Текст книги "Under Locke"

Автор книги: Mariana Zapata

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

I made sure he was okay, and then changed the subject. The problem was, he was still acting weird. Something was bothering him and it was nipping at him, over and over again. He still smiled but it was shadowed and guarded.

I finally had it though. Only one of us could be a moody shit, and that would be me.

"What's wrong?" I asked him again when he didn't answer.

Those hazel-brown eyes slid over to me, a small smile lifting up one corner of his mouth but it didn't do anything. My beloved half-brother was missing. "I'm fine, kid."

"Bull."

He cracked a little smile. "My innocent little Ris."

Innocent, maybe a little. But really, he knew as well as I did, that I just wasn't used to cussing. At least on his level, much less the rest of his friends’.

"Just tell me what happened," I insisted.

Sonny looked at me for a long moment, blowing air out of his mouth before letting his head drop back dramatically onto the couch. "Can we talk about it later?"

I poked him in the thigh. "I'd rather not."

He sighed again, still looking up at the ceiling.

His silence was killing me. The longer he went with hesitating to tell me, the worse it made me feel.

"Please?"

Sonny grunted. "Our sperm donor came by."

And... that was absolutely not what I was expecting to hear.

"Are you joking?" Of course he was serious, but I was an idiot and what he'd said seemed so ridiculous he wouldn't be making it up.

He kept his eyes trained on the ceiling. "Nope," was his brilliant, detailed response.

"Why?"

I don't know why I asked. What I was expecting. There couldn't be anything for me to expect. He'd known where yia-yia, Will, and I had lived for those years after Mom died. He'd always known where Sonny lived. And in almost ten years, neither one of us had seen him. Now all of a sudden—

"Money, kid." I looked up to see him scrub a hand down his face. "He drove all the way over here to ask for fucking money."

"Did you give it to him?" I asked the question slowly.

"Kid."

Maybe it was wrong of me to hope that Sonny hadn't because he was my dad after all, but I couldn't find it in me to be mature about it. "Son."

He tilted his head down, his lips drooped into a scowl. "Fuck no," he confirmed. "I know he asked Luther after I shot him down though."

"And he said yes?"

Sonny shrugged. "I don't know."

I narrowed my eyes at his face, taking in the cut that split this upper lip. "Oh.”

"Kid, I don't support a man that can't support himself. It's embarrassing that he crawls back here to mooch off other people—," I winced because hello. Hadn't I just done the same thing? Come crawling to my half-brother? I felt like a schmuck. Sonny must have read it on my face because he rolled his eyes. "Your situation is completely fucking different. Don't give me that face. You're not mooching off me. You got a job you don't like. You're trying to get yourself together and I've already offered to give you money. You didn't take it, Ris. You're not like that piece of shit in any way, you hear me?"

Crap, I loved this guy.

"I don't want anything to do with him," he stated with so much conviction in his tone.

I didn't either but apparently my brain wasn't working properly because I asked something I shouldn't have. "Did he ask about us?"

Sonny gave me a look I hadn't seen since I was nineteen and been told I needed to have another biopsy. It was filled with a dreadful kind of remorse.

And it projected the answer like a beacon in the sky.

Chapter Ten

“How long you been here now?”

I looked up to see my redheaded buddy, Slim, plopping onto the couch across from me. It was Tuesday, almost a month since I started at Pins and Needles and to be honest, it’d gone by really quickly and mostly painlessly.

I’d fallen into a comfortable routine. During the day, I'd hang out at Sonny's house, cleaning and cooking when I wasn't going to the rare job interview—the one and only one had taken place the week before but I hadn't heard back from them—and applying for places online. Occasionally, I'd let myself think about Dad coming into town to ask Sonny for money but it was rare. The man didn't deserve my annoyance. At night, I’d go home and half of the time Sonny would be up and we’d talk or watch television until he went to bed.

How he made it to work at nine in the morning was beyond me, but I didn’t ask.

The other half of the time, he was gone and I’d go to bed before he showed up again. In the days after he told me about our sperm donor coming into town, his mood had gradually improved so I didn’t ask where he went unless he told me. More often than not, he didn’t. But when Sonny was around, I always had a smile on my face though he was still acting a little strange since his unexpected visit. He was just like Will, whom I hadn’t heard back from yet either, but I didn’t let myself focus on that. I’d sent him weekly emails consisting of a short updates that confirmed I was alive, still with Sonny, still working at the tattoo parlor, and that I had a library card.  No surprise there.

