Текст книги "Under Locke"

Автор книги: Mariana Zapata

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

"I wish I was half as talented at anything as you are at art," I sighed. "But I'm not good at anything."

Two hands planted themselves on my shoulders. "I'm sure you're good at somethin', babe."

I snorted. "Nothing useful."

"Babe." He said the nickname in a slithering tone, part admonishing, part sigh.

“It’s fine. It’s not too late to learn to be good at something, right?”

The heat on my back intensified as he took a step closer to me, his long fingers dug into my tissues. “I was your age when I got out of jail, Ritz. You got time to figure shit out.” He didn't say anything else after that little pep talk. He just stood there, massaging my shoulders for long moments until he squeezed them tightly once and stepped back. "Lemme show you somethin’."

I shook off the dreamy haze his hands put me under and tried to focus on something other than his out-of-the-blue affection. Dex opened a creaky closet door while I looked over one of the big bookshelves that had collectible action figures on it still in their packaging.

"Here we go," he murmured, throwing a cardboard lid onto the floor. He smiled up at me as he held out a comic book I didn't recognize. Tightly restrained excitement vibrated through his bones.  "Look, this is the first one Ma ever bought me."

I took his offering with the widest smile I could muster when he grinned at me like he'd won the lottery.

And it was that smile that had me plastered on the ground next to him for an hour, going through an impressive selection of comic books that Dex explained he’d collected through his early teen years. He was so painstakingly careful with each item he showed me, so serious explaining the editions and their value, that I ate it all up like a starved woman on the floor with him.

He’d tell me something special about each comic, and then he’d ask me something about myself like it was a second thought. What my favorite superhero movie was. If I’d liked Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a kid. Who my favorite X-Men was.

Never in a million years would I have ever expected Dex to even have a favorite X-Men or Ninja Turtle, much less care about which one was mine.

"What do your friends think of all this?" I asked him.

He looked me dead in the eye. "I don't give a shit what anyone else thinks." Then he'd paused and quirked a cheek up, like he regretted the word choice he'd used. "But nobody else except Shane's seen 'em. I think Sonny and Trip remember I was into 'em when we were kids but...it's my one thing I don't gotta share with anybody."

God. Where was Dex The Dick when I needed him to keep me far away from this charming monster?

I sucked up how tired I was and looked through another couple boxes he had in his closet.

When I started yawning every couple of minutes, he sat back with his hands propped behind his butt.  “You want the bed?”

I shook my head. “I’ll be fine on the couch.

“I’m not gonna ask you twice,” he warned me, smiling wearily.

“Thanks, but I’ll survive.” What I probably wouldn't survive was another night spent in the same bed with him after our day together. Specifically, after I'd become personal with the hot, heavy touch he was capable of. "I need to get used to sleeping on the couch again if I'm ever going to try and get my own place in the future."

I'd been thinking about my financial situation a lot recently, when I wasn’t thinking about all this crap with my dad. Though I liked living with Sonny, I didn’t want to take advantage of him. He would never kick me out but I didn’t want to mooch. I was too old for that. Most importantly, I didn’t want him to think that I would ever use him. He’d done more than enough for me.

So I needed to move out at some point in the sort-of distant future. I’d saved pretty much all of my paychecks except for gas, my Florida medical bills, and other little things, but it still wouldn’t be enough to pay a first month and deposit on even the cheapest apartment, and have money left over to buy some furniture. Which meant that I'd probably invest in a couch whenever I got my own place and sleep on that until I could afford a bed.

Then there was the opportunity to go back to school, too. But that was money I didn't have either, dang it. Why exactly couldn't it grow on trees?

Dex’s face scrunched up. “Why?"

"I can't live with Son forever." I blinked at him.

His face screwed up even more. "You can't live by yourself."

"Yes I can."

"No, you can't," he snapped back.

Heaven help me. "I can live by myself."

There was no hesitation in his voice when he ground out, "The hell you are."

"Dex." I glared at him. "You already know it was just me and my brother for a while, and then I lived with a roommate for a year. I'm not a little kid, and I'm not an idiot. I can live alone."

He opened his mouth and my poor eyes went straight to those pink lips. Then he shut it so quickly that if I wouldn't have been looking, I would have missed him opening it, period. That gaze swept over my face, boring straight into my eyes in what I couldn't miss as being an act of domination.

