The Marked Men Series Books 1–6: Rule, Jet, Rome, Nash, Rowdy, Asa. Jay Crownover
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you okay?” She put her hands around my waist and gave me a tight hug.
I let out a breath that I felt like I had been holding for a hundred years. Suddenly I knew that no matter how my parents felt, no matter what happened in the future—near or far—I was for once doing the absolute right thing. “Yeah, I’m good. Better than good, actually.”
“Okay. Well, I don’t want to be late so come eat some pancakes and take me to school.” She gave my ass a little pat and bounded back out of the room. I shook my head on a little laugh and followed her out. Rome was up and sitting at the table listening to her tell him about the bizarre brunch yesterday but Nash was nowhere in sight. I had let both of them know what was going on with Polo Shirt yesterday and I think they were both on hyperalert so that I didn’t go off the rails. My brother gave me a questioning look as I sat down, but I wasn’t about to go into detail while Shaw was prancing around feeding us breakfast.
“You still good to go and get her car with me?”
“Yep, but I’m going to swing by Mom and Dad’s while we’re there. You wanna come?”
I flipped him off because he knew the last thing I wanted to do was see my folks. “Can’t. Anyways, I have an appointment at noon.”
Shaw placed plates in front of both of us and took a seat on my right. She gave me a warm smile and I knew, besides feeling right, that this is what I had been missing for so long. I felt at home; this girl, my brother, my friends, all the things that I had surrounded myself with suddenly made so much sense, and I had a clarity that had been missing since Remy’s death. I loved my family, but I had never felt like I was part of them. This world I had developed, this life I was living, was a good one, filled with solid people who saw me for who I was and cared about me anyway. My throat got tight and I had to hide the swell of emotion behind a glass of orange juice or otherwise risk blubbering like a baby. I cleared my throat. “I’m gonna run Shaw to school then come back and get you, is that cool?”
“Sure. I’ll go kick Nash and see if he wants to hit the gym with me while you’re gone.”
I glanced at Shaw. “You’re going to have Ayden take you to work after school, right?” She nodded at me and continued to eat her breakfast. “Good. I’ll come get you from the bar when your shift is done. Your car will be here so you can decide if you want to stay or go to your place later.”
She lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “I don’t get out until two. It’s Monday night football so we’re busy. I’ll probably just stay here. Besides, you need to buy me a new phone tomorrow.”
“Why does he owe you a phone?” I glared at my big brother but she answered before I could tell him to shut it.
“I broke mine by accident and Rule offered to replace it.”
“He did? That doesn’t sound like my little brother.” I knew he was just trying to rile me up, but awesome sex and having Shaw close at hand with a plate of pancakes in front of me made that an impossible task. I smirked at him and leaned back in my chair to reach out and put my arm across the back of Shaw’s.
“I’m turning over a new leaf.”
He snorted, and eyes that were so similar to mine gleamed with repressed humor. “For you to be considering someone else like that is more like turning over a whole freaking tree, not just a leaf, but good for you. Being considerate is a nice change for you.”
“Screw you.”
Shaw rolled her eyes and let her fork clatter to her plate. “You’re both ridiculous and I’m going to be late, so let’s go.”
I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Let me grab shoes and we’ll head out. Go grab your stuff. Thanks for breakfast.”
“Sure.” She ran out of the room and I pushed to my feet. I glowered at my brother.
“I do know how to be nice.”
“Only when you want something.”
“True enough. I want her.”
“Looks to me like you got her.”
“Now I just need to figure out how to not screw it up.”
Rome got up as well. “You won’t, Rule. When it matters you never do, just remember that. Hey, what did your cop buddy say?”
“That she needs to keep her eyes open and he wants me to get her a Taser or mace. He thinks the little punk is pretty insulated because of his old man, but he pretty much said if he tries anything with me I can lay him out. It sucks, he shouldn’t be allowed to put his hands on her and live to tell about it.”
“We’ll keep her close and keep it under control; you know we got your back in this, lil’ bro.”
I made a face and lowered my voice because I heard Shaw coming back down the hall. “If anything happens to her, Rome, I’m going to lose it. I mean, I know I kind of went off the rails when Remy died, but something tells me if that girl ends up hurt or worse there won’t be any recovering from that for me.”
I think he was probably going to answer something back but Shaw popped up at my elbow and none too subtly tugged on me to let me know she was ready to go. She waved to Rome and hustled me out to the truck. It was cold out so I wrapped an arm around her and tugged her close to my side. She rubbed her cold nose on my neck and laughed when I swore at her.
“You need a hat.” My newly shorn head was actually freezing but I was a tough guy so I just pulled the hood of my sweatshirt up and raised the eyebrow with the hoops in it at her.
“Better?”
“Whatever, macho man. Thanks for getting my car.”
“No problem, just make sure you keep an eye out at school today. I don’t want Polo Shirt waylaying you on your way to class or anything.”
“Polo Shirt?”
“Davenport, he always has on a stupid polo.”
She laughed so hard I had to hold her upright and give her a boost into the truck, not that I minded, because it meant I got to cop a feel of her superb backside.
“That he does. I’ll make sure I walk to class with someone. This girl, Devlin, is in a bunch of the same classes as me and we have a couple study groups together so I’ll just stick with her. I don’t think she’s a fan of Gabe, either, so that should make asking her easy.”
“Cool. What kind of phone do you want? I don’t want you to have to wait until tomorrow to get one. I’ll go on my way back from Brookside and pick one up.”
She shrugged and messed around with my iPod until the smoky sound of Lucero filled the cab. “I don’t care. The same as my old one is fine. I need my contacts switched over, though.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
She grinned at me and scooted over so that she could put her hand on my knee. Her fingers tapped out the rhythm of the country-tinged rock as we made our way across town to the university. It took about twenty minutes in light traffic, but it was getting ready to snow, and I could see having to push my first appointment back because of weather since I was driving out of town. She wanted me to just park on the street and drop her off, but I wanted to keep her in sight as long as possible, so I parked the truck at a meter and told her I was walking her to her first class. She rolled her eyes but didn’t argue when I opened her door and helped her hop down.
I tucked her back in the curve of my body and walked across the campus with her, thinking this was the only time I had been on a college campus for a reason other than a party. Several people called out a greeting to her or waved hi. She replied in kind and I didn’t miss the speculative looks we got. I’m sure we made an odd pair and her classmates probably weren’t used to seeing her out of her normal rich-girl gear. We stopped outside an impressive-looking building and she tilted her head back so she was looking up at me. Her green eyes were bright, her hair