Page 16 of Until Joy

“No, I didn’t buy the paint, but the guy who owns the hardware store might be selling it to her at cost.” Graham grinned.

“And the price of labor?”

“You’re paying for that.” His grin turned wicked.

I arched a brow. “How do you figure that?”

“You’re going to be baking a lot of cookies, cakes, and brownies, but I’ll be buying all the supplies for that.”

I studied his hazel eyes and saw mischief and caring. What a combination. “I’m in.”

“Never doubted it. Now there’s something special you owe the coordinator of all of this.”

I should have figured. Graham was a smart and wily man. “What could that be?” I kept my voice sounding confused. His expression told me he wasn’t buying it.

“One date. One lunch date that doesn’t include Miss Laverne or anybody else.”

Yep, smart and wily. I looked over at the paint cans again and licked my suddenly dry lips. He had me, fair and square, and the bastard knew it. If I said ‘no’ I’d come off like an ungrateful little brat. But… I didn’t need to sound pleased about it.

I rolled my eyes and gave the biggest sigh possible, then gave him the yes he’d been waiting for.

“Was that really so hard?”

Dammit, I couldn’t stop my grin. “Maybe.”

“Doll, you can’t lie worth shit.”

Chapter 4

Having a beer with friends at the Broken Eagles compound was the perfect way to unwind after the day I’d had working in the shop. It had been non-stop, and I’d had three asshole returns and one of them was trying to return something that they’d clearly bought off Amazon. This was not the first time that’d happened, but this guy had taken the cake. He was as big as me and tried to throw his weight around as he literally yelled and used profanity when there must have been ten other customers in the store. He was an embarrassment to humanity. I couldn’t start a fight in the middle of the store, but I didn’t want to cave, either.

Wes and Harlen came through the door three minutes into the asshat’s rampage and flanked him. They didn’t look happy, and the bully suddenly stopped yelling at me. Instead, he swiveled his head, saying he didn’t want any trouble. Harlen and Wes frog marched him out of the store, and all the customers clapped. That was when I remembered why I mostly liked people.

Still, it was a beer kind of night. Especially here at the compound. I liked the warehouse kind of ambience. Cement floor, a tipped-over chair, and then there was Sheila on the couch laid out on one of my brothers, not caring what we might see.

Yep, it felt like home.

“What did you do with the asshole?” I asked Harlen.

“We took him back to the junkyard. We had a couple more members surround him, with Z swinging a chain. The guy literally pissed his pants,” Harlen chuckled. “Wes told him if he ever showed his face again, he would suffer our wrath.”

I started to laugh. “Sorry I missed it.”

“Yeah, it was fun. Anyway, he had quite a nice new truck. When Wes and I forced him to get in it to drive home with pissy pants, it was just icing on the cake.”

“Pissy pants?” Tuck said, raising his eyebrow.

“Yep. I’m sticking with the name pissy pants. In fact, if he were to show his face again, that’s how I will refer to him,” Harlen grinned.

“I like it,” I chuckled. Then I looked around. “The pool table is empty, let’s go play.”

“I’ll take you on,” Tuck volunteered.

“You up for another smackdown?” Harlen asked in disbelief.

“What are you talking about? That last time was a fluke. I’m putting down twenty that says I beat you by two balls.”

“I’ll take that bet,” I said as I reached into my wallet and set down the twenty on the side of the pool table. This would be like shooting fish in a barrel. “You go ahead and rack and break,” I offered.