Page 18 of Courting Danger

“Or maybe seeing you get hurt shook him enough that he doesn’t want to be away from your side,” Pope pointed out. “You ordered him out to the beach the other day. On one hand, I’m glad you were thoughtful enough to free him from that dank shit you’ve been smoking in there; on the other, I wish you’d come down with him. Ocean was sharing stories about his timein Australia. Said there were kangaroos out there just hopping along the side of the road. Apparently, one of the other surfers got it in his head that he was going to go try and get a selfie with one until the tour guide asked if he’d ever seen those cartoons with boxing kangaroos. The guy had, and the guide told him to believe it.”

“Damn. I’d have tried for one too. Fuckers look too cute to be dangerous.”

“Says the man who hates when anyone calls him cute.”

“Because I’m not…”

“To me, you have always been and will always be both deadly and adorable,” Pope declared, cutting him off once again. “Being our number cruncher just makes you more dangerous in my eyes. At the drop of a hat, you could bankrupt this whole operation, and every single member of the club knows that. Them giving you shit never bothered you when you were earning that patch. It shouldn’t bother you after all these years of being a brother and knowing where you stand with them.”

“And yet I always have to keep my hands clean,” Danger snapped, “which means that every time it comes down to things getting bloody, I have to stand down and stay back at the clubhouse to stand guard or pull an escort duty.”

“And you think that’s less valuable than splitting your knuckles open?” Pope replied. “Think again. We serve the club in whatever form and fashion it needs serving. There are no small parts, no weak links, and no worthless tasks, which is what you are supposed to be drilling into our prospect’s head.”

“I have, when he chooses to listen.”

“From what I saw the other day, he listens just fine, as long as you reinforce that good behavior with a bit of praise and a little attention from time to time. I doubt he’s had much of that, being bounced around the way he has.”

“Bounced around?”

“He didn’t give much detail besides that the state stepped in when he was a kid and sent him to live with his grandparents and that things between them weren’t the best, since they’d hated his mother and never let him forget how pissed they were that their son had run off with someone from a family they despised. It sounded like some real blood feud shit, from what he mentioned of it later in the night. Shit took a serious turn, and some of the conversation out there got a bit uncomfortable for Kazzy, and he took off, but Ocean, Roan, and I sat around the fire until after midnight.

“I wasn’t in the mood to sit around watching everyone else enjoying those waves,” Danger admitted. “It looked gnarly out there.”

“It was, but you wouldn’t have been alone in the sand,” Pope replied. “Roan doesn’t swim so well, so he watched from the dunes, making sand sculptures, or at least that’s what I think he was doing before he wrecked them. You could have kept him company, maybe gotten to know him somewhat away from everyone else. Out there, he was willing to engage in genuine conversation with us instead of snarking off the way he usually does around the bar. He’s not the asshole you think he is.”

“I never called him that.”

“You’ve never corrected anyone else, either.”

“He’s never given me reason to.”

“Well, he’s given it to me. The offer still stands, by the way, any time you want to take me up on it.”

“What, you’ll take him off my hands?”

“I’d prefer to help you train him properly, not take over,” Pope admitted.

It was on the tip of Danger’s tongue to tell him that wasn’t what he wanted, that it would be better for everyone if he’d just take over at this point. Only Pope was offering him the gift oftime spent in his company, and his inner pup begged him to accept.

“I’ll think about it,” Danger said, willing to concede that much.

It was one thing for his inner pup to beg, but giving in meant dealing with the inevitable fallout when things crumbled, and Danger’s heart was still broken enough from the last time.