“Gifting? This is costing me a kidney,” he argues, sounding more amused than worried.
Maddie shrugs, smirking at the man before she says, “Not like you can’t afford it. How much did you get for that last fight, anyway?”
“We don’t kiss and tell,” Ronan interjects, and Maddie grins over at him as she expertly finishes a braid on Billy’s head and ties it with the smallest elastic bands I’ve ever seen.
I’m still standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame, when Ronan rolls his head and spots me, halting the conversation altogether. “Oh shit, what’s up, Ry?”
Smiling at the man, I nod my head in greeting. “Hey, man. How’s it going?”
“Always sunny, mate,” he answers, before jerking his thumb over to the other Irishman. “That asshole convinced me to get some more ink, and I couldn’t say no.”
“Might want to stop soon. How have you still got room for more?” I snicker, eyeing his leg and finding the majority of the skin lined with black-and-gray ink.
“There will always be room,” the guy lying on his stomach calls, and I grin at Ronan before heading toward Maddie, finding her already watching me as she twists and tugs another thicker braid onto Billy’s head.
“Hey,” she greets as soon as I’m close enough, and Laylah mimics it to perfection. “Hey!”
“Hi,” I answer Laylah first, poking her dimple gently and drawing out a giggle. And then I poke Maddie’s cheek and greet a little more warmly, “Hey.”
A pink hue fills Maddie’s cheeks, but she looks away from me, suddenly very absorbed in her handiwork. I let her have it, instead opting to save her pretty head of hair from the incredibly tenacious child who is determined to knot every strand.
Stepping behind Laylah, I undo the belt buckle that is cinched snugly against her lower back and scoop her off the tattoo chair. The moment the kiddo’s feet hit the ground, she’s off like a bullet, zipping around like she’s face-planted an entire bag of sugar.
Wide-eyed, I turn to Mikey with a questioning look that he only just catches, and he snorts. “Blame that on the menace with a blue bush on her head.”
“What did you do?” I ask Maddie, watching Laylah run around in circles right before she trips, mutters a curse word I know she picked up from Billy, and then darts off once more as though she hadn’t just hit the deck.
Maddie clears her throat and demurely confesses, “There is every chance I may or may not have given the little nugget a bag of cookies when I arrived.”
“How many cookies were in the bag?” I wonder, eyeing the sugar-crazed Laylah as she runs under one table, bumps herhead, and continues on her mission to use up every ounce of energy packed inside her little body.
“Seven,” Maddie answers deadpan, and I wince knowing Mikey is going to have his hands full until the girl crashes.
At the speed she’s running around, that might not take as long as I’m thinking.
“All done,” Maddie declares to Billy, patting his shoulder and letting him stand and walk toward the nearest mirror.
He whistles low, looking impressed at his new hairstyle, returning just as Laylah climbs into Gene’s tattoo chair, the man himself silently drawing away on his tablet as though he’s oblivious to what’s going on. It doesn’t escape me that there’s also a braid tied into the side of his head, though, the rest of his blond-and-black hair hanging in his face as he draws with his lip piercing tucked between his teeth.
Turning, I eye Maddie like I’ve never seen her before, blurting, “Have you gone around just braiding everyone’s hair?”
A sudden laugh slips out of her, and she’s grinning when she explains, “Laylah had a headache from her pigtails, so I put some fishtails and French braids in her hair instead. And then Gene got curious if I could braid shorter hair and volunteered to be a test dummy. Which then led to Billy wanting braids after I mentioned wanting to do Viking-like styles. But because I was doing Billy’s hair, Laylah wanted to play with hair, and since Mikey and Rayne don’t have long enough hair, I put my head on the chopping block.”
She pauses and runs a hand through her hair, several knots halting the process, and she winces. “It’s going to take a bottle of conditioner to work through this.”
“That’s your karma,” Mikey chirps from his seat, flashing Maddie a grin she rolls her eyes at.
“I deserve that,” she huffs, trying to wrangle her hair into less of a mess than it currently sits in.
That’s going to take some work. So, with a baffled blink in her direction, I ask, “How about I drive you home? You can shower, and I’ll make you something to eat.”
“I drove here,” she answers, sending me a cute smile. “But I’ll meet you at mine?”
I agree with a nod, and I watch as she heads over to the guys lying under Mikey’s gun and says, “Stay out of trouble, O’Connor.”
“Trouble is my middle name. Don’t rob me of that,” the guy complains, and it suddenly clicks who it is when my slow brain registers the name Maddie called him.
Neill O’Connor, UFC heavyweight champion, Ronan’s stepbrother, and just as heavily decked out in tattoos. And the two of them have been gossiping with Maddie for however long they’ve been getting new ink.
