Chapter 7 #2
I take her in. Her dark blond hair has grown so much and is long down her back. Lydia and I would video chat when we could, and the kids would join in. They had started calling me aunty even though Colton disagreed with it.
“Kids, your mom is coming home tonight, and she wanted to pick you up from here.” I hate lying to them, but it’s Lydia’s job to explain to them what is going on.
“She isn’t staying with Father?” Micah asks.
His hair is a bit darker than his sister’s, but they both have the same startling blue eyes. He’s currently sporting a longer hairstyle in that messy but styled way. It reminds me of Edward from Twilight.
“Your father is going to be busy all weekend, so she decided to come home and spend time with you both.”
I also hate that Colton insists the kids call him Father and not Dad. He puts a lot of pressure on them for as young as they are.
“Okay,” they both say and glance around, bored.
“How about I order us pizza and we watch a movie?” my mom asks them.
Both their eyes light up. I’m about to tell my mom they aren’t allowed to eat pizza because Colton says it’s too processed and makes them hyper. But they deserve to be kids.
The doorbell rings, and I pick up Mari as I move out of the room to answer the door.
I swing it open, and Tucker moves on me before I can say anything to him about the kids or my mom.
His lips are on mine, moving across them.
His arms wrap around me and Mari, holding us to his body.
I open and feel one of his hands slip down to cup my butt.
“Who are you?” Micah’s voice breaks through the fog of lust.
Tucker pulls back and looks over my head.
“Spitfire, who’s the mini protector?” Tucker lifts his chin.
I turn my head while still in Tucker’s arms to see Micah standing there with his little arms crossed. My little seven-year-old guardian has his chest puffed out, trying to act tough. I try to pull away, but Tucker refuses to let me go.
“That’s Micah, Lydia’s son. He and his sister are going to wait for their mom here.” I try to push away again. “Could you let me go?” I drop my voice.
Tucker leans down to my ear. “Baby, I’ve been thinking about your lips all day. Plus, this outfit has lots of dirty thoughts going through my mind right now. I just need to hold you here for a moment longer, or I’m going to show the boy something he isn’t ready to know about.”
His words register, and I blush as my mom comes around the corner.
“Hello, Poseidon. Nice to see you again.” She smiles at us.
“That helped,” Tucker says as he steps back, and I lean my head down, trying not to laugh out loud. “Hello, Mrs. Parrish,” he says, then holds his hand out to Micah. “I’m Poseidon. Nice to meet you. Are you keeping my girls safe?”
“She’s my aunt, not your girl,” Micah says, and again I feel the laugh about ready to bubble up.
Tucker chuckles before he walks into the living room.
“Baby, you did some work today.” Tucker is looking at all the pictures up on the walls.
“Yeah, I decided to unpack most of the office and get it set up.”
“Poseidon, did you know she took all these pictures?” My mom brags.
I take Mari to her room to change her diaper and put her in a sleeper for my mom before we take off.
I can hear them talking about the pictures, and my mom points out her favorite. It’s a large print I had done on canvas of a bull elephant running through water. It looks like he’s charging the camera, but I was zoomed in and a safe distance away from him.
“Aunty Syd.” Michelle’s soft voice comes from the doorway.
I turn to look at her with Mari in my arms. Her back is to my chest, and her little arms and legs are kicking and moving.
“What’s up, Michelle?”
“Did Mommy and Father have an argument?”
I move over to her and squat down to her height. My heart breaks for these kids. I remember how hard divorce in my teen years was, but these kiddos are young.
“Baby, you need to wait until your momma gets here.”
“But Father told us when he left that he would be gone a while.”
My hands flex ever so slightly around Mari’s body. The fact that Colton was planning to leave Lydia and the kids is obvious now. I want to punch him in the face and make him feel the pain he’s causing those he professed to love. How dare he tell his kids before he told his wife.
“Come on, sweetie, let’s get you some pizza and settled. What movie do you want to watch?”
“I don’t know.”
We move out of the room, and as we get closer to where Tucker and my mom are still talking, Mari gets more excited.
Tucker moves toward us without taking his eyes off my mom and their conversation and reaches out without thought to take Mari from my arms. She instantly reaches for him, and he holds her to his chest gently.
