Laughing, Angel offered him a tattooed hand down. “I barely touched you, you big baby. Ophelia has tougher skin than you. Want to take her on next?”
Keys let her pull him to his feet, his eyes falling on Cage at the edge of the mat and the small bundle strapped to his bare chest. Keys didn’t know a lot about babies, but he was pretty sure Cage was milking the skin-to-skin rule. The manneverwore a shirt anymore—whether he had the baby or not!—and as a result, Angel’s eyes rarely strayed from her husband. Typical.
“I’m not going to fight a baby!” Keys argued, indignant. He thought he was getting better! He felt stronger, and he recently had to go up a shirt size because of the muscle he’d gained.
Angel crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure? From the pathetic attempt I just saw, I have no trouble believing she could take you down, too.”
Keys knew that Angel was baiting him, but in his defense, he was having a really hard time concentrating. Angel was wearing tight booty shorts and a sports bra with her sneakers. Keys hadnoissue with a woman wearing such clothes or even seeing the changes Angel’s pregnancy had done to her body. But he was trying to be a gentleman, and there was no denying that Angel’s breasts were like five times their usual size right now. In fact, they were so big, that her muscularly lean body looked top-heavy.
Especially with her crossing her arms over her chest.
No matter how hard he tried not to look, his eyes kept flicking back to her cleavage. “You just had a baby!” he defended, counting ceiling tiles. “I was trying to take it easy on you.”
Angel snorted. “There’s a difference between taking it easy and being fucking sloppy, Keys. Andyouwere fucking sloppy. Come on, again.” She slapped him on the upper arm before stepping back to take her fighter’s stance.
Keys followed suit—only to pause when his eyes landed back on her breasts. Christ, he was going to Hell!
“Concentrate!” Angel snapped. “If a pair of tits is all it takes to distract you, your fight’s already lost.”
Fuck. Face flaming, Keys closed his eyes and shook his head. “It’s not that! I swear!”
“Then what is it? You’ve been off all day. Your opponent is never going to wait for you to get out of your head so the two of you can have a rule-abiding, sensible fight with a fucking referee.”
Keys squinted one eye open, and then forced his eyes to meet hers. “I don’t mean this in a bad way, but are your boobshumming? Your bra keeps shifting.”
Angel didn’t look down, nor did she look embarrassed by the question. “I’m pumping, Keys.” She said it so nonchalantly thatKeys’ jaw dropped, because he was pretty sure he understood what that meant. Angel snapped her fingers in his face. “Concentrate, and I swear to God, if you fucking try to ‘hold back’ again, I will attach these things toyournipples and see how well you like it.”
Keys blanched. Why were the women in his life all choosing violence today?
* * *
Innocent giggles ricochetedoff tile as the water resistance claim of the bath rug was tested. Knowing how rambunctious her son got in the water, Rose had long since been wearing a swimsuit for bath time. The house they were renting outside of Seattle, Washington, had a bathtub the size of a small pool or large jacuzzi. It was perfect for allowing Oscar to swim without taking him to a public pool or beach.
Her son was going through an anti-clothing phase. In which, she had tobribehim to leave his clothes on in public, which of course all the Mommy Blogs made her feel like a bad mom for doing. But there was no fucking way their kids were as perfectly behaved and well-rounded as they claimed for social media.
Oscar might have been a quiet two year old, but his personality was becoming more pronounced now that he was three. Especially his laugh.
Rose didn’t want to push him too hard, but she saw no harm in starting him off young with reading and math. She was already starting to look into the best homeschooling programs. It wouldn’t be anything official, because there was no record of Oscar’s birth or the fact that he was living in the United States. But Rose wanted to be ready for when he was old enough to start real lessons. He was so smart and inquisitive that Rose was looking into what could be taught to him now. Was there such a thing as teaching kids too early?
It only drove home how isolated she was, and made Rose feel all the more inadequate as a mother. Hell, she hadn’t even graduated high school, so Oscar might surpass her sooner than later.
Rose’s phone pinged, and she blindly reached for it behind her on the bathroom counter. Oscar was a fantastic swimmer, but he was still only three. She filled the tub enough that he could float and play, while also keeping it shallow enough that he could stand if needed. But she wasn’t taking any chances. She was pretty sure she’d read somewhere that it only took two inches to drown in.
Keeping one eye on Oscar and the other on her phone, Rose looked at her screen. Crap. It was Poison.
Another splash hit her chest as Oscar’s feet kicked against the water. Rose moved back to sit on the closed toilet lid so she could still see Oscar in the tub while also looking into what Poison had sent her.
The club was tracking a group of looters stealing cargo from box trains in the Midwest, but the last Rose had checked in with them, half were finding a motel to crash for the night while the other half were staying on the hunt. Most of the items that were taken were being sold at low-end pawn shops that didn’t bother checking proof of ownership. What surprised Rose was how much of the more expensive things were being left behind, like crates of printer ink, textbooks, industrial ball bearings, and even spices like saffron and vanilla. Instead, they were grabbing items like clothing, alcohol, phone cases, cheap jewelry, and in one case, an entire pallet of candles. The thefts were happening mid-transport, utilizing drones and bridges for the heavier and/or bulkier items.
Poison picked up the call as soon as Rose made the connection. “Hey, MV. We caught one, but you’re not going to believe this. He’s only thirteen!”
Fuck. Thirteen? Really? At least she’d waited until she was done with puberty to start her criminal enterprise.
The program Rose used to modulate her voice also allowed her to text a phone conversation without the receiver knowing she wasn’t speaking out loud. It also allowed her to communicate without risking background noises, like her son splashing around in a bathtub.
“I wish I was more surprised. What are you going to do with him?”
“Well, ten minutes ago, I would have said I was going to beat the shit out of whichever one we caught to lead us to the rest, but now that’s out the window.” Poison’s frustration could be heard in every word. “Kitty thinks I should be all nice to him and shit. See if we can bribe him with food or something.”
