UNDER REVISION - Road Rage, Dark Shadows MC (Book 1)

Imposter - Silver

Silver 

I feel like an imposter.

The door to the bakery shuts softly behind Janine, my latest possible employee, and I'm left staring at a pile of resumes, unsure how I'm supposed to know who's the right person to employ. Chloe was supposed to be here helping but she got held up at work and now, I'm here, alone, pretending to all these people that I know what I'm doing, that I have something to offer them.

Well, not quite alone.

Ash is sitting at a table in the corner, his head down as he looks at his phone. He's been there all day, lurking, even though I know he has other things he needs to be handling. When he invited himself along today, I kind of expected him to take over a little bit or at least insert himself into the conversations. Instead, he's been basically a shadow, except he's too intense for anyone to actually pretend he isn't there.

Proof of that was Janine, who'd tried her hardest to get his attention throughout her interview. I have to assume that's what she was doing because I couldn't imagine the giggling and hair-flicking was for me. And someone only needs to cross and recross their legs so many times before it starts looking ridiculous. She'd kind of deflated when Ash didn't even glance at her once and she'd turned her charms on me, obviously realizing that I was the one who would be offering potential employment.

Honestly, by then, it'd been too late. If thinking that flirting with anybody at a job interview was appropriate, then I didn't want to see what she'd do behind the counter. Shaking my head, I pull her resume out from the pile, screwing it up into a ball and throwing it on the floor. I look up when Ash grunts but his eyes are still on his phone, his face blank, but I just know that he's laughing at me.

I'm not jealous. I have no reason to be jealous, especially when Ash didn't even blink in her direction. There was something about the whole thing that just set my teeth on edge. I'm self-aware enough to know that this thing with Ash is new enough that I'm feeling insecure but I don't want to punish him when he hasn't done anything wrong.

I don't look away from Ash and, without lifting his head, he comments, "You're staring."

I tap my fingers against the pile of papers, never taking my eyes off him. "I'm aware."

A few seconds later, he puts the phone down on the table and looks up, giving me his full attention with a smirk curling his lip up. "You want my attention, you got it." He tilts his head to the side, watching me with those dark, knowing eyes. I can feel my heart speed up, which is ridiculous when he isn't doing anything but looking at me. "What's up, baby?"

It still feels odd to be at the center of his attention, knowing that he's mine. That I'm his. I keep expecting him to do another disappearing act but it's been two days since I told him I'd give him–us–a chance and he's still here.

He's been busy, disappearing during the day to do things for his club, but every night, he turns up at my house and climbs into my bed. Every night, he holds me until we fall asleep and if I wake up to him gone, he sends me a good morning text so I don't think the worst. Last night, he didn't think he'd get there before I went to bed so he messaged me to ask me to leave the window open.

I stayed up until one a.m., because I didn't need him breaking his damn neck scaling the side of the house.

The first night he came over, Chloe had side-eyed me, silently asking if I was sure. I'd nodded back at her because I couldn't exactly say that I wasn't sure but that I was trying. I know she doesn't approve of him and nothing I said would change her mind, not when it was already made up. The next morning, all she'd asked was whether I'd sorted my birth control, which I'd handled later that day–the doctor had said that the effectiveness of the Plan B pill would be less because of how long I'd waited to take it so all we could do was hope and wait. Not wanting to deal with the risk of misplacing my pills again, she'd given me the shot right there and then.