And obviously when he refused to break our eye contact, I had to accept that this wasn't a battle I was going to win. Regardless, he didn't have a say with what I did and it wasn't like I was going to be moving anywhere in the near future.

I reached out and poked him with my index finger in the shoulder. "Chill out. I don't have enough money yet anyway. And if I go back to school, it'll take me even longer."

The smug jerk smiled slowly.

I should have known by then that his slow smile wasn't a positive sign.

~ * ~ *

Two days later, in the middle of my lunch break, I found out why Dex had been such a sly jerk in his spare bedroom.

The thick packet slid across the counter slowly, pushed by two tattooed fingers I recognized from the length alone.

Austin Community College: Fall Credit Catalog

“There’s info in there about certificates and degrees and shit you can get from 'em,” Dex’s gruff voice explained. “Classes start next month. I’ll help you pay for ‘em if you want, you know. You could go early before we open.”

I didn't know whether to look at the catalog that sat right next to the bean salad I'd brought from Dex's house, or look at the man himself.

Dex's face won.

But I couldn't find my vocabulary anywhere, and it must have made him feel awkward because he kept going.

"I know you said you think you aren't good at anythin' but I'm sure you can figure somethin' out, babe. You're smart."

My mouth opened and closed at least twice before my throat decided to work. "You went and got this for me?"

He shrugged uneasily. Uneasily! Dex! "I got a prospect from the Club to go get it."

He could have asked Santa Claus to go get it and it wouldn't have mattered. What mattered, because in life there are so few things that really do, was that he'd listened to me. That he hadn't just heard the words "I'm not good at anything," but that he'd heard everything else I'd said afterward.

“Why you frownin’?”

“I’m not frowning.” Pouting, maybe.

“Looks like you’re frownin’.”

“I swear I’m not.” My eyes were stinging. “I’m happy right now.”

He narrowed those impossible blue eyes. “You got somethin’ in your eye?”

I sniffed. “Allergies.” Like I was going to tell him he was going to make me cry.

Out of all of the things Dex could have given me, that was the last thing I could have ever expected: a course catalog for the local community college and an offer to help me with my classes. Not that I would ask him to help me pay for them—I wouldn't. But it was the thought. The friggin' thought that was worth ten times its weight in gold.

How could I not like this man? This asshole, bossy man that listened to me?

“Dex.” His name came out of my mouth in the form of a sigh.

“What the hell, Ritz? Are you cryin’? I thought you’d be happy,” he said, quickly dropping to kneel right next to my chair. He pulled it out and toward him by the legs, making a horrible grating sound on the tile.

Without thinking twice, because I was so wrapped in his gesture, I threw my arms around his neck and pressed my nose to his throat. “Why aren’t you this nice all the time?” I asked, but it was so muffled I’m not sure he understood the question.

Two arms wrapped around me, pulling me flat against him. It's a testament to how unfocused I felt that I couldn't find it in me to appreciate the contact he was giving me. To let me even think about what a gesture like this coming from a man like Dex meant.

“Sounds borin’ to me.” That large palm cupped the back of my neck. “And nobody else gives me hugs like this but you.”

The urge to fall to the ground, rip my heart out of my chest and hold it out like a sacred offering was overwhelming. Take it! Take it all! I’d cry.

Instead, I just sat there with my arms around him, breathing in that smoky Dex scent. I squeezed him tighter to me, knowing that I should move.

But I couldn’t. Not right then when I had my face buried in the nicest smelling place ever. Not when I was confused by the man who defended me, slept with me, and brought me class catalogs. The same man who was the most good-looking male in both hemispheres.

“Is this our secret then?”

His chest puffed against mine. “Yeah, babe, it is.”

“Okay.” I leaned back and smiled at him. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“Better not.”

I snorted right as this incredibly tender emotion flooded my chest. And it caused this urge… I had to close my eyes as I leaned forward and pecked a kiss on Dex’s stubbled cheek. “Fine.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

There were times when I wondered whether I'd lost most of my common sense the moment I got within the Austin city limits. Several times, in fact.

And one of those moments was right then.

Who in their right mind would turn down a date from a gorgeous guy that also happened to be really nice? The guy was one of Blake’s repeat customers. A computer programmer gradually getting a full-sleeve done. I’d met him my first week at the shop. But I mean, really, who would do that if they were sane?

Me, I hoped.

