Not Constructive: Red Eyes MC Series Book #6 Page 18

  “I mean, that’s part of it. But it goes beyond that. This is just… nice.”

  Cameron gave me a winning smile. “I agree,” he said.

  “Can we go faster?” Sam complained.

  Cameron laughed. “Sure thing, little man,” he said, winking over at me and then stretching out his legs and easily outpacing me.

  When we reached the overlook that this walk led to, I was out of breath, but I still felt so good. So calm, so relaxed. And it was all downhill from there, in the good way. “I’ve got some snacks,” I said as I dropped on the bench, taking in the view. Sam clapped his hands together in excitement.

  “I was just telling Sammy here about this pond near where I live,” Cameron told me. “You can just see it over there. That glint of light in the middle of those fields.”

  I squinted to see where he was pointing. “Cool,” I said, still slightly out of breath.

  Cameron gave me an amused smile. “I was thinking that maybe for our next outing, on your next day off, we could just go fishing.”

  “I like that plan,” I said, smiling at him. That would be a lot less strenuous.

  Even though this really was fun. Just like I had known that it would be.

  But as we walked back toward the car, and I drove, alone, back toward the house, trailing after the two of them, all those muted thoughts came swimming back to me. I was getting in over my head. But I wasn’t the only person who stood to get hurt. If anything happened between Cameron and me, Sam was going to lose his “motorcycle man.” The guy who was going to go to his school on Monday on Parents Day because Sam didn’t have a dad.

  I sighed, feeling utterly exhausted by all of it. I couldn’t even tell you how much I wanted things to work out between Cameron and me. But at the same time, I knew that I couldn’t fix all the wrongs in the world. If we weren’t meant to work out, then we wouldn’t.

  And with Cameron a member of Red Eyes and here to protect us, it certainly didn’t feel like things could work out. I wished that I could talk to Maddie about all of this, but the truth was, I knew exactly what she would say. Because I knew that I shouldn’t still be sleeping with Cameron. What kind of person did it make me, that I was willing to overlook any bad deeds that he might have done, any criminal deeds that he might have done, and fall in love with him anyway?

  What kind of example was I setting for my son?

  We got back to the house, and my thoughts were a chaotic mess in my head. But it wasn’t like I could ask Cameron to leave. Even if I wanted him to, I was too afraid that Lex might show up. Especially since if he had been tailing me, he had to know that Cameron was more than just one of my customers.

  Besides, the truth was, in spite of everything, I didn’t actually want Cameron to leave. I wanted to keep him here with me. With us. I wanted him to fit into our lives. I just wished I could forget about all the rest of it.

  I was confused. That was the reality of it. I was really, truly confused, and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have anyone that I could talk to about any of it, and I felt like I was in over my head.

  Sam darted inside the minute I unlocked the door, already dying to show Cameron something else that the two of them had talked about earlier. Cameron caught my arm as we went into the hall. “You okay?” he asked, somehow sensing my mood.

  I wanted to collapse against him and wrap my arms around him, but I held myself back, pasting a fake smile on my face. It slowly slipped away as Cameron continued to look at me with that concern in his eyes.

  “Just don’t hurt Sam,” I finally told him. “He doesn’t need another man coming and going in his life.”

  I knew Cameron could tell exactly what I really meant. That it wasn’t Sam that I was worried about, or not exclusively. Sam had never had men coming and going from his life. He had never known his father, and I hadn’t been with anyone else since. But me, on the other hand, I was worried for myself. What would I do when Cameron decided to bail?

  I wished that I could think of it in terms of if. If Cameron decided to bail, what would I do? But instead, it seemed like a certainty in my mind. I hated that more than anything.

  Cameron wordlessly opened his arms to me, letting me decide if I actually wanted to burrow against his chest. I stumbled toward him, and he enveloped me in his warmth. “I will never hurt Sam,” he promised me, and as with my words, the hidden subtext rang out loud and clear.

