He nods, gives the signal. The five of us pull onto the shoulder. Everyone but Luke leaves their machines running as he throws his leg over, dismounts, and strolls to me, bending to inspect my tires, the hoses, anything that might on first inspection look ‘off’ to him.
“It’s not the bike.” I tell him, finally remembering to shift into neutral. “I feel weird. Like the engine is making me dizzy or something.”
He pulls his glove off and places his cool palm on my hand. “You hot, Soph?”
“Am I?”
“Feel normal. But what do I know?”
Celia shuts her engine down, hurries over. “Sofia, you sick?”
“Um…maybe ate something bad?” As she touches my forehead, too, I roll my eyes. “I don’t have a fever, he just checked.”
“I want to see if you’re clammy.” She puts her fingers on my neck, behind my hair, braided under my helmet. It’s a cold night, late into fall, so she touches her own skin to see if we’re different, if it’s just the wind that’s done this to my temperature. “Feels the same as me. Like you need a scarf, but that’s it.”
Smiling, “I don’t need a scarf,” I shrug it off and tell them all, “I’m all good. Let’s go.”
“Stay close,” Luke says.
“I will.”
We’re on the road in no time, same formation but now I’m their person of interest, and it’s no fun.
It’s hard to hold on.
Like I could use a nap.
And some Tums.
My husband keeps checking on me, calls over the engines, “We’re pulling off at the next stop where there’s lodging, fuck this!”
Usually I’d argue, but not tonight. “Okay,” I nod, frowning.
“Pull over! You’ll get on the back of my bike. We’ll get yours later!”
“Okay.”
That answer freaks him out. He raises his arm and signals for us to pull off the road right now. Atlas and Sean watch, faces grim as Ceels grabs my keys, stashes them in her Ciphers jacket. Luke piles my saddlebags onto his, mounts his Harley and looks over his shoulder as I climb on behind him, wrap my arms around his ribs and breathe deeply in and out. He starts to go, but I squeeze him.
“Stop! Hold on!”
“What’s up?”
I climb off, lean over, vomit everywhere. “Okay, I’m good,” I mutter as he looks at me, horrified. I motion to Celia to stay on her damn bike, shoot her a look that makes her lips tighten, knuckles white as she waits.
“We’re getting you to a hospital,” Luke growls.
“No, just some bad fish or something.”
“It’s not a debate. I’m put on this planet to watch out for you and that’s what I’m gonna do.” He tears onto the freeway with them right behind.
Three miles down the road we come up on a hotel, some convenience stores, nothing fancy. But up ahead is a long stretch of dead road we know too well. No hospitals for miles.
“Luke, I just need some sleep. And to get off this bike!”
He growls at me, but tilts us, turning onto the exit with the others following into the hotel parking lot. He shuts off the engine, says, “I’ll get a doctor, bring them here to you.”
“You’re being over-protective.”
“This is love. Deal with it,” he mutters, lifting me up and carrying me in.
There’s no one behind the desk. He hits the bell with his elbow as I hold onto him, my helmet feeling like it weighs a hundred pounds all of a sudden.
“Anyone here?!”
A sleazy guy walks out of the back room, probably watching porn, eyes us. “Need a room?”
Luke bites the guy’s head off. “Yes!”
“Okay, okay, don’t have to get so desperate. We’ve got plenty of ‘em. She’ll wait five minutes.”
If I was in a better state I’d show this jerk how patient I am with low-class dirtbags like him. But since my husband’s in control, I just give the guy the finger as Luke snarls, “Get me a key and shut the fuck up.”
Sean walks in. “Need a card?”
“In my wallet.”
He reaches into Luke’s back pocket, digs out the Ciphers credit card, under the name of someone who died in 1939, hands it over to the toe-jam-faced clerk.
The three of us head to Room 11.
“Where’s Celia? Atlas?” I ask.
Sean slows down. “Said she wanted to get you some water and stuff from the market. He went with her.”
