Page 11 of Break Away (Riot MC Next Generation #2)

Chapter eight

Riling You Up

Rafferty

The waitress set an appetizer sampler plater in the middle of the table, took our dinner orders, and hurried off toward the kitchen.

Alexandra sat across from me, sipping a French martini. She set it precisely on the round coaster in front of her, then glanced up at me. “Why did you ask me earlier if they had cooked food, if you were just going to order the rainbow roll?”

“Why do you think?” I asked, picking up my Stella Artois.

She gave a short head shake. “You just wanted to rile me up.”

I grinned. “Riling you up is one of my favorite things to do.”

“I’ve never understood that.”

I sipped the beer, debating sharing this with her. “I’m pretty sure you do. Riling you up forced you to tip your head back… and how else was I going to get you to offer up that gorgeous neck of yours?”

Using a pair of chopsticks, she put a coconut shrimp and a crab rangoon on her plate. “Well, that explains today, but not all the other times you ever did it.”

I loaded my plate with a spring roll and a chicken satay. “If you have finals this week, how long is your break before the next semester?”

She swallowed some food. “A week, but I’m scheduled to work at a pediatric dentist office in town…so I’m not entirely free to come back to Jacksonville. Best case, I’ll have a four-day weekend before I start classes again, because this office doesn’t offer Friday appointments.”

I nodded. “Have you worked at the pediatric dentist office before?”

“Yeah. I’ve been shadowing Dr. Culverson off and on for the last nine months. Working there sealed my decision to specialize in that area.”

The chicken satay had enough spice, it made my sinuses tingle. I swallowed it down and made a mental note to check out where this dentist’s office was located before I left town tomorrow.

“What are you thinking about over there? I can practically see your diabolical wheels turning,” Alexandra said.

“You’re gonna tell me I’m going overboard, but the way your ex behaved at the apartment - I wouldn’t put it past him to approach you coming out of a dentist’s office at the end of the day.”

She lifted her martini. “It’s May, so the sun doesn’t set until almost eight o’clock these days, Raff. He wouldn’t do anything to me in the parking lot.” She sipped her drink, then muttered, “I wouldn’t let him.”

“Don’t get cocky, Lex. It’s not like you’ve got a holster for that rolling pin.”

She chuckled. “Very funny, smart guy.”

“I’m serious. I don’t know who’s the bigger threat to you, him or Brantley.”

“How about, neither,” she suggested.

I stared at her. “Do you really believe that?”

Her lips pushed out in a small pout. She shrugged a shoulder.

“I don’t know. I’d meant to check Ines’s room before you came back.

It seems strange that Brantley had a key, went inside, but didn’t leave with anything.

You were so concerned with him having a key that I never got a chance to ask. I mean, what’s that about?”

I twisted my head to the side just an inch. “Yeah. I wish I’d have asked him that, too, since Cal asked me the same thing.”

Her expression fell. “You told him about Brantley, too?”

I faced her. “There was no reason not to, Lex. The more he knows, the better.”

The way she pressed her lips together and lowered her brows, I had a hard time not telling her how cute she was, but I also understood her not wanting Cal to know. My sister, Jasmine, hated how much Dad demanded to know about her life, but it was all out of love.

“You’re right, but I still don’t like it.”

Our server delivered our entrées to the table, interrupting us.

I only ate sushi around Lex, Simone, or Gabriella which amounted to maybe three times a year tops.

Somehow I always forgot how most sushi places gussied up the plates with flowers…

whether or not they were edible, I had no clue.

But I had a new appreciation for it as I watched Alexandra’s face light up at her plate in front of her.

It wasn’t the food that made her face brighten, it was the tiny vase with a small, purple flower inside it.

Words my dad said to me years ago rushed back to me. ‘Life is all about the little things, Raff. Always. Never forget that, because when you find the woman you want by your side, it’ll be all those little things which matter to her, that will prove you matter, too.’

Alexandra’s hazel eyes locked with mine. “Don’t you love their presentation?”

I sipped my beer. “I love that you love it so much.”

“Another round?” our server asked.

“Not for me. If she’s having another, bring her a glass of water as well, please,” I said.

Lex shot me a questioning look, then turned to our server. “I’ll have a Thai iced tea, please.”

After we dug into our food, Lex stared at me for a long moment. “Is there a reason you essentially didn’t want me to have another martini?”

I swallowed a bite of rainbow roll. “We’re going to take this at your pace, but I won’t go there with you if you’re drunk. I’ve never had that kind of martini, so I don’t know how strong or weak it is, but I know I want you relatively sober later… in case things progress.”

