THE BOY I GREW UP WITH

by T I J A N

  I grinned, nuzzling her hair and tightening my arms around her.

  She pinched me. “And I don’t think we’ll ever get boring. It’s not in our DNA.”

  I squirmed away from her fingers. She smiled against me again, and I replied, “Yeah. Maybe not.”

  Then I told her about the next business venture I wanted to take.

  59

  Channing

  Three months later

  The doorbell chimed.

  I was unloading a crate in the back storage room when I heard it. Walking up to the front section of the empty store—or what was now my new office—I saw Bren standing there. It wasn’t seeing her that made me pause. It was that she was alone.

  No best friend with her, no crew members.

  For a moment, it wasn’t her that I was seeing. It was Heather—a flashback to another time when Heather had walked into Manny’s. The place had been empty. She was taking over officially, and her hand had gripped mine. She didn’t know she’d been squeezing it almost to the point of breaking a bone, and I never said a word.

  For a split second, Bren and my imagined Heather stood in the exact same position—in front of me, just stepping through the door. Turned sideways, head down, their hair slid over their shoulders.

  They both stood as if the weight of the world was on them, but then Bren looked up, and the resemblance was gone.

  The memory faded.

  “Hey,” I murmured.

  “Hey,” she murmured back. She scanned the office, taking in the large main room, the two smaller offices in the back. There was a short hallway that led to a bathroom and the back door. We’d just finished installing another door, which connected Tuesday Tits to this place.

  “I thought you were getting this as a place for the crews to hang out.”

  I grinned at her. “Yeah, right. Like you guys would chill at a place I own with the rest of the other crews.”

  I caught the twitch of her lip. I was right, and she knew it.

  Their crew would stick to their own, only mingling with the other crews at parties—parties her big brother wasn’t attending.

  “This is the place, then? Where you’re starting that new business?”

  This was my second business now. Tuesday Tits was still going full-force ahead. The expanded clientele was bringing new life to it, but we made sure to keep the regulars happy as well.

  I nodded. “Yeah. This is it. New Kings Bounties.”

  She snorted. “You’re naming it after your crew? Are you kidding yourself about the whole leaving thing?”

  I frowned. “No. I did leave.”

  At that moment, the door opened and in walked Moose, Congo, Lincoln, and Chad, each carrying a box. They greeted Bren with a nod, then began unpacking.

  They didn’t ask where to put things. I gave them no directions.

  Chad took his box to the front window and began unloading signs.

  Congo and Moose took their boxes to one of the offices in the back.

  Lincoln set his box down in the main room and began unloading what would eventually be his desk.

  Bren watched all of it and shook her head. “Left the crew, my ass.”

  None of the guys responded, but Lincoln was hiding a smile. Which said a lot from him.

  She gestured around the place. “So this is what you’re doing? Opening a bounty agency?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “And let me guess, your co-workers are all your old crew members?”

  Lincoln paused, looking up.

  Chad looked over.

  Congo and Moose came in from the back office. They paused in the doorway.

  I nodded. “Yep. I mean, we all have to take the test and get registered, but I have a feeling we’ll pass just fine. We already have our first client.”

  “And Heather’s okay with this?”

  “Oh yeah.” All the guys were smirking. I was trying hard not to. “She was ecstatic.”

  That was an exaggeration, but she was happy.

  I was still with my guys, I just wasn’t involved with the crew business.

  Bren rolled her eyes, her hands sliding into her jeans pockets. “And the lie that you’re perpetuating, the one where you left your crew—you’re still spreading that?”

  The guys started laughing.

  My smirk went down a notch “That’s actually true. I’m out. These guys know it. They accept it, but that doesn’t mean I can’t hang out with them.” Or work with them in another capacity.

  Bren nodded. Slowly. “Right.” She started for the door. Before opening it, she looked back. “And if something happens and you have to return to the crew life?”

  My smirk was gone.

  I straightened to my fullest height. “If something happens where I have to step in and save my brothers, I will. But it’ll be a quick trip in, and a quicker trip out. I left for Heather. After you, she’s my first priority.”

  Bren’s normal stony exterior softened. She blinked a few times. A small grin tugged at her lips before she coughed and the old mask slipped back in place.

  “Good,” she said, “because I love her. Not as much as you, but I still do. Don’t fuck it up, brother.”

  The reversal of roles wasn’t lost on me. It made me feel all warm and cuddly, not feelings I was used to experiencing with my sister.

  I touched two fingers to my forehead, giving her a small salute. “Will do, sister.”

  She flicked her eyes up to the ceiling and stalked out, like the momentary showing of emotion was a bad memory for her. Which it might’ve been.

  That’s just how Bren was.

  Later that night, sitting on Heather’s porch, I told her about Bren’s visit.

  “Wait. You didn’t tell me you had a client already,” she said. “Who is it?”

  I slid my hand down her arm, moving to her waist, and I picked her up. Manny’s was full, with a line extending out into the parking lot. They’d had to get a pager system to alert people when they could get a table inside. Half the parking lot had people sitting in their vehicles waiting. The other half had a drink from the bar, hanging outside. All the tables in the back section were full.

