It was quiet for a few minutes, the entire car filled with tension so thick it almost had a smell.

  “At some point,” Draco finally said, his voice calm and low, “you’re gonna have to talk to me.”

  “No, I won’t,” I replied flatly.

  “You will,” he said, his voice still calm. “Because at some point, I’m gonna be done with this shit and I’m not gonna let you keep dodging it.”

  “Cool threat, bro,” I muttered.

  “Just a promise,” he said, reaching over to lightly run his hand down my thigh.

  I held my breath as I broke out in goosebumps.

  “If you think I don’t notice that shit,” he said, putting both hands on the wheel, “you’re an idiot.”

  Chapter 4

  Draco

  The rest of the drive was silent. It wasn’t really surprising.

  Kara had been dodging me for almost a year, skittering away like a scared cat anytime I was near her. It was both infuriating and seriously fucking confusing. After the way she’d greeted me when I got out—holding onto me like she was never going to let go—she went in the complete opposite direction. All of a sudden, she didn’t want to see me, didn’t want to hear from me, wanted to act like she was completely indifferent.

  And it was an act. I’d known her my entire life and been best friends with her for over half of it. She was dealing with some shit—that much was certain—but pretending that she didn’t want to be around me was garbage. She couldn’t stay away.

  Kara had no idea how well I could read her. She had no clue that I could feel the way her eyes tracked me across a room or the fact that she did so, often. She watched me. If we were in the same place, it was a guarantee that Kara had her eyes on me. She never approached or tried to get my attention, but I sure as hell had hers.

  I’d been playing the game by the rules she’d set. I didn’t approach her, either, not more than I’d approach anyone else. But the minute we were within five feet of each other, the air went fucking electric.

  “My parents aren’t even here,” she said with a sigh as we pulled up in front of Mack and Rose’s house. “Rose’s car’s gone.”

  “Maybe she ran to the store,” I said, following her as she climbed out of the car. “Wanna check if your dad’s here?”

  “Yeah, come on,” she huffed, pulling on her mask. I pulled my bandana up and over my nose as we walked toward the house, smiling and waving at the camera that was hung on one of the porch posts. I probably looked like I was about to rob the place.

  It only took seconds before Kara was letting us into the locked house. Just as I closed the door behind me, her phone rang.

  “Where are you guys?” she asked as she put the phone to her ear. She paused. “Okay, it’s creepy that you’re watching us on the cameras.”

  I laughed and looked around the room, trying to find a camera inside the house.

  “They only saw us on the porch,” Kara said after a minute, putting the phone back into her pocket. “They don’t have cameras inside.”

  “Wouldn’t be surprised if they did,” I said seriously. Once I had a house of my own, I was gonna put cameras all over. You never knew who’d come knocking or what kind of proof you’d need later.

  “They went over to Grandma Callie’s,” Kara said, throwing her hands up like she didn’t know what to do with her crazy parents. “So, I can just stay here if you want Curt to come get you?”

  “Don’t you wanna go to Callie’s with everyone else?” I asked in surprise.

  “Yeah,” Kara replied with a laugh. “But I can drive myself there.”

  “Jesus.” I gestured toward the door. “Come on, let’s go.”

  “You don’t need to drive me there.”

  “Curt’s probably already over there,” I replied, ushering her back toward the front door. I couldn’t keep my eyes above her waist, but I felt like less of a creep by only glancing at her ass as she walked ahead of me—instead of staring like I wanted to. There wasn’t as much there anymore. Kara had gotten very slender in the last few years, but it was still her ass. I didn’t care what size it was—it was still hers and I still couldn’t keep my eyes off it.

  The drive between Kara’s parents’ place and her grandparents’ was mostly silent, but only half as awkward, which I considered a win. As we parked outside, I grinned as Kara muttered, “Good grief,” under her breath. There were so many cars parked out front that we had to park down the street.

  “Is that Dragon’s RV?” Kara asked as she got out of the car, pointing at the monstrosity parked in the driveway.

