by Drew Elyse
He immediately shifted Ash into his arms, visibly taking every bit of weight he could without actually lifting her off the ground, and bringing her right over to one of the chairs next to Max and Ham.
“I’m fine,” she insisted as they worked together to get her lowered into a seat.
“Just stay in the chair,” he ordered. “I’ll get you whatever you need.”
She briefly looked like she was going to argue, then the expression melted away. I couldn’t see what was on his face, but I did notice his hand caress her stomach.
“Uncle Daz!” I looked over in time to see the streak of pink that was Emmy barreling into Daz’s legs.
“My little princess,” he greeted as he immediately bent down and started tickling her sides.
Sketch dropped into one of the chairs, muttering, “Every fucking time.”
Ash, noting the confusion I obviously wasn’t hiding, put in, “Emmy is a little enamored with Daz.” She reached out to pat her man’s leg. “Someone doesn’t like not being the center of his daughter’s world.”
“Asshole,” Sketch kept on muttering, sounding every bit like a petulant child who didn’t want to share.
I bit my lip to keep from laughing.
“He fails to see how similar this is to being the mother of a little girl with seven shirts stating ‘Daddy’s Girl’,” Ash said with a roll of her eyes.
Seven? Damn.
“That’s a lot,” I blurted.
“He’d have it on every piece of clothing she owns until she’s thirty if he could,” Ash assured.
“Damn straight,” “Daddy” piped in.
I foresaw some issues when Emmy got into her teen years, though I didn’t mention it. Somehow, I was sure they both already knew.
Cami and Deni came over after checking on their little ones. Deni settled in with Slick and immediately started talking to me, asking about where I lived and where I grew up. Small talk, but not disinterested conversation about the weather. She was making a point, and I got it. The cold shoulder from the introductions in the kitchen was over.
While we talked, I kept half my attention on Daz. Seeing him playing with Emmy was unlike anything I’d gotten from him before. Sure, by now I’d heard enough to know how much he loved his nephew, but this visual was different.
Any thoughts I’d once had that Daz was nothing more than a man out to get laid were blown away. No one could have been like that with kids and not have more substance.
“He’s a really great guy once you get beneath the bullshit,” Ash said, bringing me back to the people around me.
Obviously, I’d slipped from halfway watching to all-out staring.
Damn.
“I’m starting to think that might be true,” I responded.
I let myself get brought back into the conversation, not wanting to fixate on Daz. There was definitely more to him. It was just a matter of seeing how much of that he’d give me.
Not that I was letting myself get sucked in by him.
No.
Not at all.
He came by, grabbing the seat next to me a few minutes later after getting Emmy a juice box from one of the coolers.
“Old Style? Damn. Doc must really like you. Crotchety fucker would take a finger if I took one of his beers.”
“You’ve got that right, asshole,” Doc agreed.
“He knows a good thing when he sees it,” I sassed, bringing the beer to my lips.
Daz looked at me for a long moment that made me pause with the bottle to my mouth, unable to drink.
“He’s a smart man,” he finally said in a low voice.
What did he mean by that?
“Got that right too,” Doc broke the moment, and I was glad.
I had no idea what was happening between us, but it was freaking me out. I turned away from Daz, pretending to listen to whatever the conversation had turned to while I took several big gulps of beer.
It was only a moment before Daz moved farther into my space, his mouth meeting my neck beneath my ear.
“Keep drinking, sugar. Ready to turn the tables and get you in my bed tipsy.”
Now that was the Daz I knew. That was the Daz I could deal with.
Instead of responding, I lifted the bottle again to drain it, his deep chuckle cheering me on.
“Will you teach me to strip?”
That was Max, who was a wee bit tipsy.
“Sure!”
That was me, also a tad tipsy.
