Not Anticipated (Red Eyes MC Romance Series - Book #4) Read online

  The night wore on, and we got busier. Still, it was manageable, especially when Casey came on shift as well and took over bussing the tables. That left me behind the bar fixing drinks, which was where I liked to be.

  I glanced over from the whiskey sour I was fixing as the door opened, letting in a blast of much-needed fresh air. It was habit to check who was coming in each time the door opened so that I could try to assess their needs even before they had picked a spot in the place. You could tell a lot from a person just by the way they entered the bar. This time, I barely managed to keep from grinning. Oh, I knew what these guys needed.

  That was Braxton on the left and one of the other Red Eyes guys on the right. Grant, I thought his name was. He wasn’t one of the core group who came out to Sunshine together: Landon and Braxton and Will and Marcus. I knew that Marcus had moved away now, though, and Landon had too. So I guessed Braxton needed to drag out some of the other members with him.

  Again, I felt that surge of pity for him. Had to be tough trying to keep up with his normal routines without his brother. I didn’t think I had ever seen Braxton without Landon at his side before.

  But beyond that, I couldn’t stop thinking about how good Braxton looked that night. He pretty much always dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt, but the soft-looking green shirt he had on that night really did it for him. In better lighting, I was sure that it brought out the color in his eyes. His hair was a bit longer than he normally let it get and carelessly tousled. Like if he’d just had sex.

  I’d been attracted to him pretty much since the first time I’d laid eyes on him, but I wasn’t stupid enough to get tangled up with him. I knew he was part of Red Eyes, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to get too close to that kind of life. Even if we just had some meaningless fling. But he was easy on the eyes, and he was friendly enough when he was there in the bar.

  Of course, he was also always making eyes at someone else in the bar. He didn’t always go home with women, but he definitely slept with his fair share of the girls who came through here. I wasn’t jealous, though.

  Okay, maybe a little. But realistically, I knew better than to go home with him, and watching him with his string of conquests made it easier for me to stay away. He would never be interested in me anyway. Or at least, he’d never hinted at it.

  The two Red Eyes club members sat together at my end of the bar. I finished up with the customer I was serving, trying not to look like I was rushing things, and then headed over to them, wiping my hands off on my apron as I went.

  “Hey, boys,” I said, smiling at them. “How’s it going? What can I get for you?”

  “What’s the special tonight?” Braxton asked.

  I wrinkled my nose. “Trust me, you don’t want it,” I told him.

  “Try me,” Braxton said evenly.

  I stared at him for a moment and then shrugged, grinning to myself as I mixed up the special du jour. When I set the pink drink in front of Braxton and garnished it with a bright-blue umbrella, Grant started snickering. “Wow,” he said. “I’ll have whatever he’s not having.”

  Braxton grinned wryly at me. “I guess you were probably right,” he conceded. But he lifted his drink and took a sip. Immediately, he made a face. “Oh yuck, what’s even in that?”

  I winked at him. “Secret recipe,” I told him. “You’ll just have to order another and watch me make it if you want to find out.”

  “No, thanks,” Braxton said, but he looked amused, and he continued sipping on his drink.

  “You get used to drinks like that while you were in Florida?” Grant asked Braxton, raising an eyebrow at him.

  “No wonder Landon decided to stay over there,” I chimed in, smirking at Braxton.

  Braxton snorted. “He didn’t stay for the girly drinks, he stayed for a girl,” he said. He looked a bit morose as he toyed with the paper umbrella.

  “Sounds pretty selfish, if you ask me,” I said.

  Braxton looked surprised to hear me say that, and I could tell that he wanted to ask something, but Grant piped up again before he could. “Hey, you don’t know anything about bro code,” he said to me. “Hos before bros.”

