To that, he let out a strange snort. "Fuck if I know. I don't have any other skills."
"Um, bull," Dusty said, shaking her head. "You have plenty of other skills you could use. Dealing was the easy way out and you know it."
"Yeah, and not for nothing," Lo piped in, "but there's no way Third Street or Lyon want anything to do with you now. So your so-called career is over in Navesink Bank. Time to find a legit way to make money."
With that, as if sensing Bry needed a minute, Lo turned forward and switched on the radio. Bry looked out his window.
I leaned down, pressing a kiss to the side of Dusty's head. "You okay?" I murmured, giving her a squeeze.
She took a deep breath and turned her head up so it was in my neck, planting a sweet kiss there. "I am now."
"Shouldn't have left you," I added, shaking my head.
I could have had the meeting at the hotel and asked Dusty to stay in the room or had the meeting in the fucking hall.
Stupid move.
But I knew that if she stayed in, she was safe.
I never could have predicted her leaving.
"You gave me company," she said, looking up, giving me an amused smile. It said a world. She had a good time with Fee and Lea.
"You have fun with the girls?"
"Is it possible not to? Fee is a trip," she said, shaking her head.
"Expect a care package soon."
"I already got a couple."
"Oh yeah? What'd you get?"
"Just pajamas and girl stuff and junk food and..."
She trailed off, cheeks going the slightest bit pink and I knew I had to know if it gave her that reaction. "And?"
"And," she pressed her lips together, thinking, then gave me a smile. "We can probably fill our own fishbowl now," she said and I chuckled.
Fee and her condoms.
"The next care package will probably require batteries," I told her, knowing it was the damn truth. When she and Lea became friends, Fee had dragged her to the sex toy store to help her pick out a vibrator. That was just how Fee was.
"Oh, well. I already..." she started to admit before stopping herself, looking around self-consciously, acutely aware that we had an audience. But no one was paying attention.
"Oh, really?" I asked, feeling a somewhat inappropriate rush of arousal at the idea. "Where might I find such items in your apartment? Gotta have the important stuff with us, right?"
To that, she laughed and I didn't think I would get more. But then she leaned up slightly, her lips actually brushing my ear and told me, "Second drawer down in my nightstand."
It was a goddamn inopportune time for my cock to get hard.
But it did anyway.
Judging by the way her eyes went just a little heated, she felt it.
"Dusty," Bry's voice called, making her jump like she was caught and I knew with an absolute certainty that she was wet just thinking about my cock. Which, well, only made it fucking harder.
"Yeah?" she asked, her voice with just the slightest touch of airlessness to it that he didn't, but I sure as fuck, knew for what it was-desire.
"How the fuck did they get you out of the hotel?" Bry asked the thing I had been wondering for hours, but was too relieved with her presence to remember to ask.
Lo turned slightly in her seat again too, interested. During the ride up, the whole story had come out, including the bits about Dusty being agoraphobic.
"I got a phone call that was supposedly from the hospital," she started, shaking her head like she had done something genuinely stupid and, looking back at it, was embarrassed. "They said I was your emergency contact," she said, meaning Bry, "and that you had been shot. I didn't really even stop to think about how stupid that was, how there was no way I was your emergency contact. I just... ran. I didn't even finish listening to the person on the phone. I just tore out of there and... well... they were counting on that."
Well, that made a lot of sense then.
Of course it was something like that, something involving one of the only two people who loved her enough to stay by her side. She couldn't leave to save herself, but she was absolutely the kind who could rally and leave to be by the side of someone who was always at hers.
"You are," Bry's voice cut a lengthy silence as we all digested her story.
"I am what?" Dusty asked, head cocked to the side.
"You are my emergency contact. Always have been. Probably always fucking will be."
"Even though I couldn't..." Dusty started, only to be interrupted.
"Emergency contact is who you want informed if something happens to you, who knows you and your wishes best. Who the fuck am I going to put? My family I haven't seen in years? It's you, Dusty. Always will be. Figured even if you couldn't leave the apartment, you could tell them over the phone that they leave my fucking plug alone if it ever came to that. No one is pulling it on me."
She smiled at him, liking that he trusted her enough with that. She was silent for a long time, looking down at her lap. "Hey Bry?"
"Yeah?" he asked, looking over, suddenly seeming like the events of the day were catching up to him, making him seem pale and tired.
"Maybe, in like... a week or two... maybe we can try the diner again and see if it's... better this time. I mean, no promises, but..."
"Two things," he cut off what was sure to be an insecure, shy little ramble. "One, the diner changed owners and the food is the perfect kind of shitty- all grease and sugar. Two, you don't ever have to try to promise me anything. You know that."
"Sorry to interrupt the little moment everyone is having," Lo said, giving us all a smile. "But aside from him at the hospital," she said, nodding at Bry, "where are we dropping the rest of you?"
"Chaz's," I said immediately, seeing as that was where my car was.
"Alright," Lo said, turning back to the front as we got closer to town.
"Where are we going?" Dusty asked, looking as tired as I was feeling right about then.
"Think another night or two at the residence, just to make sure. Then we can go back to the apartment. Sorry, it's just..."
"Don't be sorry. I like the residence," she said, giving me a wistful smile. "I'll always have a couple really good memories of that place."
I took a page out of her book, leaning down so that my lips brushed her earlobe. "Soon as you're up for it, I'll give you a couple more," I promised.
Her arm tightened around me and she buried her head again.
We dropped off Bry with an invite to check-in at the residence in the morning. Lo brought us to Chaz's where I situated a half-asleep Dusty into my car, grabbing something out of the glovebox, then taking it and handing it to Lo.
"What's this?" she asked, taking it.
"Ten grand. I really appreciate this, Lo. And thank Jstorm for me too," I added. "Take it," I pressed when she seemed like she was pausing. "No offense, but I don't want to owe Hailstorm. I think there's been enough crazy in our lives as it is."
"Understood," she agreed, tossing it into the open door of her SUV. "But if you ever need us again, don't hesitate."
With that, she jumped in and was gone.
"Can't say I enjoy how much trouble the women you pick to bring into this family have attached to them," Pops said as he walked up, "but it keeps a man young, I guess," he added, clamping a hand on my shoulder.
"Pops..."
"Not now," he said, shaking his head. "You have a woman to get home and comfort. We will all catch up once things have settled down."
With that, he threw an arm around my mother's shoulder and the two were off.
"I got eighteen texts from Fee about how much she likes Dusty," Hunter said, waving his phone at me. "And then twenty-four asking for updates while we were gone."
"I'd rib the shit out of you for that," Shane agreed, looking down at his own phone, "but I got twelve from Lea so I can't say fucking shit. Well," he said, nodding at me, "it was fun. Nothing like a little invasion and murder to keep brothers close. But I got a woman at home who needs some, ah, comforting of her own. Catch you later."
Hunt said his goodbyes too which left me with Eli and Mark.
"I don't have a woman at home, but I'm thinking there are at least... ten women in Navesink Bank right about now who could use some comforting, right?" he asked, giving me a nod and going inside Chaz's which, despite all the owners being off on a fucked up little mission, was still open. Business as usual.
"She's a good woman, Ry," Eli told me, nodding, then following Mark into the bar. While he likely wasn't on the prowl for a woman, one would inevitably find him.
There was, apparently, just something about Eli.
As for me, well, I planned to take my woman home.
And comfort her.
That was the plan anyway.
EIGHTEEN
Dusty
I floated in and out of consciousness in Ryan's front seat as he talked to the large group of people, two of whom were obviously his parents. His father looked just like his sons with a couple extra years on him.