“Shut up,” we both growl at her without taking our eyes from one another.
“Let me see,” Birdie demands.
“I’m okay, little mama.”
She glares at me.“I said let me fucking see.I don’t want you dying before I get the chance to kick your and everyone else’s ass in this club.”
Now, see, normally, I would swiftly address such disrespect.But since Birdie is a club brat who grew up here, and we were the ones who deeply disrespected her first, I believe we’re all willing to let it slide.
With a sigh, I turn so she can see the wound on my side.
Birdie pokes it none too gently, causing me to wince.“Well, it looks like shit.Maybe next time you should get someone else to fix you instead of a sweetbutt who’d rather ride your dick.”
She grabs one of my belt loops and drags me back over to the pool table before shoving me against it.Before she snatches a new suture kit, she snaps a pair of gloves onto her hands.She doesn’t even warn me she’s about to stick the fucking needle in.
I deserve it.Definitely.
But fucking hell.
Warn a pathetic dude next time or some shit.
I swear I hear her chuckle under her breath, but I doubt my perfect woman would do something so heinous.
Then it happens again when I grumble at another stitch.
Nope.That’s definitely a chuckle.
When she’s finished, she yanks off the gloves and tosses them onto the table, then folds her arms over her chest.“What happened?”
I run my fingers through my hair, watching when red flecks of dried blood flutters from it.“Club business, little mama.”
“Of course,” she mutters bitterly.“Club business.How the hell could I forget that?Who cares that it pertains to me, right?”
“He wasn’t there, and the ones who were are dead.Good enough?”
“No, but it’s not like you’ll give me more than that.You never have.This club is still the same, always shutting out the people you should be able to trust.”
“I told you everything.”
“Did you?”
Frustration eats at me in the face of her distrust.
“I’m protecting you, goddammit.”
“I know that, but this is my life too, Pope.I deserve to know what’s happening.”
My boots tear across the carpet as I march back and forth, my blood still pumping with adrenaline from the violence and having her here.
“I’m always protecting you.Then, now ...always,” I yell.
My shoulders tighten as the club quiets and Birdie’s body stills.
“Then?”Her eyes narrow.“What do you mean you protected me then, Pope?”
I glance around the room, taking in the expressions on my brothers’ faces, on their ol’ ladies, on the sweetbutts.Brothers are worried, ol’ ladies and sweetbutts are curious.Manic stares at me with anger, his fists clenched, unbelieving that I just blurted our secret out.Cyanide watches, hopeful but hesitant.
“Answer me,” Birdie’s voice shakes, her eyes skewering me with an unflinching look.