  I frowned. “I’m pretty sure I’ve only ever heard that saying the other way around,” I said, exchanging another glance with Braxton. Don’t get me wrong, Grant wasn’t a bad guy, but I was pretty surprised to see Braxton here with him. Grant just seemed kind of young. Inexperienced. Like he was still trying too hard to be cool. I didn’t know what his story was, but he just didn’t seem to mesh with the rest of the Red Eyes dudes.

  Take Braxton, for example. Braxton definitely wasn’t trying too hard. He walked in here and immediately commanded attention from half the women in the room. He was charismatic and charming. He didn’t have to chase women most nights; they were drawn to him.

  Just like I was drawn to him, I supposed. Maybe that was my only gripe against Grant. Maybe it was just that I wasn’t attracted to him.

  I thought about the conversation that Braxton and I might have if Grant weren’t here, if Braxton was here on his own. I understood what it felt like, losing a family member. Although my loss had been a lot more permanent. But I felt like I could relate to what Braxton must be feeling right now. We’d talk about it; I’d lay a hand on his arm, listening sympathetically as he told me how things were so different now.

  But it was probably a good thing he wasn’t here on his own because I had other customers to serve, one of whom was snapping his fingers at me, drawing me away from this conversation. I gave him a peevish look. I hated when people were so rude as to snap at me. Even though I knew that I probably shouldn’t be sitting here chatting with the two Red Eyes boys on the busiest part of a Friday night.

  “Sorry, I have to go,” I said, mostly to Braxton.

  “No worries,” he said, smiling easily at me. “I’ll let you know if I need another drink. But not by snapping my fingers at you.”

  I laughed and shook my head. “Thanks,” I said. “And hey, I’m glad to see that you’re holding up. More or less.” The words tumbled out of my mouth before I had thought them through, but I could tell that Braxton almost smiled at them. Like he was glad that I had noticed. Like he realized I understood him, at least in some sense.

  Or maybe that was just what I wanted to believe. I turned away to serve the other customers at my end of the bar, mixing drinks and handing them out left and right.

  Finally, there was a bit of a lull, and I looked back to the stools that Braxton and Grant had occupied, wondering if either of them—but especially Braxton—needed another drink. But they had vanished. I looked around the bar, wondering if they had moved to some other seats. Wondering if they were chatting up some girls.

  I didn’t see them anywhere, though, and I realized that they must have slipped out after the one drink. I pushed down a burble of disappointment. What did it matter anyway? It wasn’t like I was going to ever actually go home with Braxton. But I couldn’t stop thinking about that imagined conversation that we might have had about the loss of a sibling.

  He was holding up well, but I had to believe that he still had things he would have wanted to talk about. After all, I knew how he felt. I still, years later, had things that I wanted to talk about.

  5

  Braxton

  Getting drinks with Grant had been a terrible idea, and I wished that Ray hadn’t pushed the idea so hard. But I hoped that now I could go back to Ray and just tell him that this wasn’t going to work, that there was no way that Grant was ever going to feel like a brother to me, and that there was no point in continuing to try.

  I didn’t even know how things had gone so wrong; it had just been so awkward.

  Oh, actually getting our drinks had been fine. Mia had been there behind the bar, and that whole conversation had just flowed, like it always did. There was a reason I tipped her well every time I was in there, and it was only a quarter because of her drink-making skills. The other half of the tip was because of those a
mazing legs of hers, legs that I knew I was never actually going to have wrapped around my waist, given how uninterested she was in me, but legs that I appreciated nonetheless. And the other quarter of the tip was because she always seemed to keep the conversation flowing. She was witty, smart, and funny.

  No, there had been no problems there.

  But as soon as she walked away, all Grant wanted to talk about was how sexy she looked in that jean skirt and black, backless top. And it wasn’t like I had any problem talking about how sexy a woman was while we were there at the bar, but I didn’t feel like discussing Mia with Grant. I had been coming here for far longer than he had, and in my head, I guess Mia was off-limits to him, for some strange reason.

  Even though I knew that she was never going to give me the time of day. She just wasn’t interested in mixing relationships with work or something like that. I didn’t really know what her deal was, but I had to respect it.