“Just one,” Trey, who was tall—almost as tall as Dex, the tallest person in my life– had the nicest shade of close cropped light brown hair. Did I mention he was super cute? One date, just to try it out, he’d said a minute before.

My answer was a blush and a goofy grin. When was the last time someone had asked me out and been serious about it? Four years ago?

“We’ll do whatever you want,” he kept going.

“I don’t think I’m allowed to go on dates with customers,” I told him honestly. While I hadn’t seen it written anywhere, it just seemed like normal etiquette in an employee handbook.

Someone from behind me, Blake, snickered loudly. All of these guys were unbelievably nosey. They had superhuman listening skills when they were busy, but when they weren’t busy and a walk-in came in asking for a generic type of tattoo—like a girl who had come in asking for the name of her current boyfriend to be crafted onto the back of her neck for the rest of her existence—they were all deaf. It was a miracle, I swear, that their hearing came back on an hourly basis.

“I think all of us but Blue have done it, Iris,” Blake called out from his station.

Trey smiled that nearly perfect like smile. “See? Tomorrow night then?” he asked me expectantly.

I wasn’t planning on saying yes no matter how cute and tall he was. I had no business dragging someone into the same stagnant pit I had VIP passes to. I didn't have my own place, I'd barely caught up on all of my bills, and I had no clue what I was doing with my life. Realistically what did I have to offer anyone?

Plus, I'd be lying if I said that the first thing that popped into my mind when he first asked wasn't Dex's face. Not that I knew or understood what the heck that meant but I'd leave that thought alone for another day. Or year, whatever.

I’d just been about to tell Trey I wasn't interested but in much simpler terms when two large hands slipped over my shoulders. Two sets of strong fingers spanned down my chest, the tips dangerously close to my nipples, er, boobs.

“Sorry, Trey. It’s against policy unless little Miss Iris wants to quit,” Dex's cool voice announced, his grip squeezing the tops of my breasts. “And that ain’t happenin’.”

What. The. Hell?

Trey's eyes darted from Dex to me, and then back again, before he smiled pleasantly and nodded. Why the hell he nodded, I have no clue. “I got’cha, man.”

What did he have exactly?

I tipped my head up to look at The Dick standing over me. His face was tight, his hold even tighter.

"Yeah," was the last thing that came out of his mouth.

Trey looked back at me and winked. "Maybe another time."

I had to be the only one who heard Dex mutter, "Over my dead body," under his breath.

What the heck was all that about? That standard annoyance I'd come to associate with being in Dex's company kissed the nape of my neck. Now it was me who was stiffening while The Dick relaxed.

The first chance I got after Trey was out of eavesdropping distance, I looked back up at my hot boss. "What are you doing?" I hissed at him. Well, maybe that wasn't the question I'd been preparing myself to ask, but it had just come out.

Those longer fingers dipped gently into the soft flesh underneath my shirt. "Nothin'."

Nothing? Threatening to fire me if I accepted a date was nothing? I started to shake my shoulders under his hold. "Why are you being like that?" It wasn't like I was planning on accepting the offer but still. I didn't want anyone else making my decisions for me. Especially not when it was something within my control. Something that only affected me. This wasn't a matter for either of my brothers or anybody else to get involved in, dang it.

Dark cobalt blue eyes gazed down at me. His expression switching from distant to pissed by the way he started grinding his teeth.

“Don't be dense," he snapped.

My jaw dropped. “You have no right—”

He snapped his fingers together. "You wanna talk about this? My office, right now."

The look on my face was organic what-the-fuck. In a month, I hadn’t had a man approach me at all. You couldn’t really count the men who’d come in that were natural born flirts because those kinds of guys flirted with anyone that could possibly have something shaped like a vagina between their legs. And I didn’t think Trip counted either. With experience, you learn to smile and shrug off the winks and the flirts. This was exactly what I’d done. What I’d been through in front of a wordless Dex many times. And now he was going to intervene?

Maybe it was a little immature, but I ground my teeth together and attempted not to stomp my way toward his office. I didn’t need to turn around to know that he was following after me. Unfortunately, I’d developed this sixth sense of being too aware of him. I kind of thought it was because of how often we rode on his bike together. Kind of like how some women start menstruating around the same time when they were around each other often. It wouldn’t surprise me if Charles Dexter Locke had been able to throw my hormones out of whack.

If anyone could, it would be him.

