“Okay,focuson me,” he amended.
I tried to do that.
When I somewhat succeeded, I felt the boys had surroundedme.
“It’sgonnabe fine,” Mo declared.
“What if they don’t like me?”I asked.“I can’t have themnot liking me, Mo.They’re part of you.They’re blood.They’resisters.I have a sister!”My voice was rising with the increased beating of my heartwhich was keeping pace with the increased level of my panic.“I know howimportant sisters are!If they don’t like me, I’m gone.I can’t have that.Ohmigod!”That last was nearly yelled.“You beat up your dad for one of them.If they don’t like me, I’m not even a memory.”
I lost his attention as his eyes slid up and did a halfcircle and his lips growled, “Yup.Gonnakill everymotherfucking one of you.”
“Babe,” I heard Boone call.
I pulled my chin from Mo’s hold only to have my body tuckedinto Mo’s hold a different way (this being with his arm) as I turned my head tolook up at Boone.
“You may or may not believe this.Regardless, it’s true,”Boone started.“To get Mo, the tougher wall you had to climb was us.”
He jerked his chin to the others and I shifted in Mo’sclinch so I had my back to his front and I could take them all in.
“You might not have noticed, youbein’you, together like you are, sure of yourself, but I threw down with youpractically the minute I laid eyes on you,” Mag reminded me.
He did that.It was semi-subtle, in the sense it was notlike getting hit by a freight train, more like getting hit by a bus.
But he did it.
“I know,” I told him.
“You won me over in about a minute,” Mag told me something Iknew at the time, and was happy about at the time, but being reminded of it inthistime made me feel a whole lot better.
He wasn’t done.
“It was youbein’ pissed Mo’s dadis a dick.It was hearing about you takin’ on Tammy.It was youbein’ hilarious.It wasknowin’we weregonnahave a beautiful woman among us who wasalso one of the guys.But most of all, it was the way you were with Mo.Firsttime at our place, it was like you’d been there a hundred times before and youtwo were just chill.”Mag shot me a grin.“Outside youshoutin’about his dad.Mo wasgoin’ through his mail and youwereshoutin’ about his dad and you were all abouthim.I had to push it,’causehe’s my boy.But Ididn’t have to push hard.”
“For me,” Axl put in, “it was the fact I was worried Iwouldn’t get out of your house before you jumped on his dick.”
I couldn’t help but smile at him.
“I wasn’t even there for you,” Axl went on quietly.“Hewalked in, and suddenly, everything was gone, including me.You were all abouthim.”
“Axl told us that,” Auggie added.“Before Mag even met you.”
All the rest I knew.
But that last was news.
“We don’t trust people easy, Lottie,” Mag said.“But thepeople who might become a part of the lives of one of our own, that’s worse.”
“I’m sure sisters can be tough to crack,” Boone shared.“They might not show it, but brothers…”
Boone let that hang but I understood him.
They weren’t brothers of the blood, and blood was thickerthan water, but doing what they did for a living, all having served before, thetrust that had to build, the men those experiences had made them, what they hadwas stronger than steel.
“We’re here right now, for you, and we’ve known you twoweeks,” Auggie reminded me.“The Morrison women aregonnalove you, Lots.You got nothing to worry about.”
I felt Mo’s arm tight around me, holding me to the strengthof his big body.
And I saw all Mo’s boys around me, giving me strength.
