Rowdy (Marked Men #5)(75)
I was early by a good twenty minutes, but the longer I sat around thinking about sitting down with her one-on-one, the closer I was to talking myself out of doing it. So when I entered the dark interior of the Bar on that Friday night two weeks after Asa’s run-in with the law, I was relieved and surprised to see Rule sitting at the bar talking to Rome. The Archer brothers were bound to keep my mind off my own little reunion that I had on the schedule for the night. I should have manned up and approached Sayer and had this powwow a month ago, but I just now was able to think about talking to her without wanting to bolt in the opposite direction.
I took a seat next to Rule and clapped him on the shoulder as Rome lifted his scarred eyebrow at me.
“Where’s your lady?”
My lady . . . I would never get sick of hearing Salem referred to as mine. “She’s with Saint and Royal helping Saint pack.”
It seemed like it had taken forever to get Nash’s girl to agree to move in with him, and now that she had he was wasting no time in getting her and her belongings under his roof for good.
“I’m actually meeting someone else for a drink.”
Both the brothers turned to me, and if it was possible to burst into flames or be frozen on the spot from the disapproval in both pairs of blue eyes, I would have been a dead man. I held up my hands in surrender from all the disapproval and shook my head.
“No. Not like that. Jeez, have you met Salem? She would cut my balls off and feed them to me if I was screwing around on her.” I lifted up my own eyebrow and curled my hands on the edge of the bar. “I found out a few weeks ago that the guy that contributed the other half of my DNA was out there all along and knew about me. His daughter—my half sister—found out about me after he died and left me half of her inheritance. She tracked me down and has been trying to get to know me for a couple months. She’s actually the one that found the lawyer for Asa.”
Rome let out a low whistle and turned to get me a beer. “That’s some straight-up soap-opera shit right there.”
Rule and I both laughed. “Tell me about it.” I shoved Rule on the shoulder hard enough that he almost toppled off the bar stool. “Why aren’t you home with your pregnant wife?” I never thought the original wild child of the Marked family was going to settle down, but Rule had taken to being domesticated like a champ and I had to say it looked damn good on him.
He righted himself in the seat and snatched the beer out of my hand so he could take a long swallow out of it. He gave it back after making sure to slobber all over the top of it and I could only fake-glower at him while I laughed at his antics.
“We went for the ultrasound today and I think we both needed a minute to get our heads around it. I guess it kind of made it all real. I’m gonna be a dad. I’m having a kid with the last person on earth I ever thought I was going to fall in love with, and now I don’t have any kind of life without her in it. I heard the heartbeat and almost f**king cried.” His pale eyes got huge in his face. “What am I supposed to do if he turns out just like me?”
Rome chuckled and I asked, “You’re having a boy?”
He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. “Yeah. I think a girl would maybe be easier. She would be sweet and soft like Shaw. God help us all if this kid takes after his old man.”
Rome snorted. “I have a baby girl, and while she is sweet and soft she is also ornery and demanding.”
I smirked at him. “Just like her mama.”
“No kidding, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He told Rule, “You’ll be fine. If he is like you then you know what you need to do to keep him in line and remind him that it’s okay to be difficult and to make your own way in this world, but that he also has to let the people that love him in.”
The brothers shared an intense look that spoke to battles won and lost and I had to agree with Rome’s assessment. In order to lighten up the mood a little, I told Rule, “And at least it isn’t twins. I don’t think Denver would remain standing if there were two more of you unleashed on the Mile High.”
The quip had the desired effect and some of the tension unleashed from Rule’s shoulders. “True. Cora pouted for a full hour when Rome told her it was just one baby and not twins.”
“I bet she did.”
Rome looked up and nodded over my head as someone came in the door. I turned to see who it was and looked past Asa as he walked in to the young woman that followed him in the front door. She was short, about Cora’s height, but curved more like Salem, she had hot-pink hair and a snarl on her pretty mouth. She looked mad at the world and not happy to be at the Bar at all. The little thing practically breathed out bad attitude and discontentment. She walked past all of us without acknowledging our existence in any way, shape, or form. She literally emanated anger and displeasure like a thick, black cloud in her wake.
Rome grunted at her thunderous arrival and quipped, “Speaking of Cora, that little lady right there can give her a run for her money in the attitude department.” The older Archer sounded disgruntled about that fact.
“Who is she?” This came from Rule as he pointed in the direction the pink-haired sprite had gone.
“Brite’s daughter, Avett. He asked me and Asa to find a way to keep her out of trouble for a few months. She got kicked out of college and fell in with a pretty bad crowd. She’s shit with the customers, so we tossed her in the kitchen to help Darcy out, but considering they’re mother and daughter, it isn’t going well. One of them is bound to walk out in the middle of a rush sooner or later.” He chuckled drily. “I think Brite is hoping Asa might be a good influence on her, as crazy as that sounds.”