Page 11

Chapter Eleven

Griffin’s Beach Ashley

A shley woke up later than normal after Grayson’s three in the morning phone call from Lex. He got up and got to work while Ashley fitfully tried to fall back asleep. Which she did. After two long hours.

She walks up the steps to the office, and Travis passes her with a nod. “Ashley.”

“Travis,” she says, confused, and watches him walk to his car before heading inside.

Moving over to Grayson sitting at his desk, she stares in annoyance at how he looks like he got a full night’s sleep while she feels hungover. She points a thumb over her shoulder and asks, “What was that?”

“Travis came to make me an offer,” Grayson says.

“He’s finally inviting you to join the investigation? To help where they’re obviously failing?”

It was only a matter of time before they came crawling back to him. Letting him go was the biggest mistake those idiots have ever made, which is a long list and says a lot.

“Kind of…”

Sitting down in the chair across from him, Ashley leans back and keeps her legs straight out, crossing her ankles as she studies him. “How the hell can you look so refreshed and awake after getting up at three? I feel hungover as shit.”

He chuckles. “You look good enough to eat, Mrs. Tate.”

“Don’t try to distract me. What did Travis offer?”

“A job.” When she gapes at him, he adds, “They want me back on the force.”

Suddenly more awake than if she’d mainlined caffeine with a hit of coke, Ashley sits up straight. “What?”

“Julian’s on his way out. The mayor is pushing for his resignation, and the investigation has gone nowhere since the first body was found. He’s taking a huge hit, and they need results.”

“How’d Travis take it when you turned him down?” When he says nothing, her eyes widen. “You did turn him down, didn’t you?”

“I’m considering the offer.”

She stands up and backs away like he might release some type of venomous snake or angry ferret towards her. “Are you fucking with me right now?”

“What?”

“Look what they did to you! You know this makes you nothing more than a little set piece for them to play with after they royally screwed the pooch and pissed on the club one too many times, right?”

He looks confused. “I didn’t understand much of that.”

“They’re using you,” she says, angry at how blind he is. “They want you to solve it and use the club to take down the killer because they no longer have a relationship with the Drifters.”

“Then why didn’t they go to the club for help?”

She snorts. “Because Dad would tell them to fuck themselves! I can’t believe you’d even consider this. Do you realize that you and my family can now only talk about cars or sports again? Assuming they’ll even talk to you at all.”

He stands, and she’s taken aback at how angry he looks. “I had dreams of being chief, Ashley. Dreams that were dashed the moment they fired me.”

“Because of me.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she sighs. She knew it would circle back one of these days. “Your dreams were taken away because of me.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Yeah, it is.”

Sighing, Grayson runs his hands through his hair. The hair he’ll have to cut if he decides to put that uniform on again every day. “I wouldn’t change it, Ash. Not for a second. I love you, and I want to be with you.”

“The club will never trust you again. It’ll put a wedge between us and them.”

“They don’t fully trust me now. If I take their offer, I’ll have benefits again. Ones I don’t have to pay an arm and a leg for. And a pension. We’ll be set.”

How can he just overlook everything else so easily? “You’re an owner of a business right now, Grayson. You’re growing at a pace that will require you to hire help soon. Plus, you’re making more money now than you did as a cop with hours you can set yourself.”

“There’s no security in this job. It could be gone tomorrow, and then what would we do?”

“I guess my money isn’t good enough, huh? And, for the record, this won’t be gone tomorrow because you work with the club. That alone is enough to sustain us because my money doesn’t mean anything.”

He won’t meet her gaze, and he remains silent. Suddenly, she worries her life balances on the edge of a cliff.

“Oh, I get it. They’re beneath you. Not worth your time or effort.”

“I didn’t say that.”

Shaking her head, Ashley walks to the door. “I can’t believe you’re actually considering this.”

“I can’t believe you expect me to just turn it down like it doesn’t matter. My dreams should mean something to you.”

“They do. But how you’re treated means something to me, too. The club treats you well, but they’ll always be unworthy of your time, won’t they? Guess what? I’m the club whether I want to be or not. I guess I’m beneath you, too.”

“I never said that!” he shouts.

Grayson’s never raised his voice at her before, and it drives her point home. She’s frustrating him because they’re not on equal playing fields. And she says what he doesn’t want to accept.

“Fine, be a pawn in their game. But all you’ll hear from me when they let you take the fall when they inevitably fail again is I told you so .”

Walking outside, she takes a deep breath. She needs space. This isn’t what she signed up for, and if Grayson wants this job, she’s going to be right back to where she was at the beginning of their relationship. She chooses him, and she always will, but she’s not certain it’s the same for him.

“If he has to choose, I’m not positive I’ll win,” she says and wipes the stray tear from her cheek as she hurries to her car.

Griffin’s Beach Grayson

S tanding outside the clubhouse, Grayson just stares at the door. There was a time he wasn’t allowed inside without a warrant. He’s been granted full access now, and Ashley was right. They give him consistent work, and it’s usually not that difficult.

She was also right when she called him out for the views he has when it comes to the club. It’s not that he believes he’s better than them, but from a moral standpoint, he wants to be. It’s become too easy to blur that line between right and wrong.

“Tate?” Diesel asks as he walks outside. “Figured you come inside when you texted me.”

“Travis offered me my old job back,” Grayson blurts out.

Eyebrows raised, his father-in-law walks over and sits on the picnic table in front of the building. A table Grayson has never understood the purpose of. Everyone sits on the table, not the benches, and he’s never once seen anyone eat on it.

“You know we’ll have to distance ourselves from you if you accept. Ashley, too.”

“You’d cut your daughter off?”

“I’m always here for her, but we have to take precautions. I’m kind of surprised you’d be willing to do that to her again.”