Cookouts with the Disciples were great. There was so much food, and it was some of the best barbecue I’d ever had. Then there was the cold beer that never seemed to run out. I’d have a fresh one in my hand before I was polishing off the dregs of the one before. And it wasn’t Daz who was keeping me stocked, at least not always. All the guys kept us ladies topped off with whatever we were drinking, but particularly Dustin, who was still a prospect trying to become a full Disciple. Apparently, that was part of his job.
Even Jager switched out bottles for me at one point when he’d gotten a new round for him and Ember, and I hadn’t even heard the man speak yet.
This seemed to be in part because I was now the one sitting on a man’s lap. Daz had put me there around the time Sketch took Emmy in to get to bed. My sense was that the brothers understood no one wanted to get up and kick their woman off their lap, so they helped each other out.
The Disciples, as a whole, were pretty freaking cool.
I was also coming to understand what Doc had meant earlier about the atmosphere changing as the night wore on. The kids had all been put to bed, something they were apparently set up for in the clubhouse. Now, with them tucked away, the numbers were growing, with men and women alike. Some were greeted by different brothers, breaking up our little fire pit circle. Some seemed to just be there to party.
This, in particular, included a good number of women.
Doing what I did for a living had long since stripped—pun intended—away any sort of judgment over how women dressed. I spent a good amount of my working time with my tits on display. So to say I definitely noticed the way the women who started showing after the sun went down were dressed said something. But it wasn’t really the clothing that did it. It was the way they moved around the yard like they were trying to be on display. Honestly, it was a lot like how I worked the stage at Candy Shop. These women were on the prowl, and their prey were Disciples.
Too bad for them I didn’t think any of the brothers were the type to be hunted.
Sure, they might have taken one of those women—on more than one occasion—to bed, but they weren’t going to hand over one of the vests emblazoned with “Property of” the girls were wearing.
Well, except Quinn. Cami and Ash had been wearing theirs all day. Deni, Ember, and Max had donned ones as the afternoon wore on before the various guests started to arrive. Quinn had explained she wasn’t really into the patch thing. She couldn’t see—though I guessed she knew anyway—Ace was still very clearly not a fan of this, and his face showed it.
Personally, I had to respect her sticking to her guns about it. Quinn was definitely the shy, quiet type. It was good to see her biker husband didn’t just get his way all the time.
Max, who was now in her own chair, turned to Ham, who was in another conversation with Gauge. “Babe, guess what?” she interrupted.
Without delay, he swung around to put his attention on her. “What?”
“Avery’s going to teach me to strip!”
“Toots,” Ham had called her toots all afternoon. I’d never heard it used in real life, but it totally worked for them. “You wanna learn to strip, I’ll install a fuckin’ pole in the bedroom tomorrow.”
I was about to cut in and say I could teach her plenty without having to put in a pole. Just a chair was plenty to work with. Before I could, Max spoke again.
“You said that about the sex swing.”
Quinn sighed, as she seemed to every time Max went outside what most would consider boundaries f
or polite conversation. Even I had to admit that one was a bit of an overshare.
“I told you, you order that shit, and I’ll install it,” Ham argued.
“A sex swing sounds fun,” Ember said more quietly, though not enough to keep the rest of us seated close from hearing her.
Jager looked at her and smiled in a way that was nothing short of predatory. It was equal parts sexy and absolutely terrifying. It also made me wonder—though I wouldn’t ask—what their sex life was like.
“Shared the patch with that motherfucker for years,” Daz whispered in my ear. “Never saw him fuckin’ smile until she came along. And now when it happens, it’s always like he’s going to fuckin’ eat her. Creepy bastard.”
I had to laugh. It was so similar to my own thoughts.
My laughter died when I heard, “Oh man.”
All eyes flew to Ash at those words. I couldn’t see anything amiss about her, but her face was a mix of surprise and worry.
Before I could process it, Ham was on his feet and shouting across the yard to where Sketch was talking to a couple people. “Yo, Sketch. Time has come!”
