diff --git a/pkg/router/route_group.go b/pkg/router/route_group.go
index 7a150c1804..26fefe2255 100644
--- a/pkg/router/route_group.go
+++ b/pkg/router/route_group.go
@@ -106,18 +106,19 @@ func NewRouteGroup(cfg *RouteGroupConfig, rt routing.Table, desc routing.RouteDe
 // The Router, via transport.Manager, is responsible for reading incoming packets and pushing it to the appropriate RouteGroup via (*RouteGroup).readCh.
 // To help with implementing the read logic, within the dmsg repo, we have ioutil.BufRead, just in case the read buffer is short.
 func (r *RouteGroup) Read(p []byte) (n int, err error) {
-	r.mu.Lock()
-	defer r.mu.Unlock()
-
 	var timeout <-chan time.Time
 	var timer *time.Timer
 
 	if deadline := atomic.LoadInt64(&r.readDeadline); deadline != 0 {
 		delay := time.Until(time.Unix(0, deadline))
 
+		r.mu.Lock()
 		if delay > time.Duration(0) && r.readBuf.Len() > 0 {
-			return r.readBuf.Read(p)
+			n, err := r.readBuf.Read(p)
+			r.mu.Unlock()
+			return n, err
 		}
+		r.mu.Unlock()
 
 		timer = time.NewTimer(delay)
 		timeout = timer.C
@@ -131,6 +132,8 @@ func (r *RouteGroup) Read(p []byte) (n int, err error) {
 		if !ok {
 			return 0, io.ErrClosedPipe
 		}
+		r.mu.Lock()
+		defer r.mu.Unlock()
 		return ioutil.BufRead(&r.readBuf, data, p)
 	case <-timeout:
 		return 0, ErrTimeout
diff --git a/pkg/router/route_group_test.go b/pkg/router/route_group_test.go
index d025906726..ee05d6f449 100644
--- a/pkg/router/route_group_test.go
+++ b/pkg/router/route_group_test.go
@@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ func TestRouteGroup_Read(t *testing.T) {
 	case err = <-errCh:
 	}
 	require.Equal(t, context.DeadlineExceeded, err)
-	// require.NoError(t, rg1.Close()) // TODO: fix hang
+	require.NoError(t, rg1.Close())
 
 	_, rg1 = prepare()
 	_, rg2 := prepare()