He doesn’t look uncomfortable at all. He’s not stiff or awkward.
My heart bursts when I see her in his arms. She lays her head on his chest and starts sucking on her fist. He doesn’t care that she’s drooling on him at all.
He keeps talking to my mom, who I can tell is also rocked by his actions.
She turns to me and smiles, but I see the faintest glimmer in her eyes.
I move away before I start crying from the joy. I know he said he had a nephew, so I should have suspected he would be good with kids, but the fact that Mari is so taken with him too is almost more than my heart and ovaries can take.
I head into the kitchen and pull out the pizza menus and hand them to the kids so they can start figuring out where and what they want.
An hour later, I’m standing in the open courtyard of the clubhouse chatting with Wrenn.
She’s gotten so big in the last couple of weeks that I see what she means about feeling like she’s going to burst. Looking over at Aries, it’s not surprising she’s going to have a big baby. And a little boy, to boot.
When Tucker and I walked in, he had his arm around me, his big hand holding my hip protectively.
People stopped to look at us, a couple of the women looked at me with squinted eyes and pursed lips.
Jealous much, bitches. The question of how many of those women he’d slept with crossed my mind, and I stiffened.
He looked down at me, and I pushed the thought away.
But now that I’m talking to Wrenn, I can’t help myself.
“I guess some people are upset that Tucker and I are seeing each other.” I nod my head toward a woman who is openly glaring at me. She’s dressed in a short leather skirt and a crop top that barely covers her tits.
“Who is upset?” Wrenn follows my line of sight. “Oh, ignore her. She’s pissed Poseidon never gave her the time of day. Don’t worry. He never saw the same girl more than once, and he was actually very private about it. I only know because Beck mentioned one once.” She pats my shoulder.
“I don’t expect him to be a virgin, but it sucks to know others have been with him and are right here in front of me. It’s like being thrown in my face every time we come here.”
“Oh, I remember that feeling.” She chuckles.
“But don’t worry. He’s all about you, and I doubt he’ll let you go.
Besides, like I said, he didn’t sleep with many of the club bunnies.
” She smiles, and her eyes move across the courtyard to where Aries and Tucker are standing and talking with beers in their hands.
A loud bang like a gunshot sounds through the area, and I dive for the table, screaming.
I see him looking at me with a gun pointed right at me.
I scream again. My blood is pumping so fast and hard I can feel it.
I can feel the blood seeping from my wounds.
My ankle is almost useless. I crab crawl backwards until my back hits something.
I cry out as I feel the sharp pain in my side.
God, I pray my baby is okay. I just found out I was pregnant a couple of days ago.
“Please don’t shoot me. Bahati, no.”
I hear my team members screaming for help, begging for their lives before they are silenced. Engines rev as vehicles race around the camp. The lights cutting through the darkness. Bahati just shakes his head.
“You’ll die, mdogo.” His voice sounds bitter as he calls me little one in Swahili.
Another voice drowns out Bahati’s and breaks through the pain in my ankle and side. I hear his voice and turn around, looking for him. Why is he here? How can he be here? He can’t. He can’t die like they all did.
I push up and start running away into the darkness. Arms wrap around me, and I fight, kicking and screaming.
“Sydney.” My name is whispered in my ear, but I fight harder.
I have to protect Tucker from what is coming. The helicopter is about to take off again, ending it all.
“Please don’t hurt him, Bahati,” I beg.
“Spitfire,” he says, and everything fades away.
I’m in the courtyard. I hear voices around me, and someone laughs.
My eyes focus on the woman I was just talking to Wrenn about as she points and laughs at me.
My breath saws in and out of my body. Every muscle aches like it did that night.
But I don’t hear the helicopter. The guns are silent.
I don’t see the fires in the tents but in barrels.
“Baby, are you okay?”
My head drops, and tears roll down my face. I just had a panic attack in front of everyone. I just proved why I shouldn’t be with Tucker.
Poseidon
I know the moment she has come back to me. Her body goes slack and tears roll down her face. I look up at that bitch Ginger, who’s been chasing me for a long time.
“Shut the fuck up, bitch,” I growl, and Sydney’s body spasms. “No, baby, not you.” I twist her around and pull her up against me.