Instantly, he was bolting our way while everyone started moving. Daz got us to our feet.
Sketch was already leading a slow moving Ash away, and the rest of us were quickly following behind.
Ham kept on shouting to announce, “Party’s over! Everyone out!”
The party was definitely over.
Because it was time for Ash to have a baby.
Six hours later, everyone was feeling the crash of a full day of food and booze. The women, including Avery, who had been buzzing hard when Ash announced she was going into labor, were sober again and heads were drooping.
It’d been nearly two hours at that point since the last time we’d gotten an update, and all that had included was Ash was still fine, but the baby wasn’t quite coming yet.
Not long after we’d all arrived, we’d been moved to a separate room to wait since there were so many of us. All the Disciples were there. Over the first couple hours, more people in Sketch and Ash’s lives trickled in. Jasmine, Ash’s best friend from Portland. Carson, the badass tattoo artist Sketch apprenticed under, and who later gave him the shop to run when he retired. Last, the tattooists from Sailor’s Grave and the receptionist, Jess. The room they’d given us was packed full, but no one was complaining.
The kids were gone—picked up by Gauge’s mom—with the exception of Emmy. She was asleep across the two chairs next to me, a pillow one of the nurses gave us for her propped up against my leg. A few times throughout Ash’s pregnancy, Emmy had expressed her concerns over not being the only child anymore. Still, she’d thrown a little girl shit fit when Sketch had been out here trying to get her to go with the other kids.
“I have to be here when my brother or sister gets her, Daddy,” she’d snapped, tiny hands on little hips.
Sketch knew a losing battle with his girl when he saw it, so he’d given up and focused on getting back into the delivery room.
Avery shifting next to me brought my attention to her. “Maybe I should go. Clear up a spot for someone else.” A couple of the brothers had long since resigned to spots on the floor against one wall since there weren’t enough seats for everyone.
She’d voiced concerns over coming in the first place, saying she’d just met everyone and it wasn’t really her place.
“Sugar, addressed that shit earlier,” I reminded her. “Are you with me? Giving this a shot?”
“Yes,” she admitted straight out.
I fucking liked that. We’d done our run-around bullshit, but now that we were both committing to this, there were no games.
“Then you belong here. Being with a man means being at his back, and being at his family’s back. You did that with Owen. Helped me give Kate a break, and made my nephew think the fuckin’ sun rose and set with you. Now, I’m asking you to do it again.
“Fuckin’ sucks I can’t do the same for you, but this plays out where you and I create something that lasts, these folks will be your family, same as me. The process starts today. You shared something good with them earlier, and now, God fucking willing, we’ll be sharing something even better. Yeah?”
I knew she was with me before she gave me any response. It was there in her hazel eyes. Hope. Yearning. We’d talked more about her gran since that night with Owen. It was obvious she still held the pain of that loss close, because letting go at all would have been losing the only bit of family she had left.
“Yeah,” she agreed.
It was another hour before Sketch came barreling into the room. The sound woke Emmy as the air of excitement stole over the room. He didn’t say a thing until he marched our way and picked up his firstborn.
“You have a little sister,” he said to her, and a round of cheers ripped from us all.
Sketch was smiling fucking huge, looking like a man who had the whole damn world in his hands.
“Well, what’s her name?” Deni demanded.
“Evangeline Grace Davies.”
And that was the last fucking thing he gave us before he strode out with Emmy, uniting his whole family for the first time. Not one of us gave a damn about the brush off.
We were just glad Evangeline was here.
It was light out when we got back to Avery’s place. Hopefully, Kate would be fine because I needed to crash. I was just good enough to ride. Any more tired, and I wouldn’t have let Avery get on the bike with me.
Fuck, if she were any more tired, I wouldn’t have let her either. She was dragging.
Which was why she didn’t notice the guy standing at her front door when we pulled up, but I did.
I also knew the moment she did notice him, which wasn’t until after she got off the bike, because she froze.
