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

Three

Feral.

— Text from Webber to Silver

WEBBER

The drive back to the shop was done in silence—except for Silver’s constant stream of songs.

She was overly quiet, and I was on the verge of asking why when we pulled into the shop’s large parking area.

I parked the truck where it belonged, and shook my head at where Silver had parked her piece of shit Grand Am.

Right in the middle of the forecourt.

Sideways.

Lips twitching despite telling myself to get it under control, I got out and slammed the truck door closed.

I had to fight my manners to go get her door for her but eventually did anyway because she didn’t get out right away.

I opened her door to see her sitting up straight, face flushed.

“What are you doing?” I asked as she came back up straight in her seat.

“Dropped my phone underneath your seat,” she said. “Had to go digging.”

“Oh,” I said as I took in her bare legs.

I must’ve caught her leaving work.

She was in tight jean shorts, a black sweatshirt despite it being eighty degrees and muggy as fuck, and red high-top Nike Dunks.

I only knew what Nike Dunks were because Eedie had gone crazy over Silver’s shoes once.

That day that Eedie had gone crazy I’d learned that Silver had won them in a shoe raffle off of Nike because she’d entered every day for a year and won.

“Still wearing your winning shoes, I see,” I murmured.

“These are really all I have to wear. I have one more pair that are really ratty, but I don’t wear them often,” she admitted.

I frowned. “What?”

“Old habits,” she murmured. “I don’t get new shoes until the old ones wear out.”

That had my jaw clenching and pissing me off.

Silver and Aella’s mother was a piece of shit that had stolen everything from them but their actual lives.

And apparently Silver’s dad wasn’t any better.

“Huh,” I grunted. “Are you getting out?”

“Yeah,” she said. “But catch me because this is a long jump and I think I pulled a muscle getting in and out earlier.”

Before I could comprehend her words, she threw herself at me.

On instinct, I caught her around the waist and held her slightly aloft for a few long moments before I placed her on the ground.

“Thanks,” she said as she turned her back on me and gave me the best view in the world.

Her ass in those jean shorts.

Wranglers.

They were high, hugged every curve she had, and were so worn out that they fit her perfectly.

Her sweatshirt was bunched up high around her waist from where I’d caught her, and she didn’t pull it down until she was almost to her car.

“I gotta get back to work or they’ll probably fire me when the first shift gets there and finds out I left. I have a computer program running acting like I’m there, but if they find it when they come in, they’ll know that I wasn’t,” she mused as she hurried to her car.

I stood off to the side as I watched her get in.

A fleck of red paint fell to the forecourt concrete as she slammed the door.

I watched it flutter to the floor, and kept my eyes on it, as she struggled to start her car.

I finally allowed my eyes to move back to her, about to say something stupid like ‘let me take you back to work,’ when she leaned over weirdly in her seat and pulled her leg out of its position on the ground, then slammed her foot into the dash.

She kicked the dash twice, the dashboard fell down into the floorboard, and then she returned the foot back to its normal position.

She tried starting it up again, and oddly enough, the car started up.

She beamed at the dash, patted the steering wheel like she was telling her car “good job,” and started backing out of the lot.

She stopped at the end of the driveway and rolled down her window with a window crank.

I watched her do all this with my insides roiling.

I hated that she had a shitty car.

I hated even more that her dad was a goddamn mechanic and didn’t find her a better one.

I hated that she was smiling all the fuckin’ time, too, when she sometimes didn’t have anything to smile about.

“You owe me breakfast or something, Piers.”

My eye twitched.

She called me that because nobody else did, and it pissed me off.

I know it amused her.

“When and where?” I called, my mouth moving before I could think about what I was doing.

Her eyes fucking sparkled.

I could see them through the lit parking lot despite it being dark as hell.

“You tell me when and where,” she said. “I get off every day at four thirty.”

With that comment, she left, and I was left standing in my shop’s drive with my head reeling.

Goddamn I was so fucking screwed.

What the hell was it about her that drew me in?

And why the hell couldn’t I stay away?

I was so lost in thought that I didn’t catch the police officer pulling into my drive until it was right up on me.

Fuck.

The officer got out, and I knew instantly it wasn’t one of mine.

She appeared new.

“Officer.” I nodded.

“Can you tell me what you are doing out here this late?” she asked, looking at me like she was assessing my every move.

“I own this shop,” I pointed out. “And last I checked, I don’t have a curfew.”

Her eyes narrowed, but the sound of a beat-up old car filled the air again, coming in hot.

Silver pulled up in her shitty Grand Am and stopped right in the middle of the forecourt again.

It sputtered to a stop, and Silver got out.

“It’s overheating again, snookums,” Silver said with a look of consternation on her face. “Can you just give me that ride to work like you suggested a few minutes ago?”

“I have a few questions first,” the woman officer grumbled.

Silver’s eyes went to the officer, and she said, “No offense, Officer.” She peered hard at the officer’s chest. “Officer Moran, but I’m already late. Maybe this could wait until a decent hour?”

“My brother is missing.”

“Who’s your brother?” Silver asked, sounding deeply concerned.

It was that sunny personality she had.

The smile she never turned off.

When she frowned, it was like the sun was washed out of the sky.

I felt it deep in my chest when that smile slid off her face.

“Otto Moran. He was prospecting for the club,” Officer Moran snapped at Silver.

I gritted my teeth to stop myself from telling her to back the fuck off.

