The Possibility of Trey (14 page)

The universe smiled on me when I walked into the kitchen and spied a very muscled back, spotted with beautiful ink and bracketed by equally thick, powerful arms all topping a low-slung pair of navy blue flannel sleep pants.

"Hungry?" he asked, pushing a full cup of coffee to where I stood at the breakfast bar trying not to drool at the vision before me.

Oh, hell yeah I was. Oh, wait. He was talking food.

Behave!,
my mind instructed.

Bite me on my beautiful, sweet ass,
my heart yelled right back.

"I could eat," I offered going for nonchalant, like I slept in a gorgeous man's amazing home after we'd almost done the nasty every night of the week.

"I talked with Silo, ah, Mr. Kettering, and you're on half-days until your mom comes home. I'll punch you in at one p.m. but you'll have to drive back to the compound to punch yourself out. That work for you?" It looked like he was scrambling eggs in a pan next to where bacon sizzled. I heard the toaster release and moved to make myself useful.

"Ah, I guess so. How's that gonna work with my pay?" I hated to have to bring up money but with the added expense of my mom's portion of the ambulance, ER and CCU, I was guessing things were gonna be tight for a while. A long while.

"According to Si, you have about a month in vacation accrued and six weeks of sick time. We can list it as either. But I'm also working the insurance angle since I'm convinced your mom's problems are the result of the drama with the brick. Which you and I both know was because someone put you in their sights since you reported Greenway." When I didn't say anything, I heard him shift the pans at the stove before he came to stand at my back his hands on my shoulders.

"I hadn't intended this to blow back on you and yours, Dallas." His voice was a caress, his breath moving the hair at the top of my head.

I know I should've replied in some way but my mind was caught up on all he'd said. How I wouldn't lose pay and how I could spend mornings at the hospital.

And how my mom's last bout was because of something I'd seen and reported.

"Also, be prepared to hear from Drake. Bishop informed him of what's doing with your house and your folks. Kid fucking manned up and asked to make a call today." I turned so I could see if Trey was serious. It wasn't that long ago that Drake hadn't given a good goddamn about our family and had in fact, said he didn't want me to visit when it was allowed.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, pretty girl. I think we're getting to the little fucker," he said with a grin. "You about ready to eat? I've made enough so you can take some to your dad."

I couldn't help myself. I just had to touch him, to let him know that I was bowled over by the way he treated me and my family.

So I did. I wrapped my arms around his firm waist and dropped my cheek against a pec that held some wild-ass ink in the shape of a three of spades playing card. "Thank you, Trey."

"Aw, Tex. Haven't you figured out I'd do anything for you?" He asked with a laugh and a quick squeeze before moving back to the stove.

My heart stored those words to ruminate on later.

Which I did the whole time I visited with my folks at the hospital. My mom was still weak and sporting all sorts of tubes and wires but her color was a bit better. Dad appeared to be no worse for wear citing the easy chair next to the bed folded out into a twin bed. "Though it wasn't as good as sleeping next to you, my Mary," he assured my mom with a smile and a pat to one of her forearms. How he knew where to touch her that didn't contain a lead or an IV line surprised me.

I'd taken the time to explain to them what Trey was offering with the half-days, holding back the part about the insurance which I wasn't sure would pan out. I didn't want them to get their hopes up. But even so, like me, they were astounded at HC's generosity.

"He's a good man, Lally," my mom had murmured in her weak voice when I'd finished and I couldn't disagree with her. "He seems sweet on you."

Yeah, I was getting that when I took the whole bad-ass biker bit off the table.

"Caught them making out on the porch the other night after you fell asleep, honey," my dad said with an air of triumph. "Full on, tonsil-swabbing, her ass in his lap, make out session."

"Lally!" my mother gasped or as much of one as she could give with the oxygen clip. "In front of the neighbors?"

Oh God. I covered my face with my hands and sunk down in my chair wishing I was anywhere but there.

But, wait! My dad was blind, not just legally blind but the kind of blind where he had nothing behind his eyelids. How the hell had he
seen
us for god sakes?

"Bet you're wondering how your poor old dad knew what was going on, aren't cha?" he crowed and chuckled at my continued silence. "I know the noises, little girl. I wasn't always blind and only had one arm. Once upon a time, your old man did his fair share of necking too. Jeans make a certain sound when they rub together."

"Now, Miller," my mom said in warning before her coughs took over. Which provided a welcome distraction, enough so that the conversation had turned by the time my mom settled down.

Which had me glancing at the clock and starting the forty-seven warnings to my dad about when I'd return.

Giving them both hugs and kisses, I left the hospital and went to work.

I was, I will admit, almost happy with how the day had started. Parental teasing notwithstanding.

Dare came into Trey's office, pulled out a chair before plopping his ass down and his boots up on the edge of the president's desk.

"What's doing with Sheridan?" he said after Trey completed his call and sent the man a baleful glance. "You guys got something going or was it just a one night thing?"

"Think you better be asking other questions, Dare," Trey advised on a low growl. "When is my personal life the club's business anyway?"

"When the members on patrol see her truck parked overnight in your driveway," Dare advised with a chin lift. "You know how it is. Someone sees something and yaks to someone else then next thing you know, faster than you can whistle, the whole club's in on where you've been dipping your wick. Have you had the talk with her yet? About the difference between bikers and civilians?"

Christ! He hadn't even thought about the patrols when she'd parked. And of course they would cruise by his place, seeing how it was within the 10 mile radius of Hellion land. He hadn't considered that the club thinking he and his girl doing the deed was anything to worry about, since that kind of shit went on all the time.

But they weren't.