  “I think technically it’s my Grandma’s,” I replied with a laugh. “She drives that and he takes the bike. I thought they were parking it at the greats’ house.”

  “Poet’s probably here, too,” she replied. “They seem to congregate, and this looks like it’s the spot for now.”

  “Truth,” I replied. With the clubhouse evacuated, I should have known they’d find somewhere else to gather.

  “That’s gonna be me,” Kara replied, pointing at the RV. “My guy can ride his bike and I’ll follow in the freaking tour bus.”

  “Your man’s gonna be a biker, huh?” I asked, bending down a little as I tried to meet her gaze.

  “Even if he isn’t, I’m still going to have one of those,” she replied quickly, jerking her head toward the RV as she sped up and weaved her way through the parked cars.

  “I’ll get you one,” I said, catching her with one arm around her waist. Her body relaxed against me for a full moment before she stiffened.

  First the genuine reaction, then the dishonest one. Always.

  “I’ll buy myself one,” she said, pulling away.

  “That works, too,” I replied easily, letting her go. I lowered my voice. “Long as I get to ride in it.”

  Kara tripped at my words, but thankfully caught herself before she could face-plant on the pavement.

  “You’re here,” Charlie yelled, coming out the front door to meet us. “Finally!”

  “You haven’t even been here that long,” Kara replied with a laugh. “And I just saw you a few hours ago.”

  “Well, it felt like goddamn forever,” Charlie shot back. “Why the fuck did you stay at the apartment so long?”

  “Because I didn’t realize I was supposed to evacuate until some cop came to the door.”

  “Ew.”

  “Seriously, ew,” Kara said, nodding. “He was a total asshole. He put his foot in the door so that I couldn’t close it.”

  “He did what?” I asked, my hands involuntarily clenching at my sides.

  Slowly, Kara turned her head so she could look me in the eye. By the expression on her face, she hadn’t meant for me to hear that last part.

  “It was no big deal,” she said slowly.

  “If it wasn’t a big deal, you wouldn’t have brought it up,” I countered.

  “Maybe he didn’t do it on purpose,” Kara replied with an unconvincing shrug.

  I didn’t even bother to respond to that, just continued to look at her. I knew that guy had given me a bad vibe and it had been impossible not to notice how he’d watched her from across the parking lot—but I hadn’t realized he’d been harassing her before we got there. Was that the first time? She seemed pretty fucking calm about it.

  “Ugh,” Charlie said with a grimace, interrupting our stare-down. “Whatever, it’s over now. Let’s go inside—it stinks out here.”

  “Just drop it,” Kara said quietly to me before turning away. She followed Charlie inside, her arms crossed over her chest.

  Drop it, my ass. Kara was about as far from a troublemaker as someone could get—there was no reason whatsoever for her to be hassled by the cops. Hell, there hadn’t even been any drama with the club lately that could’ve trickled down to her. It didn’t make any sense that he’d fuck with her, and that got under my skin more than anything.

  Four or five people called out greetings as we entered the house and I waved at the crowd gathered around the living room.

  Kara was right, the greats were there. I made my way to Great Grandpa Poet first. I bent down to be level with his spot on the couch.

  “Which one are you?” he joked, pulling me into a hug. “Handsome devil.”

  “Hey, Gramps,” I said, taking my time with the hug. Gramps was older than dirt, and I had a feeling we didn’t have much time left with him—which was the reason I made a point to have dinner with him and my nan at least once a week.

  He knew exactly which twin I was.

  “How ya doin’?” I asked, falling back onto my haunches so he didn’t have to look up at me. “Surprised you guys aren’t at home.”

  “Your grandmother wanted us to hit the road with her,” he said with a smile. “And I couldn’t pass up the chance to ride shotgun in that apartment on wheels.”

  “Don’t get lost in there,” I joked.

  “Go to the John and end up in another state,” Gramps cackled.

