Page 24 of Other Woman Drama (Content Advisory #4)

Twenty-One

No, babe, I think it’s awesome that your alarm wakes up everyone but you.

— Silver to Webber

WEBBER

“Babe,” a whispered, honey sweet voice sounded in my ear. “Come on, or you’re going to be late for your meeting.”

I groaned and rolled over. “I don’t want to go.”

I was a night owl.

I stayed up late and got up late because my body just worked better that way.

Eight in the morning meetings were dog shit, and I couldn’t fucking stand them.

But they were a necessary evil, and one that I dealt with because the meetings with my staff meant that I could keep the hours I wanted.

One day wouldn’t kill me.

But when a sexy, practically naked body curled up into my back, I momentarily forgot how tired I was.

“Come on, Piers,” she whispered. “You have to get up. You have exactly thirty minutes before you need to leave. Your daughter’s getting ready to leave for school and has been up for hours. At least someone got the morning genes. She must’ve gotten that from your ex.”

Normally, I was the type of man that would say he needed hours and hours of time.

But sleeping in the same bed for two weeks straight with the woman that I was crazy in love with curled up at my side meant that I didn’t care how long I had.

As long as I made it good for her…

“What are you doing?” she asked when I rolled over, displacing her body from mine.

When she was on her back, I moved down the length of her body, trying to ignore the green and brown bruises that I saw on her torso as I went past.

“Piers…” she gasped when I lifted the small, silk slip thing she wore to bed and pressed a kiss to her belly. “What are you doing?”

“Best way to wake up, I’m thinking,” I murmured. “Your pussy on my tongue might be the one thing I have to have when I get up early for the rest of my life.”

She hissed in a breath when I pulled her panties down her hips.

I managed to show some restraint despite wanting to rip them clean off of her.

I’d had to stop doing that because she’d run out of panties and she had just replaced them with new ones.

I found that one of my favorite pastimes was walking with her into a Victoria’s Secret and buying her panties that I could take off of her later.

Her voluptuous, perfectly curved hips wore the hell out of a set of lace panties.

I dreamed about her body every night, and when I woke up, I only daydreamed about it more.

The taste of her on my tongue woke me up completely, but it was the sound of her crying out that had my entire world righting.

“Pussy is better than coffee,” I teased as I crawled up the length of her body and kissed her.

She kissed me back, her hands going to my cheeks to hold me in place, before she pushed me away and reported, “You need to hurry.”

I winked at her and got out of bed.

Sadly, she was right.

I didn’t have time to fuck her.

I had forty-five employees who would get pissy if I didn’t make it there on time.

They didn’t like getting there early and more than I did.

When I made it out into the kitchen, it was to find Eedie and Hai hip to hip making sandwiches.

I’d hired Hai to work for me after he and Eedie had let it be known—no more hiding their relationship from the world—that they were together. Hai had been kicked out of the house, and now he was living in my spare bedroom with strict rules to never, ever have sex with my daughter under my roof.

I was sure the threat of dismemberment was futile, but I’d made it anyway.

Now both were making sandwiches for us to take to work today, and I couldn’t help but smile.

“What’s the point of the monthly meetings again?” Hai asked.

“To make sure that y’all know what y’all need to be doing for the month. And to give you free breakfast while I bitch about all the stuff y’all forgot to do last month,” I replied.

Hai grimaced. “I wasn’t here last month.”

“Nope,” I agreed. “But it’s mandatory. And you get free donuts,” I pointed out. “See you there.”

Eedie handed Hai his lunch, and I went to Silver who was holding mine out.

I grabbed it from her and said, “What’s your plan for the day?”

“Making sure that I still have a job, since you refused to let me go back last week.” She smiled. “I also need to go stock up on some essentials.” She hesitated. “Which badass do I have on me today?”

“Gunner, I think.” I frowned. “Jasper is supposed to meet me at work after the meeting.”

She studied my face for a long second before she said, “I like Jasper a lot, Webber.”

She’d figured out there was something wrong with Jasper and me, but she didn’t know what.

I was sure that Jasper could feel the tension I was exuding when he was around me, too. But I had to be sure.

And I couldn’t very well give this information to Apollo and let him look into it, because I didn’t want anyone else to know what was going on.

“Okay.” Eedie clapped. “I’m headed to work.”

I pressed a kiss to Eedie’s head, pulled her glittery hair strands she used as extensions out from my mouth, then went to do the same to Silver.

