Page 21 of Lockout (The Vikings MC: Tucson Chapter #11)

“Put me down, asshole,” Toxic said, hitting Warrant in the side with a right hook. “We have kegs to haul in here. Pyre, give us a hand. Unless all that hair has made you as girlie as you look and you can’t handle a keg anymore?”

All the men laughed at that. Pyre had started growing out his hair a while ago and it was down to his shoulders now, even longer than Riptide’s.

Pyre flipped Toxic off on his way out the door. “I can lift more than you, Old Man.”

“Old?” Toxic asked, clutching his chest as though he’d been wounded. “Hush is the old man around here.”

“Fuck off, Toxic,” Hush barked. “Or I’m goin’ to let you carry in all that booze you bought by yourself.”

Leaning against the wall, I watched my brothers intermingle with our friends.

We were lucky enough to have allies we could call on.

Even luckier to call them friends. The Austin guys couldn’t make it down for this party, Cade’s old lady was about ready to pop with their third kid and he didn’t want her to travel.

The others wanted to be around to welcome the newest kid to the crew, so they were out for tonight’s events, and I wasn’t letting them anywhere near the bullshit with the LoS.

It was part of my job to keep everyone safe.

By everyone, I meant anyone who we were close with, my bothers, their families, our allies.

All of them. And sometimes that meant not involving them.

If I could take care of this on my own, I would.

I hated putting my family into any kind of jeopardy.

However, my brothers would try to kick my ass if they knew I even contemplated leaving them out of a fight.

So they were always in. Our allies? I did my best to use them sparingly, as I knew they did with us.

But having backup like them was a load off my mind.

And Cypher’s, and Ruck’s. It was why we were all banding together and assisting each other when shit hit the fan.

That way, in case anything happened in the future and we needed the help, we had someone to go to.

Toxic had introduced me to Cypher and Cynic—Toxic’s cousin—had introduced me to Ruck, but I was surprised I hadn’t run across either of them during our military years.

It was a relatively small world when deploying, smaller when doing black ops, but somehow we’d all missed one another during that time.

“That’s nice to see.”

I glanced over and saw Kit standing at the bar smiling at me. “What’s that?” I asked. I’d known her for so long it was almost like she was my little sister, too.

“Haven’t seen you smile for a bit.”

I frowned at her and shoved off the wall, stopping in front of her at the bar. She slid over an old fashioned—one of my favorite drinks—and gave me a soft smile.

“I smile.”

“Not like that,” she said with a shrug. When I arched a brow at her she sighed and tried to explain.

“There was no stress behind it. You always seem to be stressed about one thing or another these days.” She leaned her forearms on the bar top and gave me a devious grin.

“I think you need something to take your worries away.”

“And what would that be?” I asked, though I had a feeling I knew what she was hinting at. My eyes strayed over to where Keely was standing, getting stuck on her ass before I focused back on Kit again. No way she was about to tell me to my face that I needed to get fucked.

My lips twitched when her cheeks turned a bit pink and she just shrugged. I figured she wouldn’t be able to go through with it. She considered me a big brother, too. But we didn’t have the years of growing up together that allowed her to say what was on her mind.

Guaranteed if Daph was here she would have told me to get my head out of my ass and go have sex with my woman. Which is basically what my twin had told me earlier, too. These people sure liked to stick their noses into shit that wasn’t theirs.

“I’ll work on that,” I told Kit. The last thing I wanted was to embarrass her, or to make her feel like I didn’t want her opinion. I wasn’t going to change my life based off of what she thought I should do, but I loved her and didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

“We just want to see you be happy, Lock,” she told me, searching my gaze.

“What makes you think I’m not?”

She reached out and dug her thumb into the top of my shoulder—the trapezius, the spot where my masseuse says I carry all of my tension—and when I grunted, she smirked. “The fact that your shoulders are nearly at your ears is a good indication that you’re a bit tense, Lock.”

“Tense isn’t the same as unhappy, Kit,” I replied in the same self-satisfied tone. She stuck her tongue out at me and I laughed.

“You need to call Esperanza and get her in for a session. That was like sticking my thumb against concrete.”

She wasn’t wrong. I’d finally broken down and hired a masseuse a couple years ago. Esperanza usually bitched me out as she worked on me—for going too long between sessions and setting back her work—but I always felt better after she worked her magic and made my muscles relax. “Yeah. Later.”

“It’s always later,” she chided.

“Go mother someone else,” I told her, but there was no heat behind the words.

“Everyone sent the kids away,” she said with a sigh. “No one left here to mother but you. Sorry.”

I laughed and shook my head. “Then I’d better get out there and see how much alcohol Toxic bought.”

Kit flinched. “Prepare yourself. It’s a lot.”

Grinning, I walked out the door of my clubhouse. I needed this. Everyone needed this. I didn’t do a lot of kicking back and relaxing these days, but it was past due.