“Go tell ‘em where we are.”
“Right.” Sean flips around and takes quick strides back.
Inside a cheap room like you find in the middle of nowhere, Luke lays me down as I argue, “You’re making a big deal out of nothing. See?” I sit up, dust off my legs. “All better.”
He kneels down, pulls my eyelids back. Laughing I swat him away, but hold onto his hand for a second to reassure him, “You don’t have to worry. I’m not dying.”
“Soph,” he rasps, fingers freed and sliding down my legs to grip my calves. “Don’t even say that out loud.”
The door bangs and he flies up, ushering our crew inside. Celia holds out a wrinkled paper bag she must have been trying to strangle, then whips a pregnancy test from it. “You ready for this?”
My jaw drops.
Luke freezes.
Atlas is staring at his brother, already in on the suspicion.
Sean bites his lips.
“Oh my God,” I whisper as Luke spins around and drops down in front of me again.
“Is it possible?”
“I had my period last month.” Pausing I stare at a wall. “Wait, I had it after the wedding, remember? Then once more. But I don’t think…”
“Is it possible,” he demands again.
“How many times have we used protection?”
His dark eyes go huge and he practically throws me at Celia. “Go go go!”
“Jeezus,” I mutter, disappearing with her, locking the bathroom door and exchanging a look as I lower my voice. “Ceels, what if I am?”
Tearing the cardboard open she mumbles, “Then it’s going to be a beautiful baby.”
I snatch it from her hands, whisper, “What if I’m not any good at it? What if I’m a terrible mother?”
Her shoulders relax. “Sofia, you overestimate yourself in some places and you underestimate yourself in others. Open it. Take the test.”
“Couldn’t you get the cheek swab one? Did you have to go old-school with the pee stick?”
“It’s all they had.”
“What if it’s ancient? Gives the wrong results?”
She points at the toilet. “Go!”
As soon as I pull my jeans up I’m rushing for the door. “He has to watch it turn colors with me.”
Pacing, Luke drops his arms when he sees me, rushes forward. “Well?”
I hold it up. “In two minutes our lives could change forever?”
He grabs my wrist. “Look!”
The damn thing is already a plus symbol.
We stare at it.
Dumbfounded.
Shocked.
Luke locks onto me at the same time I look at him. We go ape shit, jumping and screaming with joy.
Ceels starts laughing. Atlas, too. Sean just grins and shakes his head.
My husband wraps me in his arms, lifts me off the ground and murmurs into my heart, “We’re starting a family of our own, Soph! We’re going to have a baby.”
Maybe it’s the onset of morning sickness. Maybe I’m tired. But tears stream down my face in an avalanche that takes me and everyone but Luke, by surprise. “I’m going to be a mother! God help the little soul.”
Laughing, Luke kisses the tears from my cheeks. “I love you, Soph.”
Throwing my arms around his neck I burrow into him. “I think I want this.”
“Pretty sure you do,” he whispers. “You didn’t cry at our wedding.”
“You, I knew! This baby is a whole new person. What if she doesn’t like me?”
&nbs
p; “She?”
“With all the hell I gave my mother, it’s gonna be a girl, Luke!”
He reassures me, “We’re having a baby, and whoever he or she is, we’re gonna love ‘em like crazy. And not just us, but the whole, huge, Cipher family will help us find our way.”
Like the antidote to doubt, his reminder about the Ciphers and all of the support they give us and each other, relaxes my shoulders, expels doubt from my heart, and gives me the ability to be shockingly happy I’m going to be a mother.
And that Luke—my friend from childhood, now lover, husband and partner until the end—will be the father of my child.
Even through all of the terrifying situations I’ve been in, and all the good I’ve done in the world, when I told Luke I loved him, that was when I began the scariest and most rewarding adventure of my life.
Seven months later, Karma hands me a beautiful kick in the ass, with ten tiny toes and fingers, the middle one extended.
