on the sleep tank. Her nipples are hard, and any other night, I’d be on her, tasting her clean, sweet skin. Drinking in the softness of her sexy body instead of losing myself to bad whiskey. But not tonight.

  “’Night, Lia.” I want her to go, to leave me. There’s nothing more for her to say. Nothing for anyone to say.

  “I’m here for you,” she says. “You can talk to me.”

  I huff a sigh. “Nothing to say, babe. I’m gonna sleep.”

  I close my eyes and hope she goes upstairs and leaves me to my misery. But I feel her shoo the dogs from the couch. She climbs onto the couch and slides in beside me. She lifts up the blanket and snuggles in, spooning her back to my front.

  This is new.

  We’ve never done this before.

  Snuggling?

  I’m not talking about the after sex, before someone needs to get up and get going kind of snuggling. The kind that fills the space after we blow each other’s minds and come back to earth.

  This is new.

  “You okay?” I ask. The scent of her hair fills my nose, and I can almost taste her. Her skin, her nipples, her pussy. Everything about her hits me as she presses against me and settles in. My body lurches to attention, no longer trapped between sleeping and drunk. My dick throbs to life, and I snake an arm over her. “Hey, we’ll be all right,” I assure her.

  “I know,” she says, but her voice doesn’t convince me. “I was thinking…”

  Oh fuck. I blink my eyes open and take a breath. “Lia…”

  “Hear me out,” she says. “My mom sold her place. She’s got that rich husband. Maybe they can help us. Josh won’t have to take the house if they can give us the money to cover Tim’s bail.”

  “No. It’s not that simple. I mean, we’re talking a hundred and fifty large for the bail. And I’d have to pay that money back to your mom or her husband or whoever. I don’t think I’d be able to pay back that kind of money even if I had ten years to do it.”

  “Could you take a loan against the house?” she asks. “Is there any way you can borrow the money?”

  I nod, my nose digging deeper into her hair with every move. “Possibly,” I tell her. “But it’s unlikely I’d be able to get the money in ten days, even if I did get approved for a loan of some kind. There’s not enough time. I wouldn’t want to accept a loan from your family without knowing for sure I had a plan to get it paid back. And that’s assuming they’d be willing to fork over that kind of cash to someone they’ve never even met.”

  Lia sighs and wriggles so her ass presses against the semi that’s practically being strangled by my jeans.

  “Maybe my dad…” She sounds like she’s thinking out loud about this. “I mean, if he has the five thousand I need for my grooming certificate, maybe he’s got…”