She was already sparking. I didn’t want my anger to light her up completely.

“Ohhh.” Silver snapped her fingers. “We haven’t seen him since he was told he wouldn’t be making it into the club.”

My eyebrows nearly rose to my hairline when she said those words.

I hadn’t been aware she knew that Otto didn’t make the cut.

Though, if I were being honest, it would be pretty obvious. He had been terrorizing the club for two weeks.

And she did have a sister that was married to one of the members of the Truth Tellers MC.

It made logical sense, but that didn’t make it any less surprising.

“Yeah,” Officer Moran said.

“Are you an officer in Dallas?” Silver asked curiously.

At least, she sounded curious.

She looked innocent and truthful, but there was something there. A stiffness to her features that said she wasn’t asking out of curiosity.

“No, I’m an officer in Kilgore, Texas,” she said.

“That’s like three hours away. They let you bring your cruisers that far?” Silver continued with her sweet inquisition.

Officer Moran stepped side to side, like she was getting nervous.

Maybe she didn’t have permission to bring her cruiser this far.

Not to mention, if I was going to drive a couple hours, it sure the fuck wouldn’t be in full uniform in a vehicle that wasn’t all that comfortable.

“This isn’t the time to talk about me. It’s time to talk about where my brother is,” Officer Moran snapped at Silver.

I pulled Silver to me and said, “Ma’am, I know that you want to get ahold of your brother, but we haven’t seen him since he left two weeks ago. If you have questions, I would suggest going to his place of employment or his apartment.”

“I’ve done both of those and haven’t found him,” she hissed.

“You might also consider that he’s just being an adult and doing what he wants to do without answering to his rude sister,” Silver replied sweetly.

Officer Moran’s eyes turned glacial as she turned her angry gaze toward Silver.

Silver didn’t flinch, but I stepped in front of her anyway.

“I have to take my girl to work,” I said. “Have a nice night.”

Officer Moran didn’t move.

“And for what it’s worth,” I said truthfully, “your brother said you were an overbearing bitch, and that was why he wanted to join the club. Maybe you need to give him some space.”

He had said that. He’d also said his mother was the same way when she was alive.

Though, the way Otto acted, he needed someone to run herd over him. If he didn’t have someone cleaning up after him, he’d have been arrested a hundred times over.

We’d done enough of that over the last two months ourselves.

That’d been part of why he’d been told he wasn’t going to be a member of our club.

We didn’t need any extra attention brought to us.

“It’s been how long since he was reported missing?” Silver asked.

Officer Moran glared hard. “A couple of hours.”

“A couple of hours isn’t missing,” Silver pointed out. “From what I understand, you have to be missing for twenty-four to be considered missing. I watch a lot of true crime documentaries.”

“Well, true crime podcasts don’t make you a police officer,” she snapped.

“On that note,” I said as I caught Silver’s hand and headed to my bike. “Gotta get her to work.”

I took my helmet off my bike and slipped it onto her head.

The drive to the hospital was only a few blocks, but no way in hell was I letting her ride without protection.

We’d lost enough in this club because of that.

Silver’s eyes went wide when I tightened the helmet on. “You don’t have to actually drive me. I just saw her turn in here and I got worried.”

I touched the tip of her nose with my finger and said, “You need anything out of your car?”

“No.”

“You have your keys?” I asked.

“The car doesn’t take any keys anymore. And the door locks don’t work,” she whispered.

Anger suffused through me. “Okay. We’ll talk about that later.”

She winced.

“Hop on,” I urged.

She did, and I mounted in front of her.

She scooted closer, the closest we’d ever been, and wrapped her arms around my waist.

I knew it was all for show, Officer Moran hadn’t taken her glare off of us since we’d left her fuming in the middle of my shop, but it didn’t mean it didn’t still feel fantastic.

And since Officer Moran was only blocking most of the drive, I was able to slip out to stop next to Silver’s car.

I was unsurprised when that cruiser followed us all the way to the front of the hospital.

“Tell me again what time do you get off?” I asked as I came to an idle next to the back entrance into the hospital.

“Four thirty.” She shrugged. “I can walk home, though, so don’t worry about a ride or anything.”

I didn’t like that.

“Text me about thirty minutes before you get off, and I’ll be here,” I said.

I’d go back to the office and get some office work done while I waited for her to finish up at work.

It was funny we kept the same hours.

I was a night person, through and through.

I’d never been a person that liked to be awake in the middle of the day.

The night hours, from around nine at night to about seven in the morning, those were the hours my body liked best.

The only times those hours hadn’t worked for me was when Eedie had been born and we were trying to get her on a normal schedule.

I could still remember the fucking fit Elizabeth had thrown when Eedie liked to stay up with me and sleep when I slept.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “I’ll have to stay a little bit later to cover the time that I wasn’t here.”

This good girl of mi…no, not mine.

Fuck.

“Text me,” I said. “The ride is two minutes. I don’t mind getting you back home.”

“Not back to my car?” Silver frowned.

I gritted my teeth before saying, “I’m fixing your locks.”

She sighed. “I didn’t tell you that to get you to fix them.”

“Never said you did,” I pointed out.

She groaned. “Bye, Piers .”

I shook my head. “Bye, Silver.”

When I got back, I didn’t get any paperwork done.

Instead, I opened up the garage bay that I liked to work out of and got to work fixing Silver’s locks.

All the while, there was a cruiser from Kilgore Police Department parked across the road from me.