  He was as good as promising that he wasn’t going to hurt me. But could I trust him?

  Sometimes, life just didn’t work out the way that you wanted it to. Maybe Cameron never wanted to hurt me, but with all this chaos with Red Eyes and Lex, who knew what might happen. Could I really trust Cameron when he said that he didn’t want to hurt me?

  For now. For now, I had to. Because I was already in over my head. I watched Sam run back into the room and skid to a stop on the tiles, eagerly displaying the picture that he had drawn for Cameron in school earlier that week.

  31

  Cameron

  After a great weekend with Tara and Sam, heading back to the clubhouse on Monday was the last thing that I really wanted to do. It felt like waking up from a dream, leaving behind a pleasant escape. And I hated it. But I had responsibilities, as I reminded myself, and it wasn’t like I could just skip the meeting.

  Especially not since our numbers were worse than they had been the previous week. Our half of the club was clearly dwindling. It was no longer anything near a half. More like a fraction of the club. Just a handful of people stubbornly following Grant even though Braxton was apparently the one that most of the money was going to.

  “What the hell are we going to do?” Grant asked after an anticlimactic meeting where he didn’t say much. What could he say after all? If he told everyone how bleak things really were, if he ran through the numbers, well. We’d have no one left on our side except for the two of us.

  “We need to meet with Braxton,” Grant continued, before I could make any suggestions. Not that I had any to make anyway. “Today. We need to meet with him today. Enough dicking around. Time to settle his.”

  “I can’t meet with Braxton today,” I said, shaking my head. I felt bad admitting that, but at this point, pushing it out one more day wasn’t going to ruin anything. And I had promised Sam that I would be there at his school this afternoon for their Parents Day. I could still hear Tara’s voice in my head, telling me not to commit to anything that I wasn’t one hundred percent sure on. How had she known that something would come up with the club?

  No, I couldn’t let this stand in the way of going to Sam’s school.

  “We’ll meet with him tomorrow,” I said, already pulling out my phone. I doubted that I’d even be able to reach Braxton anyway.

  To my surprise, though, he picked up after the second ring. “We need to talk,” he said immediately, as though he had been the one to call me. “Today. I’ll give you half an hour. Meet me at Giorgio’s.”

  “Wait,” I said before he could hang up. “Tomorrow? Would tomorrow work?”

  “No,” Braxton said shortly. “Meet me there today or give up and quit calling me.” He hung up.

  I swallowed hard and looked at Grant. “Well, the good news is that he wants to meet,” I told him. “But he wants to meet today.”

  “Good,” Grant said fiercely. He rolled his eyes at the look on my face. “Come on, what could you possibly have going on that’s more important than this?” he asked. “This might be the only way that we can get Red Eyes back on track. The only way we can get things back to the way that Ray wanted them to be.”

  And when he put it like that, any protest that I might have had died on my lips. I had made commitments to other things, long before I had told Sam that I would be there for Parents Day. And even though I knew Tara would be disappointed, to say nothing of Sam, I was sure that she would understand. There wasn’t anything I could do about it.

  Besides, maybe this meeting with Braxton wouldn’t go very long, and I could stil
l make it over to the school. Braxton had told us to be there in half an hour. We could have this whole mess tidied up before the end of lunch.

  The truth was, I no longer really felt like Red Eyes was my number one priority. But what kind of man was I if I turned my back on my brothers and the man who had treated me like another of his sons? I wouldn’t be the kind of guy who was worthy of someone like Tara if I couldn’t stay true to my word and follow through on my prior commitments.

  And if Braxton would only meet today, then it was going to have to be today. We had spent enough time just trying to track him down, let alone getting him to agree to meet with us. From the sound of it, there was a reason that he wanted to meet with us today. Maybe he had some information on Lex. The leader of the Unknowns had to be up to something more than creeping out Tara whenever he had the chance. He had to have some bigger plan.