Silver’s eyes glittered with heat as she said, “Glitter looks good in your mustache, Piers.”

I tapped her nose with my fingers and said, “That’s enough.”

She snickered as I backed off and said, “Let’s go, Hai.”

Hai popped up, grabbed his phone, then walked to Eedie.

I left the room to keep from seeing him kissing on my little girl.

“Bye, Piers!”

“Bye, honey!” I called back as I walked out of my house.

I flipped my neighbor off, passed the sign tacked to my mailbox that said I had another HOA violation, and hopped on my bike.

I’d have to put in a second driveway at this point. As it was, Silver’s car, Eedie’s car, and Hai’s car were taking up so much of the driveway that I couldn’t fit another vehicle in it.

My truck and my bike were on the street—which I was sure drove the HOA and my neighbor crazy.

Not that I cared.

But if I wasn’t careful, they’d just call the cops on them, and I’d have to deal with violations and cops.

“Good morning,” I heard said when I straddled my bike and got my helmet on my head.

“Hey.” I jerked my chin. “How’s it hangin’, Frank?”

“To the left, like always, Webber.” Frank winked at me as he kept up his run.

Frank and his wife, Maura, had to be the one and only thing I’d miss from this stupid neighborhood.

They were good neighbors to have, and happened to have four girls, all of them in high school.

Though Eedie had graduated in May, leaving their kids next up.

I got my bike helmet in place and started my bike, waiting for Hai to back out of my driveway before I swung a bitch in the middle of the road and followed him.

Hai drove like an old lady, though, so I passed him the moment we got out of the residential area.

I also passed Gunner on the way to my house, and we swapped chin lifts.

When I got to the main office, the parking lot was half filled.

But as I took my spot right next to the door, more people rolled in behind me.

I knew that they’d be on time.

They knew better than to be late for a meeting.

My mom met me at the door with a coffee and a cinnamon roll.

Mom brought donuts for everyone else but always made sure to get me my favorite drug of choice.

Shipleys donuts were by far superior to any other donut place in the world, but their cinnamon rolls…they were to die for.

They were also expensive, and no way was I buying forty of them to feed to the guys at five dollars a pop.

“I’m glad to see you in,” Mom said. “You have a lot of stuff to catch up on.”

I grimaced. “They made me come.”

I wouldn’t have left even now, but it’d been two weeks and there was only so much that my mother could do from her end before stuff needed signing by the actual boss.

Hai walked in behind me, and my mom came out with another cinnamon roll in her hands.

“Hey, you don’t stay rich by buying stuff we don’t need!” I teased.

My mom gave me a sharp look. “You will buy what I say you buy, and then get a write-off. I already give you the out and don’t buy the other guys these cinnamon rolls, but Hai’s family.”

I winked at her. “Yes, ma’am.”

She pointed at me like she knew I was just trying to rile her up, then shook her head and looked at Hai. “Don’t let this big doofus intimidate you.”

“I’ll try,” Hai admitted.

I chuckled as I headed into my office, Hai close on my heels.

He knew we ate our breakfast in the breakroom. Just because we got something better than the rest of them didn’t mean we had to flaunt it in front of them.

The rest were in the makeshift conference room in the garage, and only Hai and I were in my office.

Giving me time to ask him what his plans for life were.

I’d wanted to ask him for a while, but Eedie was always around.

“What do you want out of life, Hai?” I asked.

Hai paused with his cinnamon roll halfway up to his mouth before saying, “What do you mean?”

“Do you want to live here? Work here? Marry my daughter?” I asked.

“Marry your daughter, for sure, yes. But not yet.” He paused. “I want to go into the military.”

My lips quirked. “Which branch?”

“The Air Force Academy,” he answered. “I got accepted. I did all the legwork. Worked my ass off to get the applications in. My mom freaked and said I couldn’t go, but now…”

“Now Mom is no longer in the picture, giving you enough room to breathe and allowing you to make your own decisions,” I said. “You know that you go there, you can’t take Eedie with you.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “And she knows. We’ve talked about it.

A lot. But it’s the best way to make this all happen—the life I want.

I could go in on the enlisted side, but that wouldn’t really secure our future all that well.

And no offense, but I really don’t want to work on cars the rest of my life.

I want to see the world, and I want her by my side when I do it. ”

“You don’t marry her, she can’t go wherever you’re stationed,” I pointed out.

