Page 30 of Grumpy

The way she said the word made Grumpy suspect it was meaningful, like proclaiming “I do” at an altar. And from Kelly’s smile, it was something good.

Kelly turned back to Grumpy. “What do you want to do now?”

Grumpy studied her for a long moment, because for the first time in his life, he felt pulled in two different directions. Normally, he was extremely decisive. Then again, Kelly seemed to be the continued exception to many of his rules in the structured life he’d built for himself.

Before he could even say anything, though, Kelly gave him a nod like he’d already spoken. She cocked her head. “Think my mom could stay with your club while we head down to Texas?”

Grumpy’s surprise was visceral. “You’d come with me?”

She glanced back at him. “Were you planning on hitchhiking your way down? You can’t drive yet. I have no idea if you could fly, and even if medically you could, I can’t imagine you being very comfortable in a tight, metal tube full of strangers. And I’m pretty sure you’d jump in front of a train before you got on one for a cross country trip down to Austin, Texas. So…driving it is. That is, if you can handle being a passenger princess.”

Grumpy snorted. “Don’t mention that in front of Scotty. He’d put a fucking crown on me.” Kelly beamed, no doubt picturing it. Shaking his head, he growled, “I love you. Thank you for coming with me.”

As he leaned in to kiss her again, he caught Ruth poke Grimm’s upper arm and then point at Grumpy and Kelly across the table. “See, beshert.”

CHAPTER 6

Kelly bit her lip as she turned her Yugo onto the drive that led to the club’s property. She’d been here a few times, but always for public events, like their haunted house at Halloween or the time they hosted an adoption fundraiser for a local animal shelter. Never had she been here like this. As Grumpy’s…what? Girlfriend?

She cringed. That sounded so childish. So high school. But what the hell else was she supposed to call herself? To call him?

The giant black gate that blocked their way was intimidating as hell. It loomed like the physical manifestation of her life’s current path. Was this a blockade, something that would keep her and Grumpy apart? If the gates opened, did that solidify anything or add more chaos to the mix?

In her rearview mirror, she had an almost magazine-worthy image of the large, equally intimidating building across the street from the club’s property. Master Key Security Solutions. Everyone in town knew about the high-tech company headquarters being built—but unless you wore a club cut, you weren’t getting inside. Numerous people had tried, especially bored teenagers on dares. To Kelly’s knowledge, no one had yet to succeed.

It hadn’t taken long for Kelly to realize why she thought Grimm looked familiar to her but she couldn’t place him. He wasn’t familiar, but his features were. Grimm was the youngest brother of three ex-Navy SEAL soldiers—sailors?—who now worked for MKSS. She hadn’t met Grimm before, but Thorne and Goose, his older brothers, frequented the diner.

Kelly wondered why Grimm wasn’t as social as his brothers, and why he’d been the one to show up to escort Margery out of Grumpy’s house yesterday morning.

To her disappointment but also her understanding, Grumpy had gone home the night before. They both wanted him to stay or for her to go with him, but neither could. Grumpy’s medications and aids were at his place and Kelly couldn’t leave her mom alone at night. Statistically, if she was to fall, it would be at night on the way to the bathroom, and Kelly couldn’t take the chance that the one night she left her in recent months was the night she fell again.

Her eyes moved forward to focus back on the gate. Grumpy hadn’t said much since getting in the car, but the silence wasn’t awkward or heavy. In fact, Kelly appreciated it. When she’d volunteered to drive Grumpy to Texas, it had been spur of the moment. In his presence, it was so easy to forget the rest of the world existed. But once he’d gone home the night before, Kelly had a chance to think without her brain all fogged up with thoughts of him.

Go to Texas? What was she thinking? Or clearly hadn’t been thinking. Kelly had never been outside Pennsylvania. Hell, she could count on one hand the number of times she’d left Mount Grove, and all those times had been to see an orthopedic in Pittsburgh about her knee after she fell in the diner about six years ago.

But to Texas? It seemed so daunting.

A quick map search to Maddie’s college showed one way was one-thousand, four hundred and thirty-eight miles. Without stops, it was a twenty-two-plus hour drive. Her little Yugo was an old girl, and it wasn’t like she had a motorcycle license to take Grumpy’s bike. Also, Grumpy was still recovering from almost dying after surviving a fucking bomb. It would take far longer than a day or two to get there.

Could Grumpy even go? Kelly hadn’t been involved in his medical decisions recently. Did he have limitations that would prevent him from going? What about her own limitations? Like her mom, her job, her house…?

The idea of being in the car with Grumpy for that long did not make her hesitate. In fact, that was one of the bigger pros on her list of reasons to go. Their relationship was new. Maybe their feelings weren’t, but them as a couple, as two people openly in love, were. And Kelly had no idea what that even looked like for them.

Did Grumpy?

Despite his silence, he wasn’t ignoring her. It was hard to explain, but Kelly still got the sense that he was very aware of her. His hand lay on her right thigh like it belonged there, his thumb rubbing almost absentmindedly as they traveled. Despite years of her serving him at the diner, Grumpy had brought a to-go cup of coffee for her with the exact amount of cream she liked in her drink. Not only that, but it was the zero sugar sweet Italian flavor she liked. Kelly was very certain she’d never mentioned that before to him.

Even though she was the one driving, he still insisted on opening her door for her and getting in after she did. She knew that being pampered was not something Grumpy wanted, regardless of his current limitations.

For years, long before he’d kissed her six months ago, Kelly had fantasized about sex with Grumpy. His hard muscles, his countless tattoos, his long golden-brown hair… Hell, she’d even dreamt of his callused, working man’s hands rubbing over every inch of her body. It wasn’t something she would ever admit out loud, not even under the threat of torture, but since meeting Grumpy, he had been the one on her mind when she’d been with past lovers. There was just something about his stoic, hardness that lit her flame.

But Kelly was also old fashioned. Not in a no-sex-before-marriage way but in a relationship way. She didn’t want sex, the stale, nameless pounding of flesh. The act of two strangers chasing an unobtainable high. That meant nothing to her. She’d tried it once in her early twenties, and it hadn’t worked out well for her.

As Bubbe often told Kelly, “Dayn harts ligt tsvishn dayne fis.” Which basically came to the very crude, but true, sentiment that Kelly’s heart lay between her legs.

Kelly hadn’t been in love with every man she slept with, but she’d had feelings, a connection, with him. Maybe it was silly or vain, but she also liked being chased, being the pursued instead of the pursuer. Regardless of her feelings for the grumbling mechanic, Kelly never would have made the first move.

She liked dating, but more often than not, expectations fell short. As she’d confessed to Grumpy, she usually ended up being the caretaker in the relationship. Hell, she’d even paid a boyfriend’s rent once when she was younger because he gave her some sob story about being evicted if she didn’t pay.