The mirror to my Sonny was Dex, who’d been in and out of the shop for days. Half the time, something was eating his butt cheek and he’d go into the shop and head directly into the office, leaving me to have to sneak in randomly to get my work done. On the occasion that he was in a good mood, he’d smiled at me exactly three times—and God, it was a smile—and once he touched my hand when he walked by.

Not that I was counting or anything.

My days off were spent driving around Austin. I visited the Capitol, walked down Sixth Street during the day, which completely turned me off almost immediately when some douche bag started following me around. Sonny took me to a swimming hole one Sunday. We visited Trip's apartment another day. We went to the movies together a few times. After my second paycheck, I signed up for the closest YMCA to the house—because I’d seen quite a bit of apartments close to Sonny for when I moved in the hopefully near future—and started spending a quarter of each day swimming and exercising there.

It was good. I was happy with my quiet, little life.

Including when I found myself back at Pins, with Slim asking me how long I’d been working with him.

“A month.”

He sounded out the words slowly. “I think you’ve been here long enough.”

This was suspicious. “For what?”

Slim grinned. “To break in that canvas, Iris.”

I'd thought about getting a tattoo nearly every day but I still hadn't talked myself into it. "But I don’t want to get one unless I’m sure I like what I’m getting.”

“Then get a piercing on the house. Me or Blue can do it.”

“Iris, you getting a tattoo?” Blake called out from his spot at his station, hunched over a customer's bare back.

I shot Slim a funny look. “No, but Slim’s trying to talk me into getting a piercing.”

“Do it,” he egged on.

A piercing. A piercing? Hmm. I could live with a piercing. It wasn’t permanent, and after seeing how many women and men came in to get various parts of their body pierced, it couldn’t have been that bad. Plus I couldn’t say I hadn’t gotten a little envious when I’d seen someone walk out feeling like a million bucks after spending time in the torture chamber. What was the worst that could happen? I'd take it out if I hated it?

Plus, needles and I were old friends. Not necessarily best friends, but I wasn't afraid of getting poked and prodded.

My facial expression must have given away my thoughts because the redhead started nodding. “C'mon,” Slim pressured.

“But where?” I looked down at my hands like there would be some magical map leading me to the best spot on my body to get violated with by a needle.

“Nose!” Blake called out. How the hell he still clearly heard our conversation from all the way over at his station with Mastodon playing was beyond me.

I shook my head, imagining myself with a nose piercing. While there was nothing wrong with it—there was nothing special or messed up with my nose—I couldn’t see myself with one. “Nah.”

“Your eyebrow?” Slim suggested.

I thought about it. “No. I’m not cool enough to pull it off. Or tough.” Just yesterday, I screamed when a flying roach made its way into the parlor.

The two guys, and possibly even the customer, laughed.

“Get your tongue pierced,” Blake threw out.

No. Hell no.

When I was seventeen, my best friend at the time snuck off and got his tongue pierced behind his parents’ backs. A week later, he had a knot the size of a golf ball in his mouth, and ended up unable to eat solid food for months. That thing was traumatizing, and I liked food too much to risk it.

“No. I like to eat, and that’ll make guys think I like to give hugs with my mouth, you know what I mean?” I stated, matter-of-factly.

“What the fuck?” someone asked from behind me. That someone specifically being Dex.

Kill me. Kill me now.

My face flamed up like a tomato when I turned around to see him smirking, holding a bottle of chocolate Nesquik in his hand. “Uhh… I meant—“

Dex burst out laughing. His head was tipped back and he was laughing his ass off, this deep, throaty sound that made me smile even though I felt like an idiot for what I’d said.

“I’m gonna have to use that one day,” Slim grinned, shaking his head. “Hey girl, wanna give me a hug with that sweet mouth?”

I groaned through my smirk. “Please don’t.”

Dex, who couldn't contain his laughter, focused in on me. “What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

Slim hooked a thumb in my direction. “We’re trying to talk Iris into getting a piercing as her rite of passage to Pins.”

Well shit. Before there was medical insurance, there was a piercing.

Dex looked over, sized me from the waist up since I was sitting down, and hummed.

“What about your—,” Blake started before Dex shot him a pointed look.

“Not happenin', bro.”

Whatever he was going to say I had a feeling wouldn’t be something I really wanted to know about, so I didn’t bother asking him to finish his sentence.