Kenzie Luna-Sol Cocker-Martinez blinks up at me with a dark fringe of eyelashes and the cutest smile with silent promises of how she’ll change our lives.
For better or worse…not sure yet.
We love a challenge.
THE END.
From Me.
My readers have been waiting a long time for Sofia Sol’s love story, ever since she was introduced in the bonus scenes for Cocky Biker (her parents in Book 2) and then her WOW performance in Book 8, Hannah’s story, Cocky Senator’s Daughter. Then she popped up in a couple of her cousin’s books as well. So I was hearing a lot of “When are you going to write Sofia Sol’s story?!!!”
So now was the time to tell it. I never expected Luke to be her love.
You probably know by now that I never plan plots. I just start typing and let the characters tell me what is happening to them.
In my Cocker Readers FB Group, people were giving suggestions for who she should be with, and I have confessed that when I see story ideas, I stop reading immediately. It’s just not how I work, and nobody knows what’s going to happen except my characters and then me. Stephen King said once that the only time he’s experienced Writer’s Block is when “I was trying to make a character do something it didn’t want to do.” He writes like I do…just starts typing.
HOWEVER, I did see a suggestion of her falling for a cop or a bad dude who turns good. Great ideas…and I flirted with them. But then Luke showed up and took over. When he walked up to her outside of her room, “I think you fucked my brother,” I got the tingles. And realized - he’s in love with her!
That got interesting. Very interesting.
Re: Candyman.
When I was in elementary school, we’d sneak out at recess to go around the block to a house where they sold us candy for a penny. No joke. We never told anyone…and they shouldn’t have done it. Nobody that I know of was molested, but I have to wonder if someone was. Because what was their motivation for getting young kids, ten and under, to come over and give them a penny for candy during school hours?
Anyway, it haunted me a little so when they went to the man’s house…that’s where the story took me. To the ‘what if’ of it all. So, no, it wasn’t really cliche that he gave them candy—that’s from my real life.
Re: Our cover model, Tina Brady.
Samantha G. S. brought Tina to my attention in my FB Group, and I contacted Tina and told her about the series. She was excited about it, which was fantastic. Super sweet heart and a beauty on top of that. Her photographer Tommy Chung, of this cover photo taken a while before I wrote this book, agreed to license it. He also found out that the makeup artist he used on the shoot was a fan of the Cocker Brother, has read ALL the books, and agreed that Tina would be PERFECT for Sofia Sol.
The stars aligned. I love it when that happens.
Re: Savannah Cousins of the original Cocker Brothers.
Yes, I’ll be writing their stories, but not until after all these descendants of the six.
And what a way to launch Book 13, on Friday the 13th. I have a thing for matching numbers, and 13 was originally a day where women celebrated…women. Then the church took it and twisted it to ‘evil’ so I’m taking it back, with the help of my wild child, Sofia Sol Cocker-Martinez.
Don’t miss the bonus scenes for her book. Turn the pages for that, the Family Tree, Spotify playlists for all the books and check out the Cocky Charity project benefitting K9s for Warriors (Pets for Vets) on the following page.
Love, love and more love,
Faleena Hopkins
Cocky Fun to Deepen Your Experience
Free Bonus Scenes
Random special moments from the characters’ futures. Every book in this series has them.
Cocky Swag — Charity Project
Who doesn’t need a furry friend to love?
All 2017 profits for the t-shirts and swag go to “K9 for Warriors,” pairing pets with vets. (see photo below for a couple examples)
Cocker Family Tree
As we move forward with all 17 cousins, this will be helpful.
Cocky Readers Facebook Group
Purely for true #cockerstalkers
My Hot Instagram
Mmmmm.
Spotify — Series Playlists
Made by the fabulous blogger “Belle Reader,” a labor of love. She’s done an amazing job pairing songs to the vibe of every book in my series.