Even though he'd had every goddamn intention of taking her ass to his bed the night before. Showing her the guest room had just been the gentlemanly thing to do. So when she'd gone to her room straight after dinner especially after the kiss and dry-hump session that they'd shared, he'd been disappointed. More than disappointed and had spent almost an hour fucking pouting like a whiny toddler who's favorite toy had been taken away. But he'd snuck back into her room later and slept with her in his arms without her knowledge.

"No, I haven't but I think we should be wondering who's fucking with our streets and trying to bribe then scare the shit out of our goddamn employees and their families," Trey instructed, lifting his eyes to see Silo and Brand stalking towards his office. "Much less who in hell has the balls to try and gun us down on our own property! Wick-dipping and convos regarding the use of Honey pussy should come way down on the list of fucking questions that need to be asked, asshole."

Silo claimed the other visitor chair as Brand leaned in the doorway. "I warned you, brother, he would not be pleased about the rumors," the tall, broad Croatian advised directing his chin lift to Dare.

"God! Are we
still
on that shit?" Silo bellowed. "Get a fucking life, Dare! I just got off the phone with the police and the boy-toy was found this morning, burnt out by the side of the freeway just across the river. We've had two nights of no activity on the streets, Huff's being released tomorrow and we're getting the word out that whoever fucked with the Sheridans are facing Hellion fury."

"Now
that's
the kind of shit I'm talking about!" Trey yelled, slamming his hand on his desk and glaring at Dare who was studiously examining his nails.

"Well, now see. I already knew all that shit. I just came to get the 4-1-1 on what I
didn't
fucking know." Dale's nonchalant inflection caused the other men to laugh, recognizing it was said with some truth. All except the part about the boy-toy being found as a smoking shell.

"How's Sheridan holding up?" Silo eyes zoomed in on the Prez as he voiced his carefully crafted question. Trey could be…picky about certain things and a man knew sometimes he had to tread carefully with their new leader.

"Seems to be doing okay. Worried. Determined. Thankful for the half-days." Trey kept his voice measured as his mind went back to the quick peck he'd received before she'd climbed in her truck to go to the hospital. He'd been hoping for something along the lines of what they'd shared in the guest room before her shower with maybe a move to use his still warm bed. And he continued to feel the sting of dashed hopes and an unsatisfied cock hours later.

"Heard piss-ant asked nicely for and then placed a very sweet call to his sister. Guess he decided to put on his big-girl panties and get with the program," Silo rumbled.

"I have heard brothers are starting to call him 'Rinse'." Brand didn't offer much when they all got together but the words he did say, Trey listened to.

"Rinse?" Trey repeated.

Dare started laughing. "Yeah, so. Snake has one of those skin conditions that is aggravated by soaps and shit. Breaks out in fucking hives or something. So the kid has to do a double goddamn rinse of his clothes, dig? Anyway, after being fucking offered some time with Carmi, the kid has worked out this thing of order sheets when we turn in our dirty clothes. One where there's a check box if you want a second rinse. I shit you not."

The laughs went on for a long time and Trey was amazed at the kid's ingenuity. Laundry had fucked the young Trey up for two full weeks when he'd started, unable to keep the different goddamn requests straight.

"Heard the little fucker even has a tip jar," Silo added, which set the men off again, their guffaws and knee slaps echoing off the walls and windows.

"Guess it just proves that the possibility of pussy is more motivating than a slap-down," Trey added but found his laughter rang just a little too hollow for comfort.

'I'm the poster boy 4 possibilities',
he remembered texting to Dallas.

Yeah. So how did a guy move from possibility to reality?

.
.
.
.*

Dad and I got home around 7.30 but I'd had to practically tear him away from my mom's hospital room. Neither one had been comfortable with him leaving, and I'd had to take the role of bad guy in spite of reassurances that we'd be back tomorrow.

My cab was completely silent all the way home and by the time I actually got him in the house, I could tell my dad was pissed. Not to mention the four calls I'd received from mom in the little time since we'd left her complaining about things that we couldn't have helped with even if we'd been with her.

I sorted the mail and did little things around the house, conscious, so damn
aware
of that thin piece of wood protecting our house from the street. The one that now had 'Bitch' scrawled in big red letters across it. A fact I hadn't mentioned to dad when we'd pulled into the driveway.

My dad was slinging things around in his room and mumbling loudly.

"I'm gonna take a fucking shower," he announced from down the hall, slamming into the bathroom.

"You do that," I murmured into the hand I had pressed to my mouth from my position at the kitchen table. I was, I admit, at a low point. Feeling like our lives were out of control and that we weren't safe in a home I'd always felt protected in.

Part of it, I knew was because Trey wasn't around, causing a whole new cacophony of emotions within me—recognizing I was coming to depend on a man who was almost a virtual stranger.

But a welcome and very much liked stranger nonetheless.

"Dallas!" My dad bellowed and I realized the shower had been turned off for more than a few minutes.

I stepped into the beginning of the hallway to see my dad standing in the doorway of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. "I'm getting dressed, packing some clothes and you're taking me back to that goddamn hospital. I'm fucking supposed to be with your mother and that's where I want to be, girl."

Well, all righty then. Guess I'd been given my orders.

I went to slip on my boots and sat on the couch with my jacket across my lap as I waited for him. I didn't have any more fight left in me at that moment. I'd been holding the damn reins of our family for so long and so tightly that I didn't think I'd be able to weather much more.

My dad stomped down the hall, carrier bags and jacket in hand. His jaw was a determined sharp edge as he turned his face towards me and I saw it was almost as firm as his voice. "You ready to go, Dallas?"