“Like a muddy ditch, somewhere?” she offered. “Or how about anywhere but in my face?”

Will smiled down at her wickedly. His voice came out a whisper. “But I like the idea of being in your face.”

Eva’s lips pursed open in shock and arousal, her chest heaving with a thick breath. She stared at him for a few tense moments before she huffed, frustrated, and pushed past him out of the office.

Will chuckled to himself, enjoying the feeling of her hand on his chest as she passed, even if it wasn’t meant to be tender. He followed out toward the kitchen with his hands in his pockets, and a half-hard dick in his pants.

Before he could tease her again, the rumble of an engine came from outside before stopping abruptly. A few seconds later, the door to the bar swung open and a familiar face walked in.

Of all the gin joints in all of the towns in all of the world, Will thought bitterly from the back as he watched Jase walk into the bar. Jase removed his sunglasses and looked around, an ugly look on his face. Before Jase could spot him, Will ducked behind the wall to the back room. Next to him, Eva gave him a quizzical expression.

“Oh, God, is it…” she whispered as fear washed over her face.

“No, no,” said Will. “It’s something else.”

“Are we in danger?”

You two aren’t; I’m not so sure about me. “No. But listen, I need you to do exactly as I say.” Will grabbed Eva by both shoulders and looked straight down into her eyes. The feel of the warm skin of her arms beneath his hands made his heart race. Her pupils dilated when he touched her. “Go out and serve him. I need you to act like we don’t know each other. Don’t say a word about what’s happening or why I’m here. Got it?”

“Why don’t you just go out the back? You can wait in the house until he leaves.”

“He had to have seen my bike, he knows I’m here. We just have to go with it.”

Eva nodded, and then licked her lips. “Okay, sure.”

“Go on out, I have to fake like I’m coming from the restroom,” said Will. He waited until Eva had Jase’s attention at the bar before he came walking out from behind the wall, thumbing absently at the fly on his jeans. He did a decent job coming to a surprised stop when he looked at Jase, as if he was seeing him there at the bar for the first time.

Jase straightened in his stool, his expression grim. He spread out his arms and shifted a bit. Will knew the man well enough to know by his body language, Jase was daring him to run.

A shameful sting pierced his chest; it was like seeing just how far he had fallen in Jase’s eyes. He didn’t have to fake the anger rising under his skin as he took a stool next to his MC brother, although Jase would never guess the source was more from shame than fury.

Eva put a full stein in front of Jase and wiped the glass with a rag before she turned to Will. “Did you need another drink?”

Pushing against all his instincts to look at her face as long as he could, Will only flicked his eyes up at her a moment as he ordered a beer and a shot of whiskey. Eva nodded and bent to pull glasses up from under the counter.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding out,” said Jase. He took a big gulp of beer.

Will took the shot that Eva put in front of him. “I’m not hiding.”

“Not answering your phone, not being where anyone but me can find you… what else would you call it?”

“How did you find me?” said Will.

Jase rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I know you, man. I’m not blind to what’s been going on with you.”

Will took a deep drink of his beer and looked up at Eva. She sat near the other end of the bar, trying to busy herself with organizing. Jase probably didn’t notice how she was trying to listen without being obvious, but Will did. He waited until she looked up and caught his eye, and gave her a very slight nod toward the back room.

Eva froze for a few seconds, as if considering whether to follow his unspoken command. But when she finally moved to follow his direction, she did it with such nervous speed that she knocked her leg hard into a stack of boxed beer sitting on the floor. A jolting sound of glass rattling against glass made both he and Jase look over curiously.

Eva went red with embarrassment and gave them a small smile. She kept her eyes down as she moved past and disappeared into the back room.

Will took a quick, clean side glance at Jase. He frowned at Eva as his eyes followed her out, but nothing on his face said he was suspicious.

Jase cleared his throat. “So, are you just going to spiral downward until someone kills you, or you kill yourself?”

“Fuck you,” said Will. He could feel the blackness rising from the back of his mind and realized he had actually been feeling better the past little while—until this moment. “I don’t need your self-righteous bullshit, Jase.”

From the moment Will spotted him, he could see the anger boiling under the surface of Jase’s skin, and it took no time at all for that kettle to start steaming. “Self-righteous? What part of me driving around the pass, searching for my asshole of a best friend who can’t answer his fucking phone… What part of that is for me?” said Jase. “I should be home with Maggie, getting my brains fucked out. Instead, I try to help out, and I get this shit.”

“No one asked you to come looking for me,” said Will, turning to him with a sour expression. He could feel a tension rising between them, the opposite of the tension he felt with Eva—this was the rage he was used to, all the earlier shame had dissipated against it. “Don’t nail yourself up on the cross and expect me to start wailing for you.”

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” said Jase. “What the fuck has happened to you, Will? I’ve known you half my life, and you’ve never fucking talked to me like this. You’ve never bailed on a community event; hell you’ve never bailed on anything the MC has asked of you. Now it’s like you’re begging us to take your cut.”

Will finished his beer in a few chugs, wiping the spill from his scruff. “Yeah, well, maybe it’s fucking time.”

Jase fell silent. When Will looked over, he saw a hooded darkness over Jase’s eyes, and pain on his face. “You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t fucking tell me what I mean,” said Will. Some tiny voice was screaming out from deep in Will’s mind that Jase was trying to help him, begging him to take the hand being offered. Will smothered it with a wash of anger. “The club has made your life better. It fucking ruined mine.”

Jase shook his head and stared down into what was left of his beer. “Dude, I can’t even imagine the pain you’re feeling about what happened. I get that. But how is this the MC’s fault? You got your retribution—”

“Did I?” said Will, startled by the loudness of his own voice. “You know what real retribution would be? Taking down every single one of the fuckers who had anything to do with that fire, and then severing ties forever with that piece of shit cartel. Instead, Henry asks me to smile and shake their hands as they drive through my fucking town every day.”

“Will…”

“No, shut the fuck up, Jase,” said Will. “You wanted to know what my problem was, so now you’re going to hear it.”

Surprisingly, Jase remained silent, but his expression darkened.

Will leaned down close to Jase’s face. “You didn’t feel the heat of that fire on my skin as it burned everything I’ve ever loved down,” Will whispered bitterly. “You didn’t feel the emptiness that was supposed to be relief when I blew away the men who set that fire. And you didn’t feel the betrayal when the other family in my life asked me to put down my sword and swallow my pain.”

Will thought he saw Jase’s eyes growing wet, but the look on his face was pure anger. Somehow, though, it wasn’t at Will.

“I’ve given the club everything I had, and in the end it meant nothing.” Will could barely believe the venom in his own voice. He turned away from Jase and stared at the bottles lining the bar wall, trying to quiet the adrenaline rushing through his veins.