Again. Ashley barely saw her family because of her relationship with him.

She was given a choice, and she ultimately chose him.

Even though she was never fully integrated with the club, the distance with her family took its toll, especially after twenty years of separation. Can he really do that to his wife?

“I don’t know what to do, Diesel,” he admits. “I’ve always had this one path, you know? The nice, paved path I’ve driven on my entire life until one day, it just blew up. Okay, great, I pivot and create my own path. It’s bumpy and difficult at times, but I keep going because that’s who I am.”

“And then you’re offered the nice familiar path that’s paved and easy again. I get it.”

“The fifteen-year-old with a dream is telling me to take it and run.”

Diesel sighs. “And the rest of you?”

He moves to sit on the table beside him. “The rational part of me says something else is at play that I don’t see. Or don’t want to see. I want to believe they want me back because they know I can do what they can’t.”

“It’s a ploy, Tate. You’re a pawn in their game.”

“That’s what Ashley said,” he says with a chuckle.

“When they fired you, we told Travis and Julian to go fuck themselves. We took what they did you personally. You became family whether you like it or not.”

Grayson had no idea about this. He knew they were on bad terms, but he assumed it was because of Julian’s constant comments about cleaning up the trash in town. “You stopped working with them because of me?”

“When my daughter showed up in tears because she was certain she was going to lose you over it, we knew we needed to take a stand. You do what you have to do, but as long as Julian and Travis are running the place, we’re done. What they did to you was an insult to us.”

This changes his perspective on so many things. “Why do you think I’m being used as a pawn?”

“Because Travis showed up here yesterday morning and gave me the file on the latest victim. He wants us to help under the table and just take care of the problem for them. I told him to go to hell.”

“And you think they want to leverage me to get you to help.”

He nods. “Yeah, I do. It won’t work, but if they really thought you could fix this, they never would’ve needed to come to us.”

“He conveniently left that little tidbit out.”

“I don’t know what the plan is, but if you can’t get us to help, I doubt your job will still be around. And at that point, you’d have given up your business and your working relationship with us.”

And possibly lose Ashley, too. No wonder Ashley was so upset. It’s a slap in the face to her, too.

“Thanks, Diesel. I gotta head to the station before going home to make up with my wife. She was pretty pissed I was considering it.”

“You’re accepting the job?”

“I’m going to tell Travis he can go fuck himself in person,” Grayson says and hops off the table.

The expression on his father-in-law’s face is one of pride, and it’s something he’s never seen from his own father, and he knows he’s made the right decision.

The station isn’t far, and he walks right in to see the place hasn’t changed a bit. Travis steps out of his office with a smile. “Does this mean you’ve made a decision?”

A skinny kid sits in his old desk, and he’s the new straight and narrow kid to replace Grayson. Everything he missed suddenly feels like trying to stuff himself into the tux he wore to his high school prom when he was half the size he is now. Far too tight and uncomfortable.

“What offer?” Julian asks and steps out of his office.

“Oh, you didn’t know? I was offered my old job because you can’t find a serial killer or identify one of his victims. The truth is, though, it’s not the department that’s failing. It’s poor leadership. It’s the two of you.”

The balding man shakes his head. “I would never agree to reinstate you, so the offer was a mistake.”

“Julian—”

“You’re on your way out,” Grayson says. “Travis was given a heads-up, and he wants to boost his own career. Thinks leading me on will help get the club working with him again, but it won’t. I’m no one’s pawn, Travis.”

The animosity between Julian and Travis finally comes to a head, and it’s obvious they’re both working against the other rather than together. Something Grayson only just started to witness before he was fired.

Shaking his head, Travis sighs. “We were right to fire you, Grayson. Your loyalty isn’t with us.”

“It was, Travis. That’s the problem. You broke that loyalty, and when you did, you fucked yourself because the Drifters will never help you again. Crime isn’t falling like Julian wants people to believe, and the media’s finally catching wind that you both are nothing but smoke and mirrors.”

“You chose a biker whore over the law,” Julian says. “Don’t sound so righteous.”

He laughs. “First of all, talk about my wife like that again, and I won’t give a fuck that you have a badge. And second, you’d give your left nut to have a chance with Karmen. We all know it.”

“Fuck you.”

“No, fuck you. And be careful, Julian. The club keeps receipts,” he says, smiling at the slight change in demeanor of the older man. The past work the club has done for him could circle back and hurt him. A lot.

Sighing, he feels a weight off his shoulders, and he walks to the door. He finally sees everything clearly. Whether the club is as moral as Grayson believes himself to be, they’re upfront about who they are. They’re the obvious choice.

He pulls out his phone and calls Ashley.

“Hey.”

“I’m just leaving the station and on my way home.”

“Grayson—”

“I told them to go fuck themselves,” he says. “You were right, and you were right to call me out on my bullshit. Now, I want you naked in our bed by the time I get home because I need to show you just how sorry I am.”

A relieved sigh comes through the phone. “You’re sure you won’t regret this?”

“I talked to your dad. There were a few pieces of the puzzle I was missing, but now that I have them, I see the full picture. It’s the only option there is. Unless I want to disappoint everyone, including myself.”

“As long as you’re sure.”

She’s been crying. He hears it in her voice, and he hates it. As soon as she left, he knew she worried he wouldn’t pick her if it came down to it even though he will always choose her.

“I love you, Ash. You’re the only thing in this world I’m scared to lose, and I will do whatever it takes to make sure you stick around and deal with me.”

“I’ll be waiting for you.”

“Naked. Not a single piece of clothing on that sexy body.”

Her giggle eases the guilt of how he must’ve made her feel, and he hurries to his car. He meant what he said. This is the only option to make sure the one person who means everything to him is proud of him. He can’t lose that.