"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 f**ked up, Ris. Terry—that's the kid's mom—said he hasn't been by in like two years. Two f**king 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.

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 f**king 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 the 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.

Shit.

The stomping of boots on the stairs yanked me out of my thoughts. There were low murmurs accompanying what seemed like a hoard of men clomping their way downstairs.

When a certain black-haired man didn't appear in the doorway, I heaved a sigh and got up, making my way up the stairs in hopes that I'd find Dex there instead of down in the bar. It wasn't like I wanted to have a face-to-face, but I wanted to go to his house. As soon as I cleared the landing, the scent of cigarette drifted through the doorway. He was standing off to the side in the room, his back against the corner of the wall. A faint orange ember dotted a circle right between his fingers.

Dex's face was down as he pulled at the cigarette, a cloud of smoke distorted his face before a breeze carried it away.

"Hey," I called out to him, making my way toward the chairs across from the desk he'd sat at when I'd gotten my butthole ripped for disappearing.

His eyes flicked up, keeping his chin tucked. "Lemme finish this and we can go."

I nodded and plopped my butt onto the couch furthest away from the window he was at, failing at biting back a scowl at the smell he was putting off. He sucked in another breath before blowing it out slowly, narrowing his eyes.