Fiona waved him over a second before a crowd of MC members could drag her into a drinking game. “Get the information from Jack, okay?” she instructed him before plastering on an inauthentic smile, performing for the club members. Gage made a mental note for apologize to her later for dragging her along. Really, he knew he shouldn’t have done this. Too many people overwhelmed Fiona, and sometimes, when she was in large crowds, she would have anxiety attacks, needing to run outside to get fresh air before she could breathe normally. Maybe that’s why she likes being out there in the country, Gage thought. All those open spaces must be good for her.
He tried to dislodge that thought from his brain. It was no good wasting time feeling jealous of her new life. Fiona was here now, in his grasp. He had to make good use of this time while he still had the chance. “I’ll be right back, okay?” he said to Fiona before walking off to find Jack. He felt a little guilty for leaving Fiona alone. He knew she was tough, that she could handle anything, but at the same time, she was often very nervous, very easily overwhelmed. As he turned his head to give Fiona one last, reassuring look as he walked away, he thought to himself, I’ll take care of you, baby. I promise.
Chapter Six
“So are you and Gage…” Gwen trailed off, but Fiona knew what she was trying to ask. She slowly downed her shot, letting it linger in her mouth before swallowing it, if only to give herself extra time before answering the dreaded question.
“No. No, we’re not,” Fiona said with a polite smile, and she could tell that various club members were listening in on their conversation despite the hoots and hollers of the bikers around her. “I’m just here for a work thing, you know, helping Gage with a case. I’m engaged now, actually,” she said, gesturing to the ring that she carried on her left hand.
“Oh, wow, congratulations!” Gwen said, but Fiona could tell that she was caught off guard, expecting an entirely different answer. “Who is he? Where’d you meet him? What’s he do? Is he here in town?”
Fiona laughed, unsure of which question to tackle first. “Um, his name is Carl, Carl Yonkers. We met at a barbecue a coworker of mine was throwing, and we just hit it off. He’s an accountant, but I don’t really understand any of the work he does,” she said with an awkward chuckle. It felt weird, describing her new relationship to someone from her old life. She wanted to keep the two spheres as separate as possible, not allowing them to interfere with each other. It’s not like Gwen could possibly do anything to mess that distinction up, but still, it was uncomfortable for Fiona to even acknowledge her other, cleaner, easier life when she was mired in the city business.
“Sounds like a great catch,” Gwen said before drinking her own shot. Fiona could tell from the flat, wooden way she said it that Gwen didn’t really mean it. She was an MC girl, through and through, somebody who’d been hanging around the bikers since she was a teenager. She was what Fiona should have been like, honestly, obsessed with hard, tough men with tattoos. But Fiona needed something different nowadays. She needed something stable, something easy, something simple and safe. At least, that’s what she told herself.
Fiona felt her skin start crawling a little, the vast number of sweaty, drunk, swaying bodies surrounding her making her more and more uncomfortable with each passing second. “Um, I’m going to go mingle a little bit. I’ll talk to you later!” Fiona said, shoving her way through the crowd of bodies to get to relatively fresher air in the center of the room. She thought she heard Gwen shout something after her, probably trying to tell her to wait up, but Fiona ignored it, plunging forward until she saw Gage on the opposite side of the room, his head bowed as he talked to a man that Fiona only vaguely recognized.
By the time Fiona crossed the room, diving in between little pockets of people talking to each other, the other man had left, heading out of the building, while Gage just stood there by himself, sipping on a beer. “What’s up?” Fiona asked, ignoring the sweet, familiar half-smile that Gage gave her as soon as she stepped in front of him.
“Hey, talked to Jack. Gave him our girl’s number. He should have the information for us in a couple of days.”
“Just like that?” Fiona asked. It was a little scary how easy it was to invade a young girl’s privacy.
Gage just shrugged. “I had to call in a favor, but yeah, we’ll be on our way soon enough. I told him to rush it, so maybe we’ll learn who she was talking to by tomorrow.”