Dex who I’d quickly learn to gravitate around. The Dex who woke me up every day. The same one that every morning made our coffee and poured my orange juice while I made breakfast. Dex who sat at night with me, watching Firefly while we folded our laundry on the sofa. Dex Locke who wished me goodnight before we went to bed.

When exactly I’d started looking forward to spending time with him, I had no idea. When I started eating up those little smiles at Pins and those little secrets we shared… I have no idea either. But I had. I'd grown to accept the fact that I had a massive attraction to someone who might not be capable of liking me in return.

At that moment though, I forgot all about that. The Dick had just cockblocked me.

He closed his office door and leaned against it, palms flat on the wood behind him. Dex’s eyes were strangely tight above his flex jawed. He looked mad or annoyed, or maybe a little of both as he stared at me in silence.

“You didn't have to do that.” I told him after a minute, trying to ebb away my own annoyance with him for blocking something I would have done on my own in a classier and less embarrassing way.

He looked at the ceiling, discarding my question. His fingers started tapping on the door. "Do what?" he asked sharply.

"You know what." I rolled my eyes. "You told me to stay here and work for you, and then you're going to threaten my job in front of everyone just because some guy asked me out?"

Dex licked his bottom lip but didn't say anything. His silence was a big, fat yeah that had me stomping right up to him.

"Are you kidding me?" This guy was out of his friggin' mind.

"No, Ritz. I'm not fuckin' kiddin' you."

My head was going to start hurting in like ten seconds. "Dex, I don't see why that's any of your business. You already tell me what to do half the time, and I know you're stuck with me staying at your place until this mess with my dad gets straightened out—but my dating life has nothing to do with you, okay?"

"Yeah, it does, Ritz," he gritted out.

"No, it doesn't, Charlie." I poked him right between his pecs twice.

"Yeah. It. Does."

It suddenly made complete sense to me that he was the youngest child in his family. He must have never been told "no" in his life. At least not often enough. "I'm pretty sure you're in no place to tell me who I can and can't date." I looked him right in the eye. "Charlie." Pushing him was more than likely a terrible idea but I was too far gone to care.

He narrowed those brilliant eyes. "Why's that?"

"Because I'm not a kid." Then, the stupidity just popped right out from my mouth. "And you've probably slept with half a dozen people since I met you, so trust me. You're not in a position to try and give me advice on who I talk to."

His face changed as he leaned into me. "I know you're not a fuckin' kid. And I can tell you who you can and can't talk to." He took a nice long swallow, and I didn't realize until right then that his hands were fisted at his sides. His entire body was tense. "And you can't fuckin' talk to anybody that wants to put their hands down your goddamn pants."

"What?" Oh lord. Oh dear, heavenly lord. "Why are you being like this?”

“‘Cuz. I. Don’t. Fuckin’. Like. It.”

God, grant me strength. “Dex, I don’t mean to sound like a complete bitch but...I don’t care if you don’t like it. He was asking me out on a date, you stubborn idiot. That doesn't mean he's planning on—"

Nostrils flared. “Don’t finish that sentence, baby. I’m about this fuckin’ close to losin’ it.” He reached up to rub his fingertips along the sides of his mouth, shaking his head with a gruff groan.

I curled my lips behind my teeth and lifted both shoulders. “I’m not trying to piss you off. Honestly, I just really don’t understand why you’re being like this with me. I thought you didn’t mind me working for you.”

Something changed in his expression that I couldn’t pinpoint in the seconds before he dropped his hand from his mouth. Dex’s blink was slow and thorough as his jaw ticked. “I thought I had more time...”

He didn't finish his rant because he was suddenly in my face, breathing out of his nose hard, his body taut.

Two big hands cupped my jaw the instant before his mouth with its deep pink, full lips and day old scruff, descended on me in a hard kiss—all ownership and demand.

Ohmigod.

Once. Twice. His grip on my face was unrelenting even as he pulled his mouth back a square inch then kissed me even harder, pressing and molding possessive lips to me. His tongue shoved its velvet, hot length against mine with a need and intent I couldn't comprehend.

Never in my life, even if I happened to kiss a hundred other people after this, would anything feel like Dex’s long, strong fingers cradling my jaw, his teeth nipping my bottom lip.

I shouldn’t have just stood there. I also definitely shouldn’t have opened my mouth for him, or met him halfway with my own tongue but when someone who looks like Dex—tall, strong, not exactly always on the right side of moral issues, and talented with his mouth—kisses you, you don’t say no. I understood at that point why so many women had fallen prey to him but this was so carnal, it didn't feel natural. When someone like Dex makes a noise into your mouth when you slid your tongue against his in a friendly gesture while simultaneously shoving your breasts against his hard chest, you do it again.