  “You’re on the state line,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “That could actually happen.”

  Gramps guffawed and I grinned at him. He had a past—hell, all of us did—but to me and Curt, he’d never been anything but the gruff, old great-grandpa that told shitty jokes and could stop bad behavior with a look. Getting a laugh out of him, or a look of pride, or even a pat on the back in passing had always been the highlight of my week.

  “Where’s your beautiful wife?” I asked, looking around.

  “She’s in the kitchen,” he said, reaching out to pat my knee. “You go say hello.”

  “Alright,” I said, standing up. Gramps coughed. “You need something to drink?”

  “I’d take a bourbon,” he replied, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief.

  “I meant water,” I said with a chuckle.

  “I meant bourbon,” he replied, waving his hand at me as if to shoo me away.

  “Ah, my favorite grandson,” Grandma Brenna said as she met me in the hallway. “When did you get here?”

  I leaned down and kissed her cheek quickly since she’d already started moving again. “I just got here,” I said as she walked away from me. “And don’t think that I haven’t heard you say that to every grandson you have!”

  “And it makes every one of them feel special,” she called back, grinning over her shoulder at me.

  “I kind of love your other grandma,” Charlie said, coming up behind me. Standing on tiptoe, she tried to throw her arm over my shoulder. It didn’t work until I wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her up so we were hip-to-hip.

  “How did you stop growing at twelve?” I asked, walking us toward the kitchen while her legs dangled.

  “I come from small people,” she said easily. “But I don’t mind. That just means I can date anyone because they’re all taller than me.”

  “You don’t care about a person’s gender but you do care about their height?” I asked in surprise.

  “Hey, man,” she said, shaking her head with a sigh. “The heart wants what it wants, and I like my partners—man or woman or neither—taller than me.”

  “Maybe it’s not that you want them taller,” I said as I dropped her back on her feet. “Maybe you’re just conditioned to be attracted to taller people because everyone is taller than you. You ever think of that?”

  Charlie grimaced at me. “Well, now I will.”

  “Figure out that riddle,” I said, pointing at her.

  “Don’t point at me.”

  “Why not?” I asked, still pointing. She’d always hated it. When we were kids, she lost her mind if someone pointed at her.

  “Knock it off, ass,” she said through her teeth.

  “Really bothering you, huh?” I asked conversationally, trying my best not to smile.

  “Draco,” my nan called out in admonishment. “Stop poking the bear and get over here.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, dropping my hand.

  “You’re going to pay for that,” Charlie said under her breath.

  “You don’t scare me,” I whispered back.

  “I should,” she hissed.

  I was laughing as I caught Nan around the waist from behind and hugged her, resting my chin on her shoulder. “Whatcha makin’?”

  “Biscuits,” she said, patting my arm at her waist with a hand dusted with flour. “Making about a million.”

  “I got here just in time,” I said, giving her a squeeze before letting go.

  “Hell,” she said, looking at me as I rounded the counter and sat down across from her. “I’m going to be baking these all night at this rate. People just keep showing up.”

  “I get the first batch,” I said, raising my hand.

  Nan smiled. “Sometimes, I marvel at how much you’ve grown and sometimes, I look at you and you’re eight years old again, raising your hand for a biscuit.”

  “Can’t help it,” I said, leaning my elbows on the counter. “I love your biscuits.”

  “Then you better learn how to make them,” she replied dryly. “I won’t be around forever, you know.”

  “Yes, you will,” I shot back. “Quiet.”

  “Are you talking about dying again? Stop it,” my gram Farrah said as she strode into the kitchen. She looked at me. “I see you picked Kara up.”

  “She was still at the apartments,” I replied.

  “And she needed you to save her,” Gram said, reaching into the fridge. When she stood, she was holding an orange soda in her hand. She slid it across the counter to me. “Our boy’s quite the hero,” she said to Nan, bumping her gently with her hip.

  “Ah, they always want to be the hero,” Nan replied, winking at me. “He comes from a long line of ’em.”