  But as always, Heather enjoyed the chaos. So instead of hanging out at my house, we were at hers, even with all the moving boxes cluttering up the kitchen and living room. She was moving into my place, after selling her half of the house to Brandon. That was the only thing she was allowed to sell, though. No more talk about selling Manny’s. I was biding my time, but it was in the back of my mind to wait and see how the bounty hunting business would do, then approach Heather about franchising Manny’s and setting up another one somewhere else.

  We’d see, though. That was all future adventures, future projects. Right now, I was damned content with where we were.

  “Hey.”

  “What?”

  Heather smacked my shoulder. “Who’s your client? Tell me.”

  “Oh. You remember that Peter from a while back?”

  She paused, frowning. Her eyebrows pinched together. “That slimeball lawyer? His employer’s son was that con guy, right? He take off again?”

  I grinned now, because there was nothing not to smile about—finally. “No. The con man is in prison now, but turns out Peter has a few other clients that have people they want found too.”

  “I thought you were a bounty-hunting business.”

  “Bounty hunting.” I shrugged, tugging her to rest against me. As she did, I lifted my chin over the top of her head. It fit perfectly. “Or just searching for people. I’ll get paid either way. My only requirement is that the person we’re looking for deserves to be found.”

  “And if someone tries to use you guys in a bad way?” Heather asked. “What if someone needs to stay lost for whatever reason?”

  I smoothed her hair back, kissing her forehead. “Then we turn around and help them instead. No one is getting hurt on my watch.”

  That meant her.

  That meant Bren.
>
  That meant my guys.

  My hand dipped down to her stomach.

  That meant the little one inside her.

  Ginger Gypsy called Chad and had him share with me that she’d had a dream. She said our little girl who had passed was watching over us, and it struck me now what else she’d said.

  She told Chad she’d dreamed of us on our porch. Everything was in place, and Heather was on my lap, my hand resting on her stomach. There was chaos surrounding us, but not where we were. We were peaceful.

  I felt goosebumps rise on my arm as Heather fulfilled the last portion of Ginger Gypsy’s dream:

  Her hand fell on top of mine, just as Ginger Gypsy had said it would.

  And Naly was watching over us.

  If I hadn’t known it then, I did now.

  Heather, me, our family—we were going to be just fine.

  Epilogue

  Heather

  “MOOOOM!”

  A breath.

  “MOOOOOM!”

  I stepped out of my office at the end of the hall. “What? I’m here.”

  I could hear him just inside the doorway. “Moooom!”

  “Max!” I picked up my pace. This hallway was freaking long. “What’s wrong?”

  He waddled two steps forward, just until he could turn to see me.

  I stopped. My hand rose to my face, hiding my smile. I was already biting down on my lip.

  My little boy.

  He looked… Well, he looked like he was about to wade into zombie territory. He’d attached pillows to the top and bottom of his arms with duct tape—one pillow covered his wrist to his shoulder. He had the same on his legs, front and back. The pillows came to just past his knees, so he’d used some of the decorative pillows from the couch to cover the rest. They half covered his feet too. Two more decorative pillows covered his chest and back, and a round throw pillow covered his butt.

  He also wore a full-face motorcycle helmet, with some of his blond curls sticking out.

  I couldn’t.

  I lost it.

  “What are you doing?” I stopped laughing enough to ask.

  “HUH?” he yelled.

  “Max. Lift up the helmet.”

  He tried. He really did. He reached up, but the pillows were in the way. Snorting, I crossed to help.

  “No, no!” He waved his arms around, so I just lifted the shield over his eyes.

  There, staring back at me, was my six-year-old Max Monroe. The same dark eyes as his father, but instead of Channing’s cockiness, Max’s eyes held pure innocence.

  “Mom, this is very important.”

  His little hands rested on my arms, as much as the pillows let them. They kept slipping off.

  “Yes.” I wiped the smile from my face. He was being serious. I had to be serious too. He was sensitive sometimes.

  I knelt down and rested my forehead to his. I whispered, “What’s going on?”

  He whispered back, leaning into me, “I need you to check my junk area.”

  Nope. Not a smattering of laughter could slip. He was dead serious.

  “Why?”

  “Because Maddy’s coming over to throw a baseball at me, and I can’t get hurt there. Uncle Logan always says junk shots are not cool. I can’t let her hurt me there. I’ll never be able to have children.”

  He was six. Going on twenty.

  I glanced down. There was no pillow in that crucial area, and he was right. Maddy Kade would throw at the one spot not covered. She had a wicked streak in her. She took after her Uncle Logan.

  “What should we do about it?” I asked.

  “Hold on.” He patted my arms and waddled into the living room, side to side like an adorable, helmet-wearing penguin. He swayed all the way to the couch and picked up the last round throw pillow we had, the one with the list of UFOs on the front.

  It’d been a gift from his Uncle Nate. Because there was more than one type of UFO out there. Max had seen four of them himself. He swore it.

  The pillow was his prized pillow—he just loaned it to the couch.

  He held it up now, as well as he could. He got it up to his chest and yelled through the helmet, “THIS ONE, MOM!”

