Black Dogs Motorcycle Club: Full Series Box Set by Sienna Valentine Page B

arms around her,
like he would have done once upon a time in this situation. He decided they were
both in need of a distraction. 
     
    “ Grab a shower, and then
we have a date, ” he
said to her before he took a drag.
     
    Maggie scoffed, and only half-turned her
head to look at him. “ Is that right? ”
     
    “ Yep. You have twenty
minutes, don’t be late, ” he
said as he flicked the cigarette past her out into the drive. Then he turned
back for the clubhouse without another word. He returned to the bedroom and
took a short shower himself, trying to ignore the sound of the shower running
in Maggie ’ s room, just on
the other side of the wall. He was determined to focus today. He wasn’t going
to let that nightmare delusion of Maggie ’ s
death become real.
     
    Jase was waiting when she finally emerged.
The jeans looked the same, but she had found a more cheerful green shirt to
replace the gray one she had been wearing since she arrived. The dampness in
her curls somehow didn’t affect their charm. Jase hadn’t noticed it before, but
there was something different about Maggie that he suddenly became aware of — something
in her eyes, on the edges of her face. Maybe it was just stress, but it seemed
to him signs of her growing up. Those strange scars that only existed as
ghosts, floating around people, not to be seen or touched, never to really be
chased away; the same type of invisible scars he knew he carried.
     
    She had already come to stand next to him
when he realized he was staring. He turned suddenly to his coffee cup and
finished it in one uncomfortable swallow. “ So
what ’ s this date? ” she said. Her voice was still mostly bitterness.
     
    “You ’ re
learning how to shoot, ” said
Jase as he stood up. “ Rudy ’ s
is open for another hour, and I guarantee I can get him to give us an extra
two. ”
     
    “ Your solution, after we’ve
just survived a hail of bullets, is to go shoot more bullets? ”
     
    “ Do you know why people
get messed up by trauma? ” said Jase, hovering over her. “ Because
trauma makes you feel powerless. That makes you scared to act, which only makes
you feel more powerless. The best thing to do is get right back up and
start swinging. Learn how to win the next one. ”
     
    Surprisingly, Maggie ’ s
face seemed to light up at his explanation. “ Alright.
I ’ m in.”
     
    “ It wasn’t an option. ”
     
    She gave him an unenthusiastic flip of her
middle finger and headed out to the parking lot. When he followed, he found her
waiting by her SUV. He hollered her name and waved his hands for her to follow
him to his bike. She hesitated a moment before she joined him.
     
    Jase straddled his bike and got
comfortable. He held a helmet out to her. “We ’ re
much harder to tail this way. ”
     
    Maggie gave a look to the back seat of the
bike. Jase couldn’t help but get a little satisfaction from the anger brewing
under her skin. Her pouty lips twisted up as she tried to think her way out of
her discomfort. But she finally gave up and ripped the helmet from his hands
and latched it on her head. She climbed onto the seat behind him and wiggled
her hips until she was settled against him tightly. He felt her arms wrap
around his chest. It had been so many years since he had felt her at his back,
but she still fit there as if she had been molded for it.
     
    Sliding his protective glasses up against
his eyes and starting his bike, Jase worried for a moment that she was going to
feel his heart racing underneath her palms.   But when Maggie ’ s
chest pressed firmly against his back, his mind became more pre-occupied with
why her heart was doing the same.
     

 
     
     
     
    ~ TEN ~
     
    Jase
was indeed able to convince the manager at Rudy ’ s
Range to give them extra time to practice — for
a couple hundred dollars, which Jase slipped him as he was walking up to
announce closing time.
     
    At first, Maggie had struggled with the
9mm and he tried to