Dex focused in on me again, blue eyes bright against the tan skin of his face. “Belly button, babe.”

My belly button.

It wasn’t on my face. No one would see it unless I showed it to them, and if I took it out, the scarring would be so small no one would notice it.

But still. “Does it hurt?”

Dex seriously bit his lip but it was pointless. His mouth started curling upward in amusement. “I don’t think any of us would know from personal experience.”

I made a face. Smart ass again. “I’d hope not.”

“Every girl I’ve ever pierced hasn’t complained too much, Iris. I think your cartilage was more painful,” Slim explained. “Now if you were getting your nipple,” he bugged his eyes out, “Or something like your hood pierced, then I’d probably tell you not to do it until you did something easier first.”

“Uhh...where exactly does a hood piercing go?” I asked slowly, feeling naïve as I clenched my thighs together in perceived fear. I’d seen pictures of some non-traditional piercings and read things in novels that made me debate whether to grin or blush, but… I thought that was pretty rare.

His lazy grin was my answer. “Let's look it up,” he suggested.

I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have been curious enough to look, but I did. Slim leaned over the computer, quickly typing in a search that brought up page after page of different types of piercings.

The first few pictures were pretty PG. A single eyebrow, double eyebrow like Blake's, nose, tongue, labret, snake bites, the septum, nose bridge! The more Slim clicked through, the more I started to wonder whether I should be looking or running. There were nipple piercings on men and women, and then I saw the vagina.

A hood piercing. A vertical one, horizontal one, a deep one...I shuddered and like an idiot, put my finger over Slim’s to go to the next page.

Penis!

A dick popped out at me from the screen. A hard dick with a piercing that curled from the urethra through the head.

“Holy shit,” I whispered, looking at the damn picture longer than I should have, crossing the line between appreciation and staring.

But it wasn’t over. I glanced at the picture right below it and saw rows of penises.

I gulped.

A long, incredibly thick one with a piercing straight through the head. Top to bottom. In print on the lower half it had “Apadravya” labeling it. One penis after another popped up on the screen. Pictures with words like frenum, dydoe, lorum, and pubic slapped me in the face—visually, not physically. Unfortunately, I would say since they were all impressive...could an erection be pretty?

Not that I had much experience to go off of but whatever.

My thighs clenched together, and I’m sure my eyes were nearly the size of the sun. I started huffing, a sign that I was going to regret the nervous words that were going to spill out of me. Words that cemented I was lonely in not just an emotional sense. “Do those help the man or the woman?"

“What do you think?” Dex asked a little too quickly.

I stuttered, entranced with the image on the screen. I should have been grateful I didn't reach up to stroke the screen, that would have been horrible. Not that staring was any better.

“Dex has one,” Slim spit out in a laugh.

My gaze stayed forward. “Pardon?” I coughed.

Slim shook his head, grinning wide. “Dex? Am I lying?”

My focus slid over to the man in question. The man in question who had his eyes locked on me, bleeding me out with the focus of his gaze. And it was with that same confidence, that complete concentration that he shook his head slow, slow, slowly. Grinning just like a man with no shame at all. “You ain’t lyin’.”

A volcano erupted on my face with his answer. I opened my mouth, unable to say anything. Whaaaat? So I did the only thing that could remotely save my honor.

I face-planted the desk.

And then started mumbling, “Way too much information.” They might have been laughing but I was too humiliated by the fact that I’d been ogling a stranger’s penis—and requesting one just like it from Santa—when the man behind me had what I was sitting there admiring. And the man behind me being Dex. If it would have been Blake, I might have grimaced but…

“C’mon, Iris, it’s cool,” Slim chuckled, gesturing toward the screen. “You'd be surprised how many guys get them."

He was full of shit and I knew it.

I didn’t bother looking up and settled for closing my eyes, but all I could do then was imagine that big, pierced cock on Dex’s body. Holy moly.

“I can't—I mean—that looks really painful.” I mumbled against the table in a strained whisper that sounded almost like a whine.

No one denied the fact that getting your genitals pierced was painful. Screw that.

"I hope they're worth it."

“You wanna find out?” Dex teased.

What in the hell?

Everything below my neck flushed at his question, but I steered away from it. There was no denying the hint of flirtation in his tone. Then again, I hadn't seen him with any other women since that morning at the auto shop. Though I doubted he was suffering from deprivation, you never know. Maybe he was.

But probably not.

“Babe, go choose a belly button ring,” Dex murmured at the same time fingertips brushed across the back of my neck.

