Under Locke (45 page)

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 friend
s
slash coworker
s
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 shoul
d ha
ve 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 w
ould
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?"
h
e 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.

Sonny huffed on the other end of the receiver, repeating what I said to his friend. "Who did it?"

"I think I heard them call him Rocco before they took him upstairs."

Before I’d stood there incapacitated, wondering what in the ever-loving world was going on with my boss.

Dex had calmly looked over at me then, with the thief just a few feet behind him. He’d swept a hand over my hair and, in a voice much louder than he normally used, murmured, “Baby, wait for me upstairs, will you?” And then he ran his hand over my hair again.

I—I just stood there. Shocked, stunned, flabbergasted, whatever. All of those things. Because...I mean, he’d
asked
. And he’d been affectionate in front of the other Widows, who were looking like they’d just discovered the wheel.

By the time I’d absorbed those ten seconds of my life, Dex had disappeared upstairs along with the poor moron that had stolen from the club.
The guy hadn't even batted an eyelash when Dex, Luther, and four of the bikers in the bar escorted him
to the offices
.

I really didn't think that they'd kill him or beat the crap out of him, but maybe I was being naive. As long as no one started screaming from the office, then it was probably fine, right?

"It would be fucking Rocco," Sonny noted. "Look, I'm gonna get going. We want to make it to Sacramento early tomorrow. Call me if you need anything, okay?"

"Okay."

Trip said something on the other end that made Sonny laugh again. "Trip says hi."

"Tell him I said hi back." I sighed. "Love you, Son."

It was impossible not to miss the smile in his voice. "Love you too, kid."

Oh boy. That conversation hadn't exactly gone the way I'd expected it to. Now that I thought about it, the last two conversations I'd had with Sonny had been disturbing. We should probably stick to text messaging from now on.

I wonder if I could get by communicating with Dex by only texting too?

Ugh
, I was such a coward.

My half-assed attempt at going back to Sonny's had been th
e
least hearted thing ever. What it came down to was, did I like staying with
The Dick
? Yes. Did I like him? That was the problem. I liked him too much. He was a member of the Widowmakers, kind of a half-assed one, but a member nonetheless. I was just me. Tattoo-less. Homeless. Poor. Untalented.

Yeah. I was definitely throwing myself a pity party.
Yia-yia
would be rolling in her grave if she knew.

When was the last time I'd felt so little for myself? I'd always been tattoo-less, homeless, poor and untalented, so why did it matter all of a sudden? I was alive and healthy, and most of the time that was all I wanted. Genuinely, it was all I needed. Yet here I was, giving myself pathetic reasons why I should stay away from Dex.

An ex-felon with a temper that owned his own shop. Talented, employed, a homeowner and tatted. My antithesis.

But he was kind, thoughtful and caring when he wanted to be. And he'd never let me down, if you didn't count the night he left me alone at his house, which I wasn't.

I could hear my mom saying, "You could do much worse, Ris."

What was the worst that would happen?

I'd end up like my mom.