“Honestly, it was kind of nice to see her so frazzled,” Beau admitted. “I never push back that hard. Maybe now she’ll finally believe me when I tell her to stop setting me up with women.”
“So you actually went along with it?” I asked. “Like. Everything I said?”
Beau nodded slowly like he couldn’t quite believe it himself. “Yep. As far as my Mom knows, we’ve been together a few months, and I’m excited for you to meet the family.” He glanced up at me with a quirked eyebrow. “Are you regretting it now?”
“Not a bit,” I said with a grin, even though a little bit of anxiety was flaring in my chest. This was really going to happen. I was actually going to be his date to this wedding, holy shit. “I love weddings. Haven’t been to one in ages. And from how expensive that suit looked, I assume this one is going to be a little different from the club weddings I’ve attended.”
Heather had looked rich. Like, rich rich. And she was apparently very serious about this wedding. Beau didn’t seem to have the same haughty rich person air that Heather did, but his family might, which in past experiences hadn’t mixed great with the whole motorcycle club thing.
Regardless, I was sure this wedding was going to be a whirlwind education into Beau as a person, and I was one hundred percent down for that.
Beau’s shoulders stiffened. “Yeah, it’s going to be different.” He glanced at me. “I’m not going to lie, it’s not going to be like club weddings in any way. And you’re definitely going to stand out.”
“Excuse me?” I raised my eyebrows, immediately bristling.
I’d been judged for how I looked for most of my life—either for being a biker guy, or a mixed-race kid in a small, mostly white town. I stuffed my hand into the pocket of my leather jacket, immediately finding the silver lighter there. It was my dad’s, and he’d given it to me when I patched into the Liberty Crew at eighteen. The smooth metal under my skin always soothed my nerves, and I turned it over and over in my fingers without pulling it from my pocket. “The fuck does that mean?”
Beau met my gaze. “This wedding’s a big deal,” he said. “My sister’s the baby of the family. There’s gonna be a lot of people there, and they’re all sort of… I don’t know. Not like club guys, you know?” He cringed. “I just don’t know how they’ll react when we walk in together.”
“Wow, okay, because you know so much about me.” I’d put up with a lot of bullshit in my life, and I was done taking it lying down, even from someone like Beau. He really thought my mere presence would cause his family to freak? That kind of sucked. “If it’s already so hard for you to imagine me being able to attend a fucking normal-ass wedding, you might be better off with whatever boring white girl your mom wants to hook you up with. Have fun explaining the breakup.”
I turned to leave.
But Beau’s hand at my wrist stopped me.
This wasn’t like the arm I’d slipped around his waist, performative and teasing. His grip was strong, but not too tight, and his hands were callused against my skin. It was like my world briefly narrowed to that touch and only that touch. It almost made me lightheaded.
This was ridiculous. He was just a guy. And potentially an asshole. There was no reason for me to be reacting like this.
“Tru,” Beau said. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant.”
I turned around and met his eyes. God, we were so close—if I took a half-step, I could kiss him. “Then what did you mean?”
He dropped my wrist with some reluctance. “My family’s old money,” he said. “Some of them are jerks. None of them are gay.”
“As far as you know,” I couldn’t resist interjecting.
“Right,” he acknowledged. “As far as I know. I just—I want you to know what you’re getting into. This isn’t going to be a cakewalk.”
The anger in my gut was quashed as quickly as it had burned. “That’s fine—as long as you promise to defend my honor.” I couldn’t resist batting my eyelashes a little.
Beau snorted a laugh, looking amused, but his gaze still flickered from my eyes to my mouth. “I already did once today.”
My stomach swooped. “My hero.” I ran my tongue subtly over my lower lip.
“I get that a lot.” He paused, and suddenly there was something hot and charged between us. His hands twitched like he wanted to reach for me again, but he paused, and shoved his hands into his pockets instead. Then he took an intentional step back to his desk.
I tried not to seem too visibly disappointed.
“The wedding’s on Saturday,” Beau said in a tone that sounded hilariously close to his serious-business-fire-chief voice. “If you’ll meet me at my place, we can ride together. Mom will never buy it if we show up separately.”
“And I get to see your house, too? This is just a series of wins for me.”
“That makes one of us,” Beau grumbled.
I barked a surprised laugh, and Beau shot me a tentative smile. He said this wasn’t going to be easy, which made me a little nervous, but I was pretty good at making my own fun, even in strange circumstances.
A wedding with some crotchety old rich people? I could handle that.
It was keeping my hands off Beau I was worried about.
6
Beau
Saturday arrived quickly. Too quickly. Anxiety chewed at me as I shrugged my suit jacket on. All my familial duties for the setup were done: the place settings were finished, the flowers arranged, the bar checked, double-checked, and then triple-checked.
I sighed at my portable radio, now resting on my nightstand. It wasn’t coming with me to the venue—Anna’s orders. If something really bad happened, Nora would call my personal phone. But no radio allowed. Shamefully, I’d spent the day hoping for some big, awful fire emergency so I could get out of the entire wedding—and my fake date with Tru.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see my sister get married—of course I did, even if it meant having to deal with the pomp and circumstance of my extended family. But taking Tru as my date meant that my family, and myself, were finally going to have to face some of the things we’d been ignoring for years.
It didn’t help that being around Tru apparently made the higher functioning of my brain shut off. I was so busy with work that I hadn’t even hooked up in months, and being near Tru with his sultry smile and smooth skin and lean, muscular body was enough to get me thinking with my dick instead of my head. And who knew what would happen if he got a couple drinks in him? He was enough of a terror sober.
I wasn’t sure I’d be able to resist.
I smoothed my hands down my navy suit. It wasn’t anything too fancy: it was simple, well-made, and fit well. That’s really all I needed. I adjusted my tie and peered appraisingly at my reflection. I looked fine. I took a deep, steadying breath. In a few hours, this would all be over, and things would be back to normal.
A knock on my front door shook me out of my reverie. I glanced at my watch—he was right on time. Well. Now or never.
When I opened the door, the sight I was greeted with stole the breath from my lungs.