She turned her head to the side and laughed. “Progress. I’ll never think of that word the same way again.”

I reached across the table and grabbed her hand. “Lex. There’s no pressure here. I’m trying to take care of you.”

She closed her eyes, dipped her chin, and exhaled. When she met my gaze again, she was smiling. “Simone said you’d do that.”

Turnabout was fair play most of the time, but I shot her some side-eye. “You told Simone?”

“Better than your sister, wouldn’t you say?”

That made my stomach lurch. “Yeah. Jesus, we have too many mutuals, Lex.”

She squeezed my hand. “You don’t believe that.”

“You’re right. All of us being so tight-knit hasn’t been a problem before—”

She shook her head. “It isn’t now, either. It just feels different because we’re changing things.”

Reflexively, I asked, “Are we, though?”

Our server came back with Alexandra’s iced tea, and we let go of each other’s hand.

Alexandra picked up her chopsticks. “I don’t want to sabotage anything right out of the gate, but it’s something that worries me. What happens if we don’t work out?”

That was a no-brainer.

“I move.”

Her brows furrowed. “That’s extreme.”

“I said you had a little something to do with my willingness to move… but, it pretty much all had to do with you.”

“That’s crazy, Tee.”

I shook my head. “Everywhere I go, there are reminders of you. Even when I was helping Steel and the Devil Lancers rebuild their clubhouse. It’s on the northside - a part of town that has nothing to do with you - and those assholes came back with shakes from the Dreamette.”

She shot me a dry look. “And that sent you over the edge?”

I chuckled. “No, but it never stopped. I’d tell them to hit a place I knew you didn’t like, which just reminded me of how strong your opinions are. I can’t be in that town and not think of you… and it’s fuckin’ torture.”

“That almost sounds obsessive.”

“It feels that way, and I figure the only way out… is out. So, yeah, if for some fucked-up reason this doesn’t work with us, I’ll move.”

Her gaze shifted to her plate, where she was swirling her chopsticks in a circular pattern. “That makes me sad.”

I downed the rest of my beer and set the glass at the end of the table. “Alexandra, we’re borrowing trouble here for no good reason.”

Her hazel eyes met mine and the alarm there made me brace. “There is good reason, Raff. I care too much about you to mess this up.”

I twisted my hand up on the table. “And there you go. We agree about that. We’re more mature now…

you more than me, I’m sure, but seeing as neither of us wants to fuck this up, then we aren’t going to fuck it up.

Seriously, we’re worrying about something that hasn’t happened yet, and if I have anything to say about it, it isn’t going to happen. ”

“You can’t predict the future.”

“Yeah, I can . Cal said he’d kick my ass until I wished I didn’t have an ass for him to kick if I hurt you. I have to imagine the other brothers will pile right on if I did something shitty to you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Dad is so extra about me.”

I leaned forward. “He should be.”

A softness stole over her expression.

I smiled. “Are you done eating?”

She pointed her chopsticks at me. “You don’t understand how much I love sushi, Raff. I don’t leave anything behind.”

Over an hour later, we arrived back at Alexandra’s apartment complex.

I’d talked her into taking me on a tour of the campus after we were done eating.

It wasn’t my first time in Gainesville, but I had two ulterior motives for taking such a long walk.

It gave me an idea of where she would be most days, and it gave us both time to work off our nerves.

My instincts said Porter wouldn’t try anything on campus with Lex. I’d forgotten how many students attended school year-round. It was cool to hear her talk about the classes she took in each of the different buildings.

I held her hand as we climbed the stairs to her floor. When we hit the last step, I paused.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

I looked at her and whispered, “Your door is open. Get your phone out, call 911.”

She let go of my hand to grab her phone.

I nudged the door open with the toe of my boot.

“What are you doing, Raff?” she hissed.

“Call 911, babe.”

She wandered to the other end of the breezeway. I peeked inside. The lights were off, but from the dim light shining into the unit, I saw papers were strewn everywhere.

Alexandra trudged back to me. “An officer is on the way.”

I ran a hand through my hair. “Do you have a phone number for Brantley?”

She shook her head. “No. Why would he come back?”

“Why was he here unannounced earlier?”

“I’ll try Ines’s parents. Maybe her mom has a number for Brantley.”

A police car pulled into the lot, parked, and a male officer came upstairs. “I’m Officer Hatcher. Have either of you been inside?”