Page 99 of Keep You Close

It all came back to Samson.

The dog he’d bought her as an apology for beating her.

The dog who’d, inevitably, been the cause of his demise.

I owed that dog a big steak.

“What are you going to tell AJ?” Kingston asked, getting up to pour us each a mug of coffee, and bringing it back to the table.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ll figure it out.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

AJ

I wondered as the girls chatted in the kitchen and I watched Atlas gather his things to leave, if he thought he was getting away with something.

Atlas wasn’t a liar.

I wouldn’t say he was a bad liar.

But it was just something that didn’t come easily to him. At least not with me. There was a sort of guilty look on his face as he told me his plans to go hang out with his brothers. While the girls oh so conveniently wanted to come and hang out with me.

Babysit me.

It didn’t take much thought to realize he had probably tracked down Joss. And was likely going there with his brothers to intimidate him into leaving me alone.

Maybe I should have been upset about that.

But, honestly, it was kind of sweet.

Possessive, but in a good way. Because, apparently, that existed.

Atlas was teaching me a lot of levels to relationships that I’d never had the