Some dude I did not know standing on my girl’s step made me on alert by default. Her reaction put me in full-out protective mode. Whoever this was, he wasn’t welcome, which meant he wasn’t staying.
Starting up the drive, intending to get there well ahead of her to deal with whatever this shit was, I took him in. Decent sized guy, though not as big as me. I couldn’t say serving a nickel was fun, but the yard time sculpted muscle came in handy. He was donning a dress shirt and khakis, but it was obvious it wasn’t the shit he normally wore. He was stiff, and the shit didn’t fit right. He was dressed up, trying to impress.
Yeah, the fucker wasn't getting near Avery.
“Daz,” she called after me, her hurried steps sounding behind me.
“I’ve got this,” I told her.
I felt her hand on my arm as she insisted, “Don’t.”
“You want him here?”
She was hesitant, but gave me the truth. “No. I never wanted to see him again. He knows that.”
Whirling around, I got close and looked down at her. “He the guy behind the flowers?”
She sighed deep. “It would seem so.”
“You think it was him when we talked about that shit before?”
I was going to chalk up the way she catapulted right into pissed off to lack of sleep. “You mean when you were screaming like a crazy asshole?”
“Avery,” I wasn’t sure whether I was trying to calm her ass down, or warn her she was pushing the wrong button.
“Yes,” she snapped. “I could guess. Aaron is an asshole. With the flowers starting and Roy saying the calls had stopped after I picked up, it was a pretty likely scenario.”
The blood in my veins turned to ice.
It took Avery a second to realize her mistake. She might not have known until Roy said that, but that shit had happened a week and one seriously fucking heated fight about the same motherfucker ago. Yet, this was the first I was hearing about who might have been behind all that shit.
“Daz,” she whispered, her eyes wide with a hint of fear it didn’t take a fucking genius to figure out was a reaction to the vibe I was now giving off.
I didn’t say a damn thing. Whoever this motherfuc
ker was, he’d already been borderline stalking her. Trying to get her on the line at work, sending shit to her house. No. Not my woman. This shit was ending now.
I was on him before the chicken shit understood what he was dealing with. The pussy backed away when I got close, until his back hit the door. How the fuck had Avery ever been with some pansy shit like that? She’d wipe the fucking floor with him.
“You are about to walk the fuck away and never come back.”
That was when the dick decided he wanted to grow a pair. Getting back to standing straight, he even puffed out his chest. “I’m here to talk to Avery.”
“Get me, man. That is not going to fucking happen,” I told him, enjoying watching that bravado break. He could posture all he wanted. We both knew I could take his ass down without breaking a sweat. “You aren’t going to call her fuckin’ work, leave her flowers, show up at her fuckin’ place at the crack of dawn. None. Of. It. You’re going to take your ass back to whatever goddamn hole you crawled out of and leave her the fuck alone.”
The bastard had the balls to look over my shoulder to where I assumed Avery was standing. “Honey—”
Fuck. No.
I shoved him back into the door to make sure I had his full attention. “Listen to me asswipe. Avery no longer exists for you. You get that right the fuck now. This shit persists, you show your face in her life again, you answer to me. Fair warning, motherfucker, last guy who fucked with me landed his ass in a coma. I served five for it, and I’ll do it again if I have to.”
Color me anything but shocked when the spineless prick said a trembling, “I’ll go.”
“Avery,” I said over my shoulder. “Over here. My left.”
I swore, if she gave me sass right then about the order…
She didn’t. She moved swiftly and came to my left at my back. Rotating so I stayed between her and the asshole’s path down the driveway, I held out an arm that told him exactly what his next move was.
I really, truly, thought we were done. Then, as he got in his beat to shit Kia, he called out, “You know what I want, Avery.”
I started his way. I’d fucking show him what he was going to get. But Avery wrapped herself around my arm, halting me just enough to give him the opportunity to scramble into his car and take off.
