Page 3 of Kaz (Salvation Kings MC: New Freedom Chapter #2)

Miles

HE’D BARELY been home half an hour when his doorbell rang. He pulled his front door open and couldn’t help but smile at his best friend, who stood on the other side, grinning as he held up a six-pack of beer.

“I’m here to help drown your sorrows,” Ezra said and handed the six-pack to Miles, who stepped back and let his friend inside.

“Have we reached the point where we just skip the moral support?”

Ezra’s blue eyes lit up, and he walked backward down the hall, his hands held up like he was weighing something. “Moral support? Eh. Moron support? Fuck yeah.”

Miles snorted and shook his head. Ez was a breath of fresh air. He always knew how to get him out of a funk.

He followed Ezra into his living room, where they sat down on the couch. He pulled two cans free and handed Ezra one. He took a big gulp of his beer, but he already knew that drowning his sorrows wouldn’t do anything except give him a hangover, which was the last thing he needed.

“I don’t know what I’m gonna do,” he mumbled, burying his face in his hands.

Ezra snorted. “You don’t need to do nothing. A golden opportunity is gonna come knocking. It always does.”

He turned his head to look up at Ezra through his fingers. Ezra was smiling, but it wasn’t one of his I’m-making-fun-of-you smiles. It was a genuine, soft smile.

“You really think so?”

“Yeah,” Ezra said with a nod.

Miles straightened, a smile tugging at his lips.

“One door closes and another opens. It might be a job offer, it might be something simpler. You just gotta have the cajónes to jump in when the opportunity presents itself.”

He rolled his eyes, but he got what Ezra was saying. This wasn’t an end, it was a beginning. He just had to figure out what he wanted. Which path he wanted to follow.

When he grabbed his beer off the coffee table, Ezra tapped their cans together and said, “To saying fuck you to asshole bosses.”

While Ezra drank, he stared at him with raised brows.

“Asshole bosses?”

Ezra blinked innocently at him, but his best friend did not have a shred of innocence left inside him, so Miles put his beer down and crossed his arms, leveling Ezra with a hard look.

“What did you do?”

Ezra worked for his foster father in the IT department of his security company. He’d worked there since they graduated from college. If he was calling Auggie an asshole, then it was likely because Auggie was holding him responsible for his actions.

Ezra blew out a breath and sank into the couch.

“I may or may not have fucked someone I shouldn’t have,” Ezra mumbled, back to batting his lashes at Miles.

He took a deep breath, then grabbed his beer and downed what was left.

“You’re an idiot.”

Ezra shrugged. “I know.”

“He didn’t fire you, did he?”

Ezra’s expression shuddered, and his words were clipped as he said, “He demoted me.”

Ouch. Yeah, that was definitely worse for Ezra than getting fired.

“You gonna stay? Work your way back up?”

Ezra shook his head, then shrugged. “I don’t know. I feel like… I’m bored. I might try something new. Something exciting.”

“You and something exciting? That sounds like a horrible idea,” Miles said with laughter in his voice, unsurprised when his friend flipped him off.

“It probably is, but...” Ezra shrugged, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. “I think it’s time for something new. For both of us.”

Ezra said it like they’d had a choice in the matter.

Well, Ezra probably had. He could’ve kept his dick in his pants, but he’d chosen not to, which made him think it might’ve been on purpose.

He wasn’t going to dig into it now, because he knew Ezra would just wave him off with a joke anyway.

Ezra would come to him once he was ready to talk, and that time was clearly not now, so he changed the subject.

“My sister asked me to stop by tomorrow.”

Ezra’s eyes lit up, and Miles held back a groan, wishing he’d said something else. Anything else.

“Another blind date?”

“I hope the fuck not.”

Ezra’s laughter filled the room, and Miles relaxed back against the couch cushions.

“She has terrible taste in gay men,” Ezra said with a wry smile. “What do you want in a man?”

Before Miles could even form a thought, Ezra added, “Aside from good dick.”

“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “Someone who wants me unapologetically. Someone who’s open and honest with me.”

“Someone who looks like a Greek god in leather?”

He shoved Ezra off the couch for that. Not that it stopped his best friend from laughing as he lay on the floor between the couch and coffee table.

“Shut up.”

He did not want Kaz. That was well and truly done. Kaz had ensured it was.

If Kaz hadn’t cheated, though… no, he couldn’t do that to himself, because he knew what the answer would be: Yes. Fuck yes.