  I should have been keeping closer tabs on him, rather than just posting guys, waiting to see what he was going to do. Maybe this was part of why Braxton was so frustrated with Ray’s leadership, and with Grant’s leadership now. If we could figure out what Lex was up to before he actually had the chance to hurt anyone, we could wipe him out. But if we just kept waiting, who knew what might happen.

  No, we needed to meet up with Braxton. Figure out what was happening on his end of things. We had to start putting the club back together. Nothing else was quite as important.

  It really was like waking up from a wonderful dream. And I knew that there was no way that I was ever going to get back to it, not after this. No amount of groveling and explanation would make Tara trust me again.

  I was still slightly hopeful that we could get this whole meeting over with quickly, and that it wouldn’t be the reason I couldn’t make it to Sam’s school. But when we got to Giorgio’s, Braxton wasn’t even there yet.

  “Just chill out, man,” Grant hissed as I checked my watch for the billionth time. “What the hell’s your problem anyway? You got a hot date?”

  “I just have somewhere that I’m supposed to be,” I said curtly.

  Grant narrowed his eyes at me. “You haven’t arranged to meet with Lex without me, have you?” he asked.

  I looked at him in surprise. “No!” I finally managed. “Hell no. Jesus, Grant. I’m here for you, aren’t I?”

  “Just saying, it wouldn’t be entirely surprising if you were scheming behind my back too.” Grant folded his arms across his chest and sat back. “I know that you guys were never really happy to have me in Red Eyes. The reception definitely wasn’t warm. But I thought we were past all that shit by now.”

  “Grant, are you seriously accusing me of trying to take the club out from under you?” I asked. “First of all, who the fuck would follow me? The club’s already split, and it’s pretty obvious that Braxton is going to strong-arm everyone into following him, businesses and club members alike. And second of all, what part of I don’t want the presidency do you not understand?”

  Grant still looked doubtful, and I threw my hands in the air.

  “You want the real answer?” I asked. “Ray talked to me about taking over the club. A couple of times. And I told him, hell no. I have zero desire to be president. I don’t even know if I want to be in the club anymore.”

  Grant looked shocked by that admission, and to be honest, I hadn’t meant to let it slip.

  “What?” he asked. “You don’t even know if you want to be in the club? Because I’m president?”

  “No,” I said honestly. “Even if Ray was here still, I’m not sure that I’d want to be involved.”

  “Because of that girl? Tara? The funeral home director?”

  “No,” I said. “It’s something from a long time before that. I just, I don’t know. Don’t you ever feel like maybe there’s something more? You guys are like brothers to me, but I’ve sort of felt like I never really fit in.” I paused. “Maybe you can relate?”

  Grant stared at me for a moment and then he nodded. “Yeah.” He sighed. “I can.”

  I glanced at my watch again. Fuck, there was no way that I was going to make it over to Sam’s.

  “Seriously, what do you have going on?” Grant asked.

  “Tara’s son, Sam, asked me to come into his school today for Parents Day. And before you ask, no, Tara and I aren’t at that point yet. But Sam’s dad isn’t involved with his life, so.”

  Grant shook his head. “Sorry that this is interfering. If I didn’t think that we needed you here, I’d tell you that you could leave.”

  I laughed mirthlessly. “I made commitments to you and to Ray long before I told a five-year-old that I’d be there at his school,” I pointed out.

  “Doesn’t make it an easy decision,” Grant mused. He shook his head. “I guess I’m going to have to start making tough decisions like that, too, once I have a kid of my own.” He didn’t sound excited about the prospect.

  “Are you worried about that?” I finally asked. It was a stupid question since of course he was, but I hadn’t really thought about things from his perspective before when he had told me that Holly was pregnant. I had just thought about the club.

  It was amazing how my mindset changed since I had gotten to know Tara. And Sam.

  “Worried? Every day,” Grant said honestly. “But Holly’s been great about all of it. She doesn’t want me to stop what I’m doing. She just wants me to be careful.”