  A mom’s gotta do what a mom’s gotta do.

  Maddy Kade—no matter how adorable with her jet-black hair, green eyes, and facial features already promising to be as striking as her mother’s—couldn’t be allowed to harm my little boy. Maddy was a year older, but it didn’t matter. Since they’d been crawling then running, the two of them had been inseparable. There were other cousins, but those two had a special bond.

  The duct tape beckoned me from the shelf in the front entryway, and I sighed, reaching for it.

  “Okay, little buckaroo.” I held it up. “I’m ready. Let’s do this.”

  He waddled back to me, smiling wide through his helmet the whole way.

  Children’s screams and squeals drifted in from outside, and Channing paused at the window overlooking the side yard. He had lifted a beer to his mouth, but held it there, frowning. He rotated swiftly to me and narrowed his eyes.

  “Why is Maddy Kade whipping a baseball at my son as if she wants to kill him?”

  “Because apparently, Maddy Kade is proving she can throw as good as any boy. Her words, not mine.”

  Channing’s eyes widened, even more alarmed. “She does have an arm as good as a boy’s, better than most. Why is my son allowing himself to be a moving target—and better question, why are you letting that happen?”

  Almost the same look as I’d seen before.

  He was just as serious as his son, with the same dark eyes looking back at me.

  I had a sinking feeling Max was going to take after Channing, because his reason had been the same one Channing once gave me when we were kids.

  “When I asked him, he puffed up his chest and said, ‘Mom, she’s not as tough as me, but I have to let her think she is.’ Then he winked at me and said, ‘Plus, I’m way faster than her. It wouldn’t be fair if I threw the balls at her, now would it?’ And then he went outside to wait for Maddy.”

  Channing lowered his beer now. “What. The. Fuck?”

  “Relax.” I gave in, relieving his concern. “I switched out all the balls. She’s not throwing a baseball at him. She’s throwing a foam Wiffle ball.”

  His eyes rounded and he whipped back to the window. “Damn. She can throw, if that’s what those are.”

  He kept watching, just like I had at first. I’d waited long enough to see the first Wiffle ball hit Max’s pillow with barely a smack. Max wasn’t even fazed. With his helmet in place and every inch of him covered in pillows, he would be just fine.

  And anyway, it was as he’d said. He was fast enough to whip back and forth, dodging the majority of her throws.

  “They’ve been sticking to the south yard?”

  I went over and he moved, accommodating me at the window. He set his beer aside and molded to my back. His hands went to my hips, his chin went to my shoulder, and right on time, I felt him hardening as his thumbs snuck under my shirt.

  A nice, warm tingle spread through me.

  My blood buzzed as if I’d been the one with the beer.

  “Yeah,” I murmured. “I told them they had to stay in behind the play gate.”

  Three dogs ran around them, along with our pygmy goat, which Max had become obsessed with at a fair a little while back. It was a fawn-colored goat that seemed convinced it was part German Shepherd and part English Bulldog—until she tried ramming her head into someone. She was all goat then.

  But for now, Channing and I had the house to ourselves. It was blessedly silent.

  He nuzzled under my chin, and his hand slipped up over my stomach, rubbing there. “Did you tell Sam our news?”

  I leaned more heavily against him, an ache beginning to throb between my legs. I wanted his hand to move south. I panted slightly. “No. Malinda dropped Maddy off today. Sam’s in Baltimore with that new trainer.”

  During Mason�
��s off-season, he and Samantha kept a second home in Fallen Crest, though Sam was already training hard for her next Olympics. I didn’t keep up with her training schedule, but we all helped take care of the kids as much as possible. If they asked, we helped. It was the same on their side too.

  “Who’s picking Maddy up?”

  “We have her for the night,” I said, struggling to keep my voice even.

  Shit. That flame was live and sparking. Reaching for the walkie on the counter, I turned it on and moved into Channing’s arms. The sounds we could hear outside became crystal clear as those voices now sounded as if they were in the same room. We could observe without watching now, and I reached up to twine my arms around his neck.

  Channing groaned, picking me up.

  My legs went around his waist as he sat me on the counter, his hands going to my ass and pulling me tight against him.

  “God, I love you.” He moaned, holding still. His lips hovered over my neck. He slid his hand up to cover my breast. “We did good, didn’t we?”

  I knew what he meant, and yes, we did.

  Manny’s had been franchised to three other locations. Channing’s Tuesday Tits had a sister Monday Mooners closer to the city. He wasn’t involved with crew business, but his crew brothers were still in our lives every day. They had dinner over here three to four times a week.

  But this night was one just for us since we were babysitting Maddy.

  The warehouse Channing bought had been renovated recently for our new house. We had a pool in the south end and a walk-around porch that covered every side of the house except for the garage.

  Brad had another child. Brandon had two of his own—a set of twins that had come from one of his one-night stands, but it turned out that he and the mother got along so well they’d married last summer.

  My dad was loving all his grandpa status. He even took another RV caravan back for a few months of the year.

  Suki was still doing her gourmet dinner events—almost every night because we gutted the old house and turned it into Suki’s kitchen place.