  Once Grant got the picture, that I didn’t want to talk about Mia’s attractiveness with him, the conversation had rapidly fizzled out, until we were basically just both drinking, lost in our thoughts. I was beginning to regret that it was just the two of us there. In reality, when Ray suggested I bring Grant out for drinks with me, I should have called Cameron first. Once I found out if Cameron was down for drinks, I should have invited Grant.

  That would have given me a buffer. As it was, the kid was solely my responsibility, and he and I didn’t have a single thing in common outside of Red Eyes.

  Which was what the conversation turned to once we walked out of the bar.

  “I just never would have thought I would end up doing this with my life, you know?” Grant had said, and I fought the urge to snort. He was gesticulating wildly, and I wondered if he was already drunk. Not that he would have gotten drunk off what he had had at the bar, but I wondered if maybe he had pre-gamed a little before we met up outside of Sunshine.

  To be honest, it wouldn’t have surprised me. I could tell that Grant was pretty much always nervous around us more experienced guys, and he had probably thought that there was some trick to me taking him out for drinks.

  Which there was, just not what he would have expected. I doubted he realized that Ray was the reason I had asked him for drinks in the first place.

  “Well, this is our life,” I said, not really sure what to say in response to that. It wasn’t even like Grant had done anything for the MC yet. He had barely even gotten his feet wet. I started to wonder what he would have thought if the Mambas had come here to New Mexico rather than to Sarasota. Grant probably would have shit a brick if he had been the one held at gunpoint.

  I mean, Grant had been here when the Unknowns had started creeping in on our territory, and he was willing to talk the talk around the clubhouse most of the time, but I didn’t think he had actually had anything to do with getting rid of the Unknowns. Jeez, what did he even add to the MC anyway?

  An able body, I reminded myself. And it seemed like those were in too short supply these days, with Will, Marcus, and Landon all out of the business. We really could use anyone we could get.

  Anyone who was actually willing to put in the work, though. And I wasn’t sure that Grant really was. He was just such a pussy, and that was all that I could think.

  But I didn’t say that to him. Instead, I shrugged. “I don’t always agree with everything that’s going on with Red Eyes,” I admitted, not telling him that most of what I didn’t agree with was the fact that Ray was so slow to go for violence. Really, I thought we should react twice as quickly most of the time. But Grant didn’t need to know that.

  “Then what keeps you in it?” Grant asked.

  “We’re all like a family,” I said. “And we just have to do what we have to do. Whatever Ray tells us. He’s the boss.”

  After a long moment, Grant nodded. “Yeah, I guess so. And I’ll try.” He paused. “But to be honest, I’ve always felt like an outcast in the MC.”

  I fought the urge to roll my eyes. That was because he was an outcast in the MC. But again, not something that I was going to say to him. “If you’d man up a little, maybe the guys would have a little more respect for you,” I suggested, trying not to sound like too much of an asshole. And sure enough, Grant grinned, clearly accepting my words.

  I didn’t want to talk about it anymore, though. Once we were outside, I pointed off to the right. “I’m that way. But I’ll see you around, okay?”

  “Yeah, see you around,” Grant said.

  I turned to go, just as someone slammed into me. Whoever he was, he was a bigger guy, pretty muscular. But he had nothing on me. He bounced off me, stumbling a couple paces back, and his eyes narrowed.

  I was pretty sure I recognized him. I’d seen him around Sunshine a few times. I knew that Mia knew him, in fact, and I thought I remembered his name to be Darren. But I wasn’t sure about that. It might have been Derrick or Eric or even something totally unrelated like Adam. I just didn’t care enough to remember him.

  Except that now, I was starting to wonder if, by the way he was looking at me, he had run into me on purpose. “What the hell’s your problem, buddy?” he snarled, and I realized that he was very drunk and looking for a fight.