  “I wish I had support like that,” I said immediately. But in a way, Tara was that kind of support. She believed that I wasn’t a terrible guy—even more than I did—I was sure. She and I both just seemed to envision a different sort of future for me.

  My phone rang. Braxton. I answered immediately. “Where the hell are you?” I couldn’t keep from snapping at him.

  “I’m running a little late. Chill out.” Braxton paused. “I’ll be there soon.”

  Click. He hung up on me again. My fingers balled into fists. But it wasn’t like I could do anything about it. At this point, it was too late anyway. I had made my decision.

  I wasn’t going to make it to Sam’s school in time, and even if that meant that Tara never spoke to me again, I would do things the same if I had to do them again. What else could I do? I had made Ray a promise, that I was going to be here for Grant. And by extension, that I was going to do everything in my power to keep Red Eyes together.

  This was the only way. I had to be here.

  32

  Tara

  The weekend had been pretty much perfect. Domestic in the best way. After the hike, I had left Cameron at home with Sam, watching a movie, while I went grocery shopping. Even though I still had some misgivings about leaving Sam alone with this guy who was so new to my life, this guy who could be so dangerous, I couldn’t come up with a good reason why I didn’t want the two of them to stay home together, and I needed to do some grocery shopping.

  Besides, after the hug in the hall, I was really starting to believe it. Maybe Cameron really was all in. Maybe he really wasn’t going to hurt us. Or at least, not on purpose. He wasn’t going to do something terrible if I left him alone with Sam.

  I had to believe that, or else I couldn’t possibly believe that he would watch out for us, keeping us safe from Lex and any other of Red Eyes’ enemies who chose to target us by proxy.

  Cameron had helped me make dinner that night, just like he had helped me make breakfast, even getting Sam involved with mashing the potatoes. And we had all sat down together. Just like a family.

  Sunday, we’d had a lazy morning with Sam watching some cartoons while Cameron and I hung around in bed. We’d gone out for brunch at one of Sam’s favorite places, and then we’d gone to the park. Cameron had thrown a football with Sam while I watched from a bench, doing a little reading in between bouts just watching them together. Or bouts of watching Cameron and the way that his muscles bunched underneath his T-shirt.

  But now, it felt like I was waking up from a dream. I was back at work, and I knew that Maddie disapproved even before she
opened her mouth to ask about my weekend.

  “I know you aren’t exactly on board with the idea of me with Cameron, but before you say anything, just know that this weekend was great,” I said. I hated going on the defensive like this, but I also hated to think about the fact that she didn’t approve of my relationship. She’d been my best friend forever now, and her opinion really mattered to me.

  And I wanted to talk to her about all of this. I’d been trying to sort my head out all weekend and hadn’t been able to. I just didn’t know what to do.

  Maddie sighed. “Tell me all about it,” she said.

  I smiled, glad to have won at least that much. “Well, he came over on Friday night. I made lasagna, and we had dinner together.” I had to stop myself from saying as a family at the end of that. God, we weren’t a family yet, no matter what my feelings about Cameron were.

  I continued, “Anyway, then on Saturday, he told Sam that we could do whatever Sam wanted for the day. Sam, of course, wanted to go for a motorcycle ride and then go hiking.” I rolled my eyes, and Maddie raised an eyebrow at me.

  “But you hate doing anything that physical on your days off,” she said. She laughed a little. “I mean, I do as well. We’re on our feet all week at work. It’s nice to just lie on the couch when I don’t have to be here.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t get that much couch time since I have a five-year-old, but yeah. I like to stay around the neighborhood at least.”

  “So did you end up going hiking?”

  “We did,” I told Maddie. “And the thing was, it was actually really fun. Cameron kept up with Sam while I went a little bit slower, and they just chatted about the different types of trees and things like that. It was really cute, watching them together.” I got a smile on my face just thinking about it.