He squinted at the sassy boy, but Knuckles interrupted before he could say anything.
“What about me?”
They all turned to look at where he was sitting at the end of the table, put-upon look on his annoyingly gorgeous face. There was a stud through one of his brows and a small ring in his lower lip, and he had a black-and-gray skull tattooed on the side of his neck, even more ink going up both of his arms. He was the very picture of a tattoo artist.
“What about you?” CJ asked, eating one of the cookies he’d already finished. He and Emmett were the only ones making any real progress on frosting and decorating, so Rooster figured he’d more than earned it.
“Well… I’m, like… a daddy or whatever… right?” Knuckles asked, glancing down at the table, thumb rubbing at his eyebrow ring.
Ollie opened his mouth to answer, but Rooster cleared his throat, loudly, and he snapped it closed again. Knuckles had been… different lately, like for the last year or so, but Rooster and the rest of the club weren’t pushing him to share before he was ready. Rooster knew—because he’d accidentally overheard Houston telling Tomas—that the club’s VP had had a chat with Knuckles to see how concerned they all should be. He hadn’t told Tomas—or Rooster when he’d stepped into the office and apologized for inadvertently eavesdropping—what was hanging over the guy’s head, but he’d promised to keep an eye on him.
Knuckles had seemed a bit better than he’d been over the summer when he’d barely left the clubhouse other than to go to work, and he’d even attended some of Houston’s BDSM classes. Which made it even stranger that he thought he could be a daddy. Rooster wasn’t one to knock another person’s kink or identity, butdaddywas not who Knuckles was. Was that what he’d been struggling with all year? Wanting to be something he wasn’t and trying to force it on himself?
“It’s not just a word, man,” Rooster tried to explain,veryaware of Emmett listening, even if he wasn’t looking at him.
“Okay, yeah, I know that,” Knuckles said, reaching over and snagging one of the containers of sprinkles from in front of Emmett. “Daddies are, like, Doms or whatever, right?”
“If you’d gone to one of Houston’s classes, you’d know the answer to that,” Ollie chirped, then held his hands up in surrender when Rooster shot him a look.
“Usually,” Rooster said, slowly. He set his spreader into the small bowl with the frosting in front of him. “But it’s more than being the dominant in the relationship. It’s about taking care of your sub—physically, emotionally, mentally.”
“Yeah, like how Six lets me wear my?—”
“Ollie!” CJ dove at him, trying to cover his face, but Ollie dodged away.
“What? Emmett is part of the family now. He’ll be cool.”
Knuckles frowned down at the finished cookies in front of him, not saying anything in response to Rooster’s explanation. He didn’t look upset, just… discouraged. Maybe a little frustrated. Rooster made a mental note to check back with him later when they were alone. When he’d put a name to his own needs and desires, it had been like a weight off his shoulders. He wanted that for Knuckles too, no matter what it ended up being.
While the two boys across from them scuffled and threatened to tell each other’s daddies, Rooster leaned closer to Emmett and whispered, “I know you know him, but if Ollie makes you uncomfortable, I can make him stop. Well… I can try. He doesn’t listen to anyone but his own daddy, really. But I can threaten him with telling Six.”
Emmett giggled. “It’s okay. I didn’t… I didn’t know that everyone here was so…”
“Open-minded?” Rooster offered, grinning.
“I guess you could put it that way,” Emmett said, rolling his eyes, but he was smiling again, those mesmerizing dimples of his peeking out.
“God, have you always had those?”
Emmett frowned at him, cute little nose furrowing in confusion. “What?”
“Your dimples,” Rooster said, unable to stop himself from raising one hand and gently brushing the pad of his thumb over the spot where the little indent appeared in Emmett’s right cheek. “How could I have never noticed them before?”
He was pretty sure Emmett was holding his breath, eyes wide as he stared up at Rooster with shock… and maybe interest? Fuck, he hoped he wasn’t seeing shit that wasn’t there.
“Maybe you weren’t looking,” Emmett finally said, voice soft, but he didn’t look away from Rooster’s eyes.
Grinning, he ran the back of his fingers down Emmett’s soft cheek and winked. “I’m looking now.”
3
“He said he waslooking, Roni!” Emmett exclaimed for the third time.
That day.
During that particular conversation.
Roni laughed lightly. “Yeah, babes, I know. So have you texted him yet?”