Even if you don't really know what you're doing. You just go with it. You move your tongue in a way that only your body understands. You arch your back because that's what feels right in the moment.

You don’t question it. You take advantage of that one moment of insanity that you let yourself live for just a taste of something and someone like Dex The Dick Locke.

He kissed me ruthlessly. His right hand shifted from its spot on my cheek, down my neck before ending up on the opposite shoulder.

And I let him because his lips were firm, his tongue was good and his mouth tasted faintly like the chocolate milk he’d drank earlier and the smoke he had when we'd opened up the shop hours before. The rock solid chest smashed against mine might have also been a reason why I didn’t even think about shifting away.

It wasn’t until his other hand, the one left on my face, started its descent down my neck and grazed over my collarbone, over the side of my breast that I realized what the heck was going on.

Dex The Dick. Dex The Kind Grump was shoving his tongue down my throat. My boss. Dex. Charlie. The guy who signed my paychecks.

I pulled away from him so abruptly, I’m sure it was the only reason why he let me go. He hadn’t been expecting me to back away from him out of the blue like that. It was also because he wasn’t waiting for me to pull away that I had a chance to take in the flushed look on his face, the heavy set of his eyes. And the massive pipe lining his jeans.

God.

I should have just stayed where I was, but then I’d regret it for sure.

"Holy crap," I gasped out.

His mouth was just slightly parted, and he almost looked a little... dazed. "Shit." Dex thrust both hands through the mess of black hair that just barely swept over his forehead. "Shit, Ritz."

And, cue the awful feeling that crept into the pit of my stomach.

I didn't want to hear him say something about how much of a mistake our kiss had been, because while it was true, I just didn't want to hear it from his mouth. I couldn't handle the rejection.

So I did the only thing I thought could save both of our minds at that moment. I backed out of the office and closed the door behind me.

Slim wheeled his chair over to my section the moment I'd planted my butt on my own, curling my lips behind my teeth in hopes that they'd stopped tingling.

I had a feeling they wouldn't, but a girl could dream.

"You look—," he ran his eyes over my face slowly, "weird."

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. If I looked at him dead on, I'd probably turn red or blurt out what had just happened. That was a terrible idea. So I settled for a soft, "Huh."

Slim made a humming noise in his throat, still looking at me a little too closely. "Anything you want to tell me?"

See what I mean? Nosey. Nosey with a capital letter. "Nope."

"Hmm," he hummed again before sitting back in the chair. "We all knew it was going to happen. I'm just kind of surprised it took so long." Slim spun in a circle. "And I'm surprised you don't want to tell me."

"Tell you what?" I asked him carefully. These guys were piranhas for information.

He smiled all slick and casual, spinning in a circle again. "You know what."

"No, I don't, Slim."

He cocked an eyebrow. "Yeah, you do, Ris." That slick smile widened. "He's pissing all over you." He shrugged. "It was about time."

Things went from bad to worse when Blake piped in from behind the divider. "Boy's probably got blue balls by now."

Cue my choke.

“I’m going to poison you both,” I started to threaten them.

Luckily—maybe not so luckily—the door to the shop opened before I could finish the growing list of things I was planning on doing to my friends slash coworkers and a man stepped in. It was Dex's next appointment.

Shit.

He must have been looking at the camera in his office because the office door slammed shut not even three seconds after I greeted the man. The music wasn't on yet, so I could hear Dex's heavy footfalls on the tile. Then, I heard him greet his client and point him in the direction of the bathroom so they could start their session afterward.

I kept my eyes trained on the computer in front of me, trying so friggin' hard not to gulp and bring attention to myself when I was confused beyond belief at what Slim had just said and what happened in the office. I mean, I knew Dex cared about me. But... what the hell was that?

You're an idiot, Iris. Of course I was. The second after I asked myself that, I remembered his face at the lake. His face and his touches in half a dozen other circumstances that I didn't understand completely.

I didn't get a chance to think about it anymore because I saw that black-shirted blur move toward me the moment his customer was out of view. He didn't kneel down like he had the day before when he gave me the community college catalog but instead bent over at the waist, his bottom lip so close I could feel it on my earlobe.

