He looks up and scrunches his eyebrows. “I don’t want to kiss it. Take it away,” Marcus says to her.
Annabelle’s bottom lip puckers, and she stays where she is holding her doll out to him. “Kiss,” she tries again. She knows only a few words and is learning more and more every day. It’s the cutest thing ever to hear her talking.
“No,” Marcus says, crossing his arms over his chest.
Annabelle touches his leg and pulls on his lap, trying to climb on him as he sits back. “Kiss,” she says, depositing the doll to the floor. Her mission now is to climb onto Marcus.
Rochelle sits there happily, her smile not leaving her face as she watches the exchange.
Oh shit! I forgot to ask if she’s pregnant and if she’s told him yet. But trying to gain her attention now won’t be good.
“No,” he says again as she manages to get up and onto his lap. She sits down, and her little hands touch his face. She kisses him on the cheek, and he looks at Rochelle.
“Pretty,” he says.
When I look at Rochelle, I see she’s crying. She stands and walks up the stairs fast, until she’s in the bathroom.
Marcus looks to me, picks Annabelle up, holds her out as if she’s sick and doesn’t want to touch her, then passes her to me before he goes off after Rochelle. I follow them up the stairs but keep my distance to make sure Rochelle’s all right.
“Open the door.”
“No,” she says.
“Pretty… open the door.”
“I can’t.”
“Do I need to break it?” he asks.
“No,” I say, at the same time Rochelle does.
“Marcus,” Rochelle says through the door.
“Yes,” he replies, his hands are braced on either side of the jamb, watching the door, waiting for it to open.
“I need you to grab my bag and bring it up here.”
Marcus’s eyebrows pinch together. “Once you open the door.”
“Bring the bag up, and I will consider it.”
He huffs, and then pushes past me to grab her bag, coming straight back to the door. “I have it.”
“Open it. Take out what’s inside.”
“Rochelle,” he says, losing his patience. He hardly ever calls her by her first name.
“Just do it,” she says, still not opening the door.
I watch, holding Annabelle as he opens her bag. He pulls out her phone and places it on the floor, then her purse, doing the same thing. Then comes the white stick, and I freeze knowing exactly what that is.
“Marcus,” Rochelle says.
Marcus has gone quiet as he looks down at it. He knows what it is by the color his skin has gone—white, stark white.
“Did you pass out?” Rochelle questions, to which he doesn’t reply. “Marcus, talk to me.”
“You’re pregnant?”
“I’m pregnant,” she says back to him, confirming his question. “I took the test this morning when you were at work. I had planned a dinner to tell you, but life got in the way, and then I saw you with Annabelle, and well, the hormones took over. I’m pregnant, Marcus. Do you still want me?” She hiccups, and I know she’s crying.
I turn to walk away when I hear a crack. It’s loud. Turning back around, I see Marcus has broken the handle to my bathroom door and is now pushing it open forcefully until he reaches for Rochelle and buries himself in her neck.
“You aren’t mad?” she asks.
“No.”
“And you still love me?”
“Always.”
Turning, I walk away, leaving them to have this moment.
Chapter Seventeen
Blaze
They want war, I know they do.
Snow swears as he wipes his face with his rag. He’s been working on the bikes all day. It’s his favorite thing to do. The Wretched MC is starting trouble, sending back our prospect after they had a gun to his head, then proceeded to fuck his face up.
You don’t touch what is ours. That’s a big no-no. And that means war as far as we’re concerned. Cane wants war—he always has—and now he’s going to get it.
Cane, their president, has been trouble for me since the very beginning. Ever since I fucked his wife. I guess vengeance can be a bitch.
“What do you plan to do?” Snow asks as I lean against my now sparkling clean bike.
“He needs to know this shit’s not acceptable,” I say while rubbing my jaw. “He needs to know we can’t be fucked with.”
“Agreed,” Snow says, leaning against his own bike. “You know this could lead to a lot of trouble. Not just for us, but our town. Also, that club of yours. It’s right on the edge of their territory. You can’t have eyes on it all the time,” Snow says, referring to the prospect I’ve had there when Katarina finishes, to make sure she gets home safely.
“Call for church. Bring the boys to the table. We will discuss this shit there,” I say, pushing off. “Later tonight. I’ll be back.”
“Where are you going?”
“To taste heaven.” I smile, walking off.
Snow yells out to me, “You keep going down that rabbit hole, you may just stay stuck.”
It’s been almost two weeks since I saw Kat last at the club, when I kissed her and left. I had planned to stay away, to not see her again, because when I do, she remains stuck in my head for days. And no matter what I do, I can’t remove the thoughts of her. They play over and over again.
Today, though, I have to see her. And keeping my hands to myself may be a difficult task to do.
Pulling up at Marcus’s house, a few other cars are already parked. I recognize Katarina’s before I even remove my helmet. The front door opens, and Marcus steps out, he stays where he is at the door, watching me.
“You came,” he says.
“You asked,” I state the obvious.
Before either of us can say another word, Rochelle walks up behind him, her hand clasping his as she stares out at me.
“Blaze, thanks for coming, and sorry in advance for my family.” I look to Marcus, who doesn’t say anything. Rochelle turns and walks back inside, and when she does, she takes Marcus with her. Her hand staying in his as I follow them inside. When we step into his kitchen, it’s busy, and I spot Katarina straight away. She has her back to me, it’s bare due to the cut of the dress she’s wearing, her strawberry hair is cascading slightly down her back and over her shoulder, and there’s a toddler pulling at her leg with a doll in her hand.
“Why am I here?” I ask, making everyone turn to look.
Rochelle shifts her eyes, assessing me, and I’m the first to look away back to Marcus. “Marcus?”
“Just grab a drink and sit,” he says, reaching for a beer and handing me one.
Rochelle leans on him and gives him a smile.
“Blaze, these are our parents,” Katarina says while looking to her parents, who both smile.
“Tom.” Her dad offers me a handshake, and their mother simply watches me. She reminds me of Katarina. “And you are Marcus’s brother?” their father asks me. “Is it just you two in your family, or do you have more siblings?”