Obviously this man had never been around children for longer than a couple of hours if that was the kind of present he liked to buy.
"She won't do shit," he murmured, waving me out of the car.
I grabbed the two gift bags from the backseat while Dex dug around in the trunk for the stuff he'd thrown in there. Even though we were parked quite a way down from the concentration of the cars—and motorcycles I noticed a little late—the loud laughs and screaming children could be heard pretty darn clearly.
Something jabbed me in the side. "Ya ready?" he asked, pulling his elbow away from my ribs. He'd traded in his black and navy blue t-shirts for a plain white one. But those friggin' light jeans that were perfectly molded to his butt hadn't been replaced.
"Did you bring a bathing suit?" I asked him, looking down at the new pair of Nike's he had on instead of boots.
"Nope." He elbowed my side again, raising both of those pure black eyebrows. "I'm on babysittin' duty."
"You? Why?"
Dex tipped his chin up. "I brought you along, didn't I, babe?"
Asshole.
“Waah.” Irolledmy eyes andreached to pinch the back of his arm. "You get on my nerves, you know that, right?"
He ducked out of the way, his mouth splitting into a wide smile, all pretty white teeth, beforelaughing. "Nobody’s tried to do that shit to me since back in the day when I’d piss off my ma.”
“It’s overdue then,” I told him, aiming for his arm again before he wrapped his hot palm around my fingers.
He squeezed his grip gently for a moment before dropping his hold, still grinning. “C'mon, you little shit."
It should probably bother me that he called me a little shit but with the big grin on his face and the loud burst of his laugh, I kind of thought that he was using it as a pet name. He let out another lower, huskier laugh and Iwascompletely convinced it was like his way of calling me... what? Whatever you'd call apet baby rabbit.
"How many nieces and nephews do you have total?"
"Lisa has three girls, and Marie has a girl and a boy."
The noises from the group in the tree-lined area ahead of us got louder each step we took. "Lisa's your oldest sister?"
Dex nodded. "She's Hannah's mom." The birthday girl, he meant.
I tried my best to mentally prepare myself to face three women that were potentially female versions of Dex, and I couldn't help but feel just a little intimidated. From what I've learned over the course of my stay in Austin, there was probably a big chance that Dex's mom knew my mom back when she wasgoing to collegehere. Who knew how that could go. If her father was a member of the Widows' Original 12, then she was more heavily invested in the club than just about anyone else.
More than likely, it also didn't help that my crap-ass father left the MC for my mom.
Hmm.
Slowly, the group came clearly into view. What looked like two dozen adults and at least a dozen kids scrambled around a circle of four picnic tables, while a thick column of smoke spiraled in the background. From the looks of it, most of the men wore WMC vests.
You know, besides Dex.
My stomach couldn't help but clench up at the reminder.
I didn't recognize hardly anyone beside a couple of the women I'd met at Mayhem weeks back, but I couldn't remember their names to save my life. No one paid us any attention as we walked up to the group until we stopped alongside the picnic table furthest away from the lake shore.
"I'll leave our shit right here—" Dex started to say, dropping our two bags onto the bench.
"It's about time you got here," a woman's voice suddenly said. "We've been waiting for you to start grilling, Dex."
Holy crap.
The woman standing just to the side of Dex had to be his mom. The hair color, that square jaw line, the eye color—it was all the same. Well,minus the boobs and the gray hairs that peppered her blue-black mane. She even had the same smirk as she looked at what had to be her son.
"I'm not even late, Ma," Dex confirmed it, turning around with a matchingsneeron his full, pink mouth. Holding out his arms, the woman stepped into them, slapping him on the back, hard.