He’d never wanted anyone as much as he wanted Kaz. What he felt for Kaz? He’d never felt for anyone since, and he doubted he ever would. The man had thoroughly gripped his heart, and when he walked away that day, on Kaz’s nineteenth birthday, he feared he left it behind with Kaz.

He’d been in several relationships since then, but none of them lasted long. They hadn’t been… enough. They hadn’t been Kaz. No one would ever be able to measure up, and it wasn’t fair for them to try. They would never succeed.

∞ ∞ ∞

He raised his hand to knock on his sister’s door, a heavy weight on his shoulders from yesterday’s events.

His crew hadn’t been happy when he told them he quit, and once he explained why, it certainly hadn’t helped.

Mika and a few of the other had quit right then and there.

He wished he’d had the foresight to have jobs lined up for them before quitting, but he hadn’t exactly planned it.

He was going to take a small break to gather himself and figure out what he wanted to do next: look for a new job or start his own company. Both seemed daunting tasks right now.

The door opened to show his smiling sister, and he barely got out a, “Hi,” before he had her arms around him. He held on tight, feeling some of that tension seeping out the longer he had Emma squished against him. There was no one he loved more than her. She’d always been his ride or die.

He’d called and told her what happened yesterday, but she’d been tight-lipped about her reason for asking him here today. He wasn’t sure if he should be excited or nervous. Probably nervous, knowing his sister. She was nothing if not unpredictable.

“Come on,” Emma said and tugged him inside.

He closed the door behind them and followed Emma down the short hallway, through her kitchen, and into her bedroom.

She had her long blonde hair braided back like she often did when she was going for a ride on her motorcycle, though he suspected that wasn’t why she’d braided it today. She was wearing yoga pants and a loose T-shirt, and they’d been taught from a young age to dress for the slide, not the ride.

He frowned when she stopped in front of her dresser and faced him with a carefully blank look on her face, her hands bunching up the bottom of her shirt.

He cocked his head to the side and narrowed his eyes at her.

“What’s going on?”

She nibbled on her lip, then took a deep breath.

“Killian and Kaz are starting their own club. It’s a new Salvation Kings chapter in a town called New Freedom. It’s in Pennsylvania.”

He blinked at her, thoughts evading him.

Emma licked her lips, an almost guilty look in her golden-brown eyes. She grabbed something off her dresser, and when she held it up, his heart froze in his chest. It was a leather cut with the Salvation Kings’ colors on it, New Freedom written underneath.

“I’m a King now. We had our patching-in last night. I’m moving there tomorrow.”

He looked at his sister, disbelief coursing through him as he took in her words. It didn’t make sense, though her dropping those specific news on him the night before made perfect sense. He wouldn’t have time to dissuade her or come up with reasons she might listen to.

“Moving,” he muttered, brows scrunching. “What about your job?”

Emma shrugged. “They need paramedics in New Freedom, too.”

He didn’t understand it. She’d been so excited last year when she moved to the fire station where Pops worked. Seeing those two work their ambulance together was nothing short of inspiring. Why was she giving that up? She could keep her job even if she moved. It wouldn’t be that long a commute.

The only reason he could come up with was that she wanted a fresh start, and that scared the shit out of him because he couldn’t figure out what could’ve caused her to want that.

“Why?” he asked in a near-whisper.

“Because I want to do more. Way more than being a paramedic allows me to.”

Something caught in his throat. More . The club saved people in ways paramedics couldn’t.

The way they saved two kids on the run from the hitman who murdered their parents twenty-six years ago.

It terrified him to think of his baby sister in dangerous situations like that, but he shoved that feeling deep down until he thought he might choke on it.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

Emma cocked a brow at him.

“I thought you hated club life,” he continued.

“Hated…? Boy, don’t push your trauma onto me,” Emma said. She folded her cut and placed it back on the top of her dresser, and he caught a flash of pride in her expression as she looked down at it. His stomach clenched tight, and he wished he could be happy for her, but he just couldn’t.

She turned around, and he gave her a dirty look, but when she crossed her arms and gave him that you-better-be-joking look he fucking hated, he sat down on her bed with a deep sigh. Emma rolled her eyes and threw a duffel bag at him. He caught it with a grunt, then dropped it on her bed.

“Have you told Dad and Pops?”

She arched a brow at him, and he grumbled under his breath because, of course, she had. He was the last one she was telling.

“What about your apartment?”