Glancing back at the screen, my belly fluttered.

Friggin' hell, those pictures were going to be burned into the back of my eyelids forever. If I ever got desperate for Spank Bank material, penis piercings were the thing to search for.

“Come on, I hid some of the cool rings we got in the last shipment,” Slim urged.

I sighed, focusing on the gangly redhead instead of the beast on the computer screen. The picture with the monstrous thing. Gah! I needed to pull it together.

~ * ~ *

“If my belly button gets infected or the piercing is crooked, I'm going to give all your appointments to Blue from now on,” I failed epically at joking from the chair in one of the private rooms.

Slim had showed me some of the new navel rings they’d gotten right before I was hired. I settled on a white gold piece—my ears swelled up if I put anything in them that wasn’t gold or hypoallergenic—with a pretty, round, green crystal. To be honest, I was pretty excited to do it since I loved the jewelry.

“You’ll be fine,” he assured me, pulling out the sterilized equipment he’d need from the autoclave. A particularly large and thicker than normal needle made its way into his grip. Slim caught my eyes and grinned. "Needles freak you out?"

I snorted. Yeah right. "Not at all."

"Good."

He had already talked me through the procedure and all he needed to do by that point was wipe some orange stuff followed by marking two places where the needle needed to go through.

“Let's just get it over with. I'm getting anxious,” I groaned, leaning back so that I was face-up on the chair, rolling my head to the side where the door was to find Dex standing just outside of it, looking in.

“I’ll do it, Slim,” he said, taking a step forward.

Slim shrugged without bothering to turn around and look at our boss. “Go for it. Everything’s ready.”

I thought it was weird that Dex offered to do it for me because I hadn’t seen him do any piercings in the time I’d been there. "I don't mean to be rude, but do you know what you're doing?"

He turned to look at me over his shoulder and simply scowled. Slim snickered.

All right then.

There was the snapping and popping of gloves being put on, and the next thing I knew, Dex was rolling my shirt up over my chest. The fingers on one of his hands rested directly over my navel for a second before he swiped me with a cool towelette that stained my skin a dark orange.

He worked silently, making thoughtful faces as he leaned over with a marker in his hand dotting two spots. One directly on my belly and one out of view.  He pulled a mirror off the counter to show me what he’d marked.

“Symmetrical, yeah?” he asked me like I could really tell if it was even or not when his big body loomed over mine with the apadravya piercing still so fresh in my mind.

My nod was slow. “Yeah.”

He flashed me a little grin, another rarity, before murmuring as he used surgical-type clamps to pinch together the skin, “I’m gonna to tell you when to hold your breath, and when to let it out, all right? It’s just a pinch.”

The transfer from needle to jewelry was so quick, if it wasn’t for the awkward burning sensation that happened after he pushed the needle through me and transferred the jewelry, I wouldn’t have winced or anything.

Dex took a step back, admiring his work with a watchful eye. “Perfect.”

I sat up on my elbows and looked down at my new piercing. It was pretty awesome. “Nice,” I whispered, sitting up completely. I touched the top of it gingerly with my index finger before pulling my shirt down and over it with a grin. “Thanks, guys.”

Slim nodded, his eyes focused in on Dex. "Dude, when was the last time you did a piercing? I can't remember."

~ * ~ *

“I need a drink.” Dex announced, setting the alarm at Pins. It wasn't even midnight but the shop was dead and we all agreed it was pointless to stay open. “I’m buyin'.”

Blake let out a howl of approval that was a perfect companion for Slim’s whistle.

The loud beeping drowned out the slight murmur of whatever Blue said but based on the nod she was sharing, I figured she was excited about free drinks too. It wasn’t until we were outside and I was trying to inch my way toward my car when Dex turned to look at me.

“You comin’?”

I hesitated.

“You’re comin’,” he said it as a statement instead of a question that time.

I blinked at him standing there with his arms at his sides. “I don’t really drink.” The same way I didn't eat fried foods, white bread, or meat. Plenty of people didn’t like alcohol. But plenty of people also liked to tease me about being a goody two shoes when that wasn’t the case at all.

"You don’t really drink?” He repeated it just like I had when he'd asked me about my visit to the library.

I shook my head.

“No beer?”

“I drank half of one a few weeks ago," I offered.

“Cute girly drink?”

I smiled but shook my head. “Hardly ever.”