“I…I know.” He looked a little green. “I was going to ask you when we turned eighteen.”

They had another month. They both turned eighteen on the same day in August.

Another reason they were the best of friends since they were young. They had a lot in common. Crazy moms and all.

“You don’t have to ask anymore.” I stood up, brushing glaze off my chest with one hand and offering the other one to Hai.

Hai stood up, clasped my hand, and looked directly into my eyes when he said, “I’ll spend my life making her happy, Piers.”

I smiled. “I know you will. Now, let’s get to this meeting.”

The meeting went well, considering.

Jasper arrived about halfway through, standing in the back looking worried.

I let him continue to worry as I finished up the meeting.

“Any questions about this month’s goals?” I asked.

The same damn hand that’d been popping up all morning, a young man I’d just promoted to manager of a store in South Dallas.

“What do you think about offering drinks in vending machines for the people that wait for their cars to be fixed?” he asked.

I didn’t remember his name.

“There’s coffee and a food vending machine,” I pointed out.

I had a man who stocked them all once every week, making sure that everything was available if they wanted it.

I didn’t do carbonated drinks, however, because I didn’t want to deal with the hassle. Those damn machines broke more than they worked.

“I have a lot of moms come to mine, and they always complain that there’s nothing for their kids to drink,” he said. “I’m just relaying issues I’ve had in the past with the customers over the last week.”

A week.

That’d been how long he’d been promoted.

I scrubbed at my face and said, “Tell you what, I’ll think about it.”

I wouldn’t think about it.

I disliked having drink machines to the point where I’d probably never have them again. But he didn’t need to know that.

“Anything else?” I asked.

The kid raised his hand again, but Hai did me a solid and told him to stop, we all wanted to leave.

It was true.

Just because they were here didn’t mean that they didn’t still have to put in a full workday.

Most of them had jobs that they scheduled, and they got paid by the job.

If they didn’t get those done, they didn’t get paid.

“Oh, sorry.” The kid winced.

I looked out over the crowd and said, “All right, class dismissed.”

They all filed out, taking boxes of donuts with them.

Japer walked out, too, but he didn’t go far.

He went to fix the truck that he’d been working on the day before.

I went to my area and got to work on my own project, but periodically looked up to watch Jasper work, trying to figure out what in the fuck I should say or do.

In the end, I gave up on working.

I watched the man from across my shop for close to ten minutes before he finally said, “What’s got you looking at me like that, Webber?”

I uncrossed my arms from my chest and headed toward the truck that Jasper was working on.

“I saw something a few weeks ago that I need to talk to you about,” I said.

Jasper frowned. “What?”

I’d also seen something a few weeks ago that had alarmed me even more.

“You’re still active duty with New Orleans Police Department,” I said. “On special loan to the FBI and homeland security for a joint task force that is set on investigating rogue one percent motorcycle clubs that are being put under the joint task force for gangs by Congress.”

“Apollo find that out for you?” Jasper asked, sounding calm.

But he had a tell.

His hands on the truck’s hood were white as he clenched the metal.

“No,” I answered. “Found that all out on my own.”

Jasper’s head dropped.

The scars on his neck and face pulled taut with the move, and I studied him as he tried to think up something to say and couldn’t.

He’d been investigating the club.

He’d gone through three whole years of being a Truth Teller, and I hadn’t seen the first goddamn sign.

What all did he have on us?

For some reason, though, I didn’t think he was going to share any of the information he’d found out or witnessed since he’d become one of us.

However, I couldn’t have him here.

It was a liability, and one day, they just might force him to talk.

“You need to leave,” I said. “You need to get the hell out of this club, and never look back, or I won’t be able to protect you.”

The others would kill him for what he’d done.

Not even Apollo knew.

I’d done this research on my own.

I’d borne the burden on my own for weeks now, and it was slowly killing me inside.

I liked Jasper.

I wanted him here.

But if I couldn’t trust him…

“Let me explain,” he said softly.

I shook my head. “There’s no explaining that’ll ever help. You need to leave. Now.”

A familiar car pulled into the driveway of my shop, and any other time, I would’ve smiled like a lovesick fool.

Not this time.

Jasper sighed and started walking, his hands in his pockets ready to pull out the keys to his bike.

He was parallel with Silver, who was waving at him and saying hi, when it happened.

The screech of tires.

Silver’s black hair whipping around.

Gunshots.

Then blood spraying in the air.