  “On both sides,” Gram said, nodding.

  “If I wanted to get picked on by two out of three grandmothers, I would have—”

  “Three out of three,” my grandma Brenna said as she came into the kitchen. “Why are we picking on Draco?”

  “He wants to be a hero,” Gram Farrah said with a small laugh.

  “Ah, the plight of every man.”

  “You three are the worst, you know that?” I asked.

  “Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet, boyo,” Nan replied, her accent thickening to imitate Poet.

  “Jesus,” I muttered.

  “We’re just teasing you,” Grandma Brenna said, sitting down on the bar stool next to me. “It was good of you to go pick up Kara. Mack was wearing a path in Callie’s backyard trying to call her.”

  “Why didn’t he just go pick her up?” I asked, opening my soda.

  “Because you can get away with being heavy handed with Kara,” Gram said. “Her dad can’t.”

  “Bullshit,” I replied.

  “It’s true,” Nan said, still rolling and cutting out biscuits. “Throw that pan in the oven for me, would you, sweetheart?” she asked Gram. Then she glanced at me. “Kara doesn’t put up with much from Mack. Hasn’t in years. There’s never been any kind of blow up or anything of that nature—but if she thinks he’s crossed the line, she just shuts down.”

  “And he doesn’t see her for weeks,” Grandma added.

  “No drama and gets her point across,” Gram said with a sigh.

  “Still terrible for Mack, though,” Nan said.

  “How did I not know this?” I asked, looking around at the old women.

  “How could you?” Nan asked. “It’s not as if Kara talks about it.”

  “She won’t even talk to Charlie about it,” Gram said, shaking her head.

  I sat there as the conversation moved on, drinking my soda and letting their familiar voices wash over me. I even added to the conversation once in a while—but my head was somewhere else. Because, if Kara was giving her dad the cold shoulder whenever he pissed her off, that meant it was a habit of hers. Kara loved her dad. She put him on a fucking pedestal. So instead of fighting with him, she ghosted him. It was what she’d done to me.

  So, what in the hell had I done that pissed Kara off so much that she’d spent years avoiding me?

  Chapter 5

  Kara

  “I was fine,” I said, letting my dad pull me in for a hug. “God, why are you standing out here?”

  “You get used to it after a while,” Grandpa Grease’s gravelly voice replied in amusement.

  “That’s because you smoke like a chimney,” I said through my mask as my dad let me go. “Those of us with healthy lungs don’t enjoy breathing this shit in.”

  “You’re wearin’ a mask, ya big baby,” Grandpa Grease joked.

  “I can still smell it!”

  “You get everything you need from the apartment?” my dad asked, cutting in to our argument. “I coulda helped ya pack up.”

  “Yeah, I did,” I said, sitting down in an empty lawn chair. “I had way too much time to think about it, so I packed half the apartment.”

  The men laughed.

  “Everythin’ starts feelin’ important, huh?” Dragon said from a couple chairs away. “You get caught in some shit and you grab the kids and the wife and fuck everythin’ else. You actually have to think on it? Hell, you’ve had that damn cookie jar for thirty-five years and the ear is broken off from that time your son threw a ball in the house… gotta take that with ya.”

  I laughed along with everyone else. That was exactly how it had felt.

  “We grabbed all the kids’ keepsake boxes,” Charlie’s dad Casper said. “And Farrah packed up the entire fuckin’ bathroom.”

  “Now that doesn’t surprise me,” I said, nodding.

  “Kara!” my brother Brody yelled as he came running out of the house. “When did you get here?”

  “Just a few minutes ago,” I said with a grunt as his body hit me with full force. My chair would’ve tipped over backward if my dad hadn’t caught it in time. “What are you doing outside, dude?”

  “Mom said she could see your car.”

  “I don’t know how,” I complained. “We had to park down the street.”

  “She’s got a sixth sense,” my dad said with a laugh. “She knows if any of you are in the vicinity.”