The Boy I Grew Up With
Page 11

I didn’t know Bren that well. I should have. I’d been around all of Channing’s life, but it was his life, not hers. He hadn’t been around her for so long either. He’d left their home around the time their mother was getting sick and not long after that she died. I knew his dad had been an asshole to him. Channing would never tell me the details of that, but it’d been bad. Really bad.
After Channing left, he never moved back.
“Maybe I should just go home.”
He sighed, coming over and putting his hands to my shoulders. “No, Heather. Stay.” His voice gentled, and he pulled me to him, wrapping his arms around me, his head burying in my neck.
The spark reignited. The sizzle was refreshed, and just like that, it was Heather and Channing again. The separation was gone.
He rocked me a little, tightening his arms, and his lips brushed against my skin. “We fight, then we go to bed. It’s what we do; I don’t want you to leave. Please don’t leave.”
My heart broke a little. I should’ve moved out of the way, but now that I was in his arms, I knew I wouldn’t do that.
I was weak.
Was it weakness? Was that my problem?
Whatever it was, my arms were up and around his neck. I pushed up on my tiptoes.
I whispered against his chest, “I love you.”
He dropped a kiss to my neck and whispered, “I love you too.”
He picked me up. He carried me to his room.
I don’t want to say we fucked. It’s a hard way to say it, but sometimes I was hard. Sometimes he was too. And tonight, that’s how we were. It wasn’t soft, gentle, or beautiful. It was rough. It was demanding.
Channing claimed me. He answered a primal need inside him. I knew it because I saw it as he was deep in me, and I recognized it because it was in me too.
He was mine. That’s just how it was.
9
Channing
My phone woke me, and I quieted it before even looking at who it was. Heather was still sleeping, her naked back curved away. The sheet had fallen down to her hip, showcasing her spine and hair.
I had to stop and take a breath. This girl was fucking gorgeous.
I wanted to reach over and smooth a hand down her back, knowing she’d roll over and open her legs for me, but I resisted. Barely. I sat up, turned the fan on to cover some of my noise, grabbed my phone and some clothes, and headed for the bathroom.
The hall was dark and, no surprise, so was Bren’s room. Her door was closed, but I knew my sister, pain in the ass that she was. She wasn’t in there. I studied her closed door a moment, knowing I’d have to track her down, then continued into the bathroom.
Switching the light on, I put my phone on speaker and answered. “What’s up?”
“We have a problem.”
I was pulling on my boxer briefs, but I paused. Moose’s voice was serious, the deadly serious tone I didn’t like to hear.
“What’s up?” I repeated.
I could hear yelling in the background as Moose continued. “Chad brought in someone we’re going to have a problem with, and Congo kinda went apeshit.”
Chad was a surprise. He didn’t like to bring problems to the crew, but Congo wasn’t. He tended to explode at any little thing.
“Okay.” I pressed the screen and saw it was a little after four in the morning. “You don’t happen to know where my sister is, do you?”
If my sister wasn’t in her room, she was with her crew. And crews talked.
“I don’t. There was a party out at Belshield Field, but none of us went. She might’ve gone there. You want someone to track her down?”
I frowned. “Nah. Where are you?”
“The warehouse.”
“Okay. I’ll be there in a little bit.”
“Got it, boss.”
I just rolled my eyes. I hated being called that, but it fit.
Moose was laughing as he hung up.
After finishing dressing, I washed and put my phone in my back pocket, heading back into the hallway. I tapped lightly on Bren’s door. “B?”
No answer. I wasn’t expecting anyone, but I opened it and waited to hear any breathing. Nothing. I flicked her light on. Her bed was made, and empty.
I wasn’t going to text her this time. I’d find her another way. I had to get going if I didn’t want to find a dead body when I got to the warehouse.
I didn’t want to wake up the neighborhood, so I backed out the truck and waited until I was in the alley and with the lights turned away from the house before turning them on. They would’ve flooded my bedroom and woken Heather.
After taking back roads so no cameras could follow me, I pulled into the long driveway that led to my warehouse. There were so many trucks and bikes there, I couldn’t tell who all was around. Half the vehicles were there for storage or parts.
I kept this warehouse and another for our crew’s private hangout spot. We’d also purchased the twenty acres around it, and while I’d like to say nothing bad happened here, that wasn’t true. There was a reason I wanted privacy.
Point being: I walked inside and a guy was bleeding on the floor.
It didn’t faze me. I only asked, “He dead?”
I didn’t spare Congo, Chad, or Moose a glance as I went to the guy. He was breathing, but they were slow and shallow, wheezing. Blood seeped out of a large cut near his eye.
I turned to study my guys. “Who is he?”
Congo rushed in first, “He was messing with Chad’s mom. You know how she is, being old and shit—”
Moose cut him off, literally stepping in the way so he couldn’t see me. He growled, “Walk. Calm down.”
Moose was next in line after me in our crew. He was my most trusted, and when one of us spoke, Congo had to fall in line. Though he didn’t like it. He had the quickest fuse. When lit, there was always an explosion, and if we hadn’t been in the warehouse, I wouldn’t have let him go. As it was, when he stalked out the door and we started hearing crashing sounds, no one moved an inch.
We’d just wait until the sounds stopped.
Besides the crashing and Congo’s growl, the only other sound we could hear was the guy’s breathing, which was more and more labored. He’d have to go to the hospital. Soon.
Chad sighed. “This is my fault.”
Another crash.
Slam!
Thud!
The guy moaned, raising his head. He tried to open his eyes. “What—who?” He groaned again, his head falling back down. One sudden whoosh of breath, and he was out.
Chad went over, kneeling and pressing two fingers to the guy’s neck. He relaxed a beat later. “There’s a pulse.”
For now.
Chad looked at me, showing the same remorse I saw in Moose’s eyes.
I was still waiting to be told what the fuck had happened, but I was starting to guess. I shook my head. “He scammed your mom?”
Chad nodded, standing and heading over again.
I clipped him in the back of the skull. “Goddamn redhead.”
He ducked out of the way, but there was no edge to my words. This wasn’t the first time Chad’s temper had gotten him in trouble. And Lord knows, I couldn’t say a word. I was like a caged animal, prowling around until I got a good release—whether from sex or a fight, I wasn’t too picky. I liked doing both.
“Tell me what happened and who that guy is,” I ordered.
If Chad was mad, the scam must’ve been bad. He had a temper, but unlike Congo, Chad loathed fighting. Once he started, though, he was like the Hulk. Chaos and destruction followed him.