"You and me are gonna have a talk later, Ritz,” he warned.

Chapter Twenty-Five

"I'm really thinking that those douchers won't do anything to me if I stay at your house," I argued with Sonny as I shifted my leg under me on the bumpy couch at Mayhem.

The television was on in the background, and I could hear the sound of an audience laughing even as he sighed. "Not happening, kid."

"It'll be fine." I wasn't above begging. Especially when my lips still tingled from Dex's mouth. Hours later. Pathetic. "I'll lock the doors and everything."

The son of a gun didn't even bother thinking about the suggestion. "No."

"Sonny." I also wasn't above whining a little. I figured it was fine. I'd never whined much as a kid, I could get away with it as an adult.

"Ris, we haven't found him. Do you know what that tells me? That he's in deeper shit than we know. If it was just the Reapers he owed money to, he wouldn't be going through so much trouble to hide from everyone," he explained. He sounded so tired, I immediately felt bad for stressing him out with my stupid begging.

Because he had a point. Why would he be hiding so well? Why had he borrowed so much money to begin with? Plus, there was no reason for me to freak out over the incident at Pins. None.

Dex probably kissed people on a daily basis.

The thought should have been reassuring but all it did was make my stomach hurt—a lot.

I pushed the thought back and tried to focus on Sonny again. "You don't know who?" I asked.

He sighed. "I don't think I want to know. This shit has turned into such a goddamn headache. I'm worried Trip might kill me before we find him."

I wanted to tell him to come back home. That I'd give him the money I had in my account to pay off a small chunk of the debt The Disappointment owed, but I couldn't. I couldn't because the first thing I thought of now every time our dad popped into my head, was what he'd done. The kid he'd had. The way he just plain sucked.

That small part of me that craved blood wanted him to own up to his mess for the first time in his life, so I kept my mouth shut. I only wished that there was something more I could do to find our sperm donor.

"I'm sorry," I told him because it was the only thing I could say that wouldn't bring him down any more.

"It's fine, kid. I'd do this and worse for you," he said in a slightly more upbeat voice. He was probably trying not to give me a guilt trip for being a useless bag of bones. "I met the kid."

Words, language, and the alphabet all melted off my tongue for a split second. "You—did?"

"Yeah. We went back two days ago," Sonny explained.

My little sister. Or little brother. God, I still couldn't fathom having someone else in my life that I could care about the way I felt for Will or Sonny. Not that it would be the same, because even though Sonny and I had grown up in different states, I'd always known him. Always known about him.

And this kid...

"Is it a girl?"

His snicker answered my question. "Nope. He's a little guy."

Another boy. Good gravy.

"Whoa," I breathed out. "Did it go okay?"

"Yeah, but he was confused. I'm old enough to be his dad, you know. His dad is old enough to be his grandpa." The longer Sonny talked, the more pissed off he sounded. "This is so fucked up, Ris. Terry—that's the kid's mom—said he hasn't been by in like two years. Two fucking years, Ris. Can you believe that shit?"

And two years would eventually turn into three. Three into four. Four into five, and before the little boy would know it, it'd be half his life.

Jesus, I was depressing. And negative.

"I think I'd be more surprised if he'd stuck around." A thought nagged at me. "Do you ever want to have kids?"

He let out a sharp laugh. "That's random."

"Well?"

He hummed. "I guess I haven't thought about it. No?" he asked me, the baboon.

"No?"

"Maybe." Sonny paused. "I don't know. I'd be a shitty dad right now, I know that much."

What an idiot. "Son, you'd be as far from a shitty dad as possible."

He made a disapproving noise.

"Shut up. You'd be great, trust me." I had to laugh at a mental picture of him cleaning a diaper. "I think I want a little niece. How about you make it happen?"

"Fuck that," he laughed. "No, Ris. I'll get a dog, but a kid? No way."

"Party pooper."

Sonny laughed again. "Whatever." I could hear Trip talking over the other end of the line. "Are you at Dex's?"

"Nope, I'm at the bar waiting for him."

Ugh. This was even after I expressed to him how much I didn’t want to go to Mayhem after he’d embarrassed me in front of the MC men a few days ago.

There was more of Trip's voice on the other end of the line. "You know why no one's answering the phone then?"

That. The reason why Dex had brought us over to Mayhem instead of going back to his place. "They caught the bartender that's been stealing from the Club," I relayed the information Dex had told me before we'd left Pins.