Dex’s lips quirked up at the corners again. “Straight vodka, babe?”

I snorted. “The day you get your belly button pierced.”

And I waited. I waited for one of them to say some sort of smartass comment like the majority of people did when I told them. Most people made it seem like there was something wrong with me for not liking the taste of alcohol or beer and especially disliking the one and only time I got drunk. Going into an explanation why I didn't drink was unnecessary.

But none of them laughed. None of them did more than look mildly amused.

Dex finally smiled, gesturing toward his bike with a tilt of his head. “I’ll get you a root beer then.”

Well that wasn’t at all what I expected.

~ * ~ *

There were a lot of things that bothered me about Dex. He was moody, bossy, and overbearing. He could be thoughtless—though to be fair it had only been our initial meeting that demonstrated this. And he was hot.

Not just attractive.

For all of the things about him I disliked that he could fix with a different attitude, the man breathed in oxygen and breathed out sexual masculinity at its finest when he was being a dick and even more when he wasn’t. It was everything from the way he walked, to the way he clipped his words, ignored his messy hair, and wore the ink on his skin, that screamed at that primal part deep in me.

So it didn’t help that all those things that irritated the shit out of me on a regular basis were displaced and replaced the minute we stepped into the bar.

Charles Dexter Locke—I'd found out his full name after spotting a bill with it on there and got a good snort—was easygoing then. Smooth, bossy even toward people he didn’t employ, but he did it in a way that didn’t scream needy or annoying, but rather confidence. The moment we’d sat down at a booth, a waitress was literally right there with a tray of beers on hand. Dex had cut her a quick glance, said the words, “Root beer for the girl, please,” and when the bottled drink was set in front of me, another slice of eyes to the waitress at Mayhem with a low, “Thanks, Rach,” and I swear to God the poor lady swooned.

The look in her eyes was almost comical. Keyword: almost.

I didn’t know how to react around this talkative, casual man who laughed at a story Blake had about his son getting detention in school for cussing.

And his friggin’ laugh.

Damn it. Damn. It.

I had to force myself to remember that this was the man who had made me almost cry. The man who had called me a bitch and called me an idiot behind my back. The same man who had made me think about leaving the only place I really had left.

But he’d apologized. Genuinely apologized and seemed like he regretted what had happened. Whether it was because he was really guilty or if he'd been bullied into it, it didn't matter. Ever since our little show down in the parking lot, he’d been distant, cordial, and concerned in a mix. Though I got to know the rest of the guys, Dex was still a volatile enigma.

As hot and smooth and relaxed as he was being, that wasn’t the usual guy that I knew. But then again, what did I know about running my own business and having to balance work and personal relationships with employees? Absolutely nothing besides the fact that Sonny, who I trusted and loved, somehow managed to be friends with him. That had to count for something.

“Iris,” Blake called out from across the booth we were in.

I tilted my head up at him, smiling. We’d only been there about thirty minutes and I’d been awfully quiet, more so than normal, soaking in their familiar conversations. “Yes?”

He smoothed a hand over his bare head, holding his beer close to his mouth with the other. “You old enough to drink?”

My mouth flattened. "Yes."

“When did you turn twenty-one? This year?"

I rolled my eyes at him. “Three years ago. I'm twenty-four going on fifty.”

Blake made a face. "You're a damn baby."

"Maybe compared to your old butt." I laughed. Just last week he'd turned thirty-six. No one had bought him a cake or anything, but he'd mentioned it to me in passing. Obligation had me going to the deli next door to buy him a cookie in celebration.

"Where'd you live at before?”

It was Dex who'd asked the question. Dex who suddenly looked very intent across the table, an unlit cigarette nestled between his fingers mindlessly. And Dex who hadn't paid any attention to the paperwork I'd filled out when he'd given me the job. Of course.

“Fort Lauderdale.”

“And you drove all the way over here by yourself?” he asked in that low drawl.

Oh God. “Yes.”

“Babe, that’s fuckin’ stupid. Why?”

I thought for a moment about giving them some vague reason, but what was the point? "I couldn't find another job after I got laid off and my lease had ended."

“Your other family?” Dex asked, leaning forward in his seat as he planted his elbows on the table.

My non-WMC family, he meant. I guess. A certain part of me wasn’t surprised he didn’t know the answer though he was friends with Sonny.

“My little brother’s in the Army. He's stationed in Japan.”

My boss did that slow blink again, those eyes sucking me forward like a vortex. He looked from one side to the other, as if he was thinking about whether or not to ask the next question. “Your ma?”

