I’ve never used protection with Bonnie, and from the times we’ve all been together, I know Ash and Ghost haven’t been using protection either. And not only that, I don’t remember Bonnie taking morning-after pills. We’ve been irresponsible.
One of us could be the father.
Or Marcus Stone could be the father.
Shit. That’d be messed up.
I run my hand through my hair.
It’s totally okay.She’ll tell us when she’s ready. She has to. She can’t hide a pregnancy forever, and Bonnie’s too smart to try. Too practical. She’ll tell us, then we’ll talk about who the father might be.
I head back toward the common room with my mind still spinning. Ghost stands near the stairs, clearly waiting for me. “Well?” he asks.
“She’s resting. Looks like shit but says she’s fine.”
“You believe her?”
I think about the pregnancy test box. “No,” I say honestly. “But she’ll tell us when she’s ready.”
Ghost’s jaw tightens. He suspects something too. Maybe not pregnancy specifically, but something big.
“We should tell Ash,” he says.
“And say what? That she’s sick? He already knows she hasn’t been around.”
“That it might be more than just sick.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Neither do you.”
He’s right. I don’t know. All I have is a torn box in a trash can and a gut feeling that everything just changed.
“Give her time,” I say finally. “Let her come to us.”
Ghost doesn’t look happy about it, but he nods. “Fine. But if she’s still sick tomorrow?—”
“Then we talk to her.”
He heads off toward the garage, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
I head to my room and close the door. Sit on the edge of my bed and drop my head into my hands.
If she’s pregnant, everything changes. The war with the Savage Legion becomes more urgent. Her safety becomes even more critical. The question of paternity becomes?—
I can’t finish that thought.
Because what if it’s mine? What if I’m about to become a father at thirty-two years old with a nineteen-year-old girl who I share with two other men in the middle of a gang war?
19
BONNIE
The buzz of my tattoo machine fills Snake’s shop like a heartbeat.
I’m working on Miller’s memorial piece, shading in the roses around his mother’s portrait. He sits still as stone in the chair, eyes closed, letting me mark his grief permanently into his skin.
The design took me three weeks to perfect—her face captured from an old photograph, surrounded by thorns and petals that represent the pain and beauty of loving someone you’ve lost.