Pinterest Board
With Images of Places from the Books, for the fun of it.
(1) Jake Cocker - Cocky Roomie
A Stand-Alone Bad Boy Romance
When Jake answers the door wearing only a towel and smirk, Drew decides having him as her roommate is a very bad idea. But lucky for her she has no other choice.
Meet Jake Cocker - Book 1.
Buy or Borrow in Kindle Unlimited Here.
Audio book is available, too!
Add To Goodreads Here.
(2) Jett Cocker - Cocky Biker
A Stand Alone Sexy MC Romance
Like modern day Robin Hoods, The Ciphers save people. And when Jett Cocker, the family’s black sheep, meets an equally feral woman with revenge on her mind, his life changes in the blink of a smoking gun.
Buy or Borrow in Kindle Unlimited Here.
Add To GoodReads.
(3) Jaxson Cocker - Cocky Cowboy
A Second-Chance Romance
Jaxson Cocker needs no one. Or so he thinks. I mean, come on. Can you really meet your soulmate when you’re only eight?
Buy or Borrow in Kindle Unlimited Here.
Add To Goodreads Here
(4) Jason Cocker - Cocky Romantic
An Enemies to Lovers Romance
Sarah's not my normal type at all. She drives me fucking nuts…which is why my twin brother Justin would tell you she's exactly who I need. Just don’t tell ME that.
Buy or Borrow in Kindle Unlimited Here.
Add to Goodreads here
(5) Justin Cocker - Cocky Senator
A Bad Boy Stand-Alone Romance
All Justin wants is to be a politician Georgia can trust. But to get that vote he has to get past the smoky-eyed, curvy obstacle to his campaign. And then there’s that other thing…
Add To Goodreads
Buy or Borrow in Kindle Unlimited Here.
(6) Jeremy Cocker - Cocky Soldier
A Military Bad Boy Romance
Every day I run. From my past. From the ghosts. My family has tried to reach me, but it’s not until an aspiring chef named Meagan almost runs over me and my dog, that I begin to wake up and remember the man I used to be. Now if she’d just stop sleeping with her boss, that would be great.
Add To Goodreads
Buy or Borrow in Kindle Unlimited Here.
(7) A Honey Badger X-Mas
a holiday spinoff novella (from Cocky Biker)
“A fantastic story that will warm your hearts. A keeper for Christmases to come.” - AngDia
“This is a very sweet yet hot and engaging story about a tough gu
y who's a bit of a teddy bear at heart. ” - HappyReader
"Absolutely the best Christmas short story to date." - Angela
Buy or Borrow in Kindle Unlimited Here.
(8) Hannah Cocker - Cocky Senator’s Daughter
A Stand Alone Romance
Hannah Cocker, daughter of the notorious rake Senator Justin Cocker, is turning her father’s blonde hair grey…especially when he has to rescue her from a bad boy MMA fighter with a secret.
(Daughter of Justin, Book 5, Cocky Senator. So she’s the sister of Gabriel, Book 10, Cocky Rockstar)
Buy or Borrow in Kindle Unlimited Here.
Add to Goodreads
(9) Ethan Cocker - Cocky Genius
A Billionaire Computer Genius Stand Alone
Ever had a hot character talk directly to you? This one will.
In the vein of Deadpool and Ferris Bueller, Ethan Cocker leads you through his love story with a CEO princess who treats this cocky billionaire like a pauper. So why can’t he stop thinking about her?
(Son of Jake, Book 1, Cocky Roomie. So he’s the brother of Emma, Book 11, Cocky Love)
Buy or Borrow in Kindle Unlimited Here.
Add To Goodreads Here.
(10) Gabriel Cocker - Cocky Rockstar
Paige Miller won a date with rockstar Gabriel…only his cousin Ben Cocker saw her first. May the worst man win.
Cocky Rebel : Sofia Sol Cocker (Cocker Brothers, The Cocky Series Book 13) Page 20