  I rolled my eyes, not caring to start a brawl out in the middle of the street. But when he realized I wasn’t going to fight him, he headed toward Sunshine. I smelled trouble and started to follow him.

  “Oh come on, just let him go,” Grant said, dragging me to a stop. “That guy’s not worth it.”

  I scowled after Darren, but Grant was right. No reason getting tangled up in that mess, whatever it was. Sunshine had a bouncer, and anyway, I was pretty sure Mia knew the guy. If she didn’t want him there, she would tell him so. She wasn’t the kind of woman to put up with any kind of nonsense.

  Something that I admired about her. Something else that turned me on. But again, something else that I wasn’t going to get tangled up in.

  “Hey, you want to go for drinks again tomorrow?” Grant asked.

  At first, I thought that he was just trying to distract me from Darren, like he thought that I was still about to run after the guy and slug him a couple times. But when I looked back at Grant, I could see the earnestness in his face. He was like a little puppy or something. So eager.

  I didn’t have the patience to deal with that. Landon would have. I felt a bitterness swirl inside of me. Yeah, if Landon were still here, he would have made a great mentor for Grant. Ray would have been so proud of him.

  As it was, Ray was going to be frustrated with me. If he were here now, he’d be encouraging me to go out for drinks again the following night with Grant. But I definitely didn’t feel like it. And no amount of wanting to please Ray was going to make me willing.

  I shook my head. “Got shit that I need to do tomorrow,” I lied. Really, I just had enough of the kid already.

  Grant’s face fell. “Of course,” he said, and I remembered what he had said before about feeling like he was an outcast in the MC. Better remind him that he’d see me soon enough before he decided to call it quits with Red Eyes and went to Ray to tell him so.

  “I’ll see you at the meeting on Monday,” I told him. That would also give me until Monday to avoid his company. Of course, I was sure Ray would have some other project he wanted us to do together. Ugh.

  “Yeah, see you Monday,” Grant said, and I could tell that he wanted to say something else. But if it was another invitation, he didn’t have the balls to actually ask. I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes again. God, it was too much like babysitting.

  I gave him an aborted wave and started for home, glancing back over my shoulder when I was halfway down the block because I was honestly worried that he might have thought of something else to ask and decided to follow me. But fortunately, he was nowhere to be seen, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

  I just wanted to go home, have another few drinks in the privacy of my house, and forget that this evening had ever happened. Forget t
hat this year had ever happened.

  Maybe drinking alone was desperate, but so was dragging various members of the MC out for drinks in the hopes that I could forget that Landon no longer lived with me in the house that we had bought together here in Las Cruces. I vowed to keep to myself from now on, even if Ray begged me to take Grant out again.

  6

  Mia

  Candice laughed when she saw where I was looking. “What, were you hoping Braxton would stick around and keep you company for the night?” she asked.

  I blinked over at her, not realizing that she snuck up behind me. But her side of the bar was pretty empty too. One of those lulls. Hopefully, it was a sign that we were slowing down for the night, that things would be easy from here on out. I didn’t like the knowing grin that she was giving me, though.

  “What?” I asked innocently. “I was just making sure they didn’t need refills on their drinks.”

  “Sure,” Candice said, and I could tell that she wasn’t buying it. She shrugged. “Come on; I can tell that you like Braxton. And that you like him as more than just a friend.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re being ridiculous,” I said, inwardly wondering what I had done to give it away. But then again, Candice knew me better than anyone. And she’d owned a bar long enough to be pretty good at reading relationships between people.

  Candice shrugged. “I’m just saying; you could do worse than him for a boyfriend. I know he’s in the motorcycle club, but I think he’s a pretty good guy. And we all know that Red Eyes isn’t up to anything too terrible.”

  As though that was the only problem with him. I shook my head. “I’m not getting into a relationship anytime soon,” I told her. And that was the truth.

  Just as I said that, Darren came striding through the door to the bar, and I fought not to groan. Speak of the devil. Or think of the devil at least.