The iceberg that lived permanently in my chest moved an inch. Shouldn't he know that by now? There were times when I went to Mayhem with Sonny that made me feel like everyone in the club knew all of my history. Then again, why would Dex care enough to wonder and ask? Or heck, even listen if someone mentioned it. Half the time he was wrapped up in his own lonesome world.

My voice was lower than usual, tender tissue paper in a wind storm. "She passed away a few years ago."

Slim, who had talked to me and asked me things, didn’t know that specifically, so I wasn’t surprised when he reached over and patted my hand. “Sorry, Iris.”

Dex did this gradual nod in agreement. There was something about his face that looked stricken. Maybe I was imagining it though. “Sorry to hear about your ma, babe.”

I did what I always did when someone found out about her, I shrugged. Not that I told very many people because I didn’t. Over the years, I’d only met a handful that I had any reason to share that information with. Most never asked because so many people took their families for granted, but these guys had. “It happened a while ago but thank you.”

The silence that followed was a little too thick. A little too long. It made me a little too uncomfortable.

“So…” I forced a smile onto my face. “Who really spilled the mayonnaise in Seattle?”

~ * ~ *

“I did not!”

Slim had his forehead to the table. “Yeah, yeah, you did.”

“You’re such a liar.”

Dex was sitting directly across from me and on his fourth or fifth beer, I’d lost count after the awkward second one, and he was laughing. Laughing from deep within his chest, the richness of it vibrating from every pore in a way that had me swinging my eyes to him each chance I got. This Dex, the one who had been joking around with our group, messing with the guys was just… a completely different person from the one I’d seen at Pins night after night.

The good mood in the booth was so contagious, I couldn't find it in me to be the quiet vibe kill. They'd pulled me out of the normally reserved nature I had around them, and had me relaxed. I felt like normal Iris—the Iris I was around Sonny, Will, and Lanie—for once while in Pins' shadowy hands.

“You were, Ritz,” he agreed with Slim. “I thought you were gonna pass out.”

I guffawed, tossing back the Shirley Temple he’d ordered for me on the waitress’ last trip. “My face turned red, but I didn’t friggin’ gasp when I saw it.” We were referring to the penis piercing incident earlier. The incident that pulled us through the last topic the guys had been laughing at: the customers who cried or screamed when they got something pierced.

Blake shook his head in denial. “No, ma’am. Your face went red right after you gasped. I thought for sure you were gonna faint."

“Whatever,” I scowled at all of them except Blue who was sitting back smiling. “I don’t even understand why the hell you guys would show me that. You did it on purpose to embarrass me.”

None of them denied it, confirming that I was right.

“My virgin eyes are scarred for life," I added. Why? Because I was a moron.

Also because I was an idiot, I glanced over in Dex's direction immediately after the words came out of my mouth.

"You serious?" And of course, he would say something now of all times.

I flashed a grin. "Just joking." Liar, liar, pants on fire. God, Austin was ruining me.

He raised a thick, black eyebrow but the look in his eyes made me feel like he could smell my lies a mile away.

"You're blushing," Blake chuckled.  "Blue, why don't you ever blush?"

Blue, who was sitting on the same seat as me, shrugged.

"Either way, your face turned red when you saw the cock on the screen," Slim reminded everyone of the conversation we'd been having just moments before.

I grunted and waved him off. “No offense, but you three kind of suck,” I said but I said it with a smile. “Just a wee bit.”

Dex looked at Blake over his shoulder, one side of his mouth curled up. “She says no offense before she says we suck, can you believe that?”

I rolled my eyes at them. “I have manners.”

Slim patted my hand like he had when I’d told them about my parents. “That you do.”

The sound of a cell phone ringing faintly over the music in the pub had each of us fishing to look at our phones. It was Blake who pulled his up to his ear, frowning at the screen. It was close to two in the morning already and the bartender had already announced last call, so I couldn’t blame him for looking confused when his phone rang unexpectedly. A second later he was pushing Blue out of the booth and stepping outside.

“I think it’s his baby mama,” Slim suggested in a hushed tone.

The mood shifted in those moments that Blake was gone. None of us said anything until he came back in, looking somber and flustered. He stopped at the end of the table, jaw tight. “I need to get going. Seth is in the emergency room. He’s been running a high fever that his mom hasn’t been able to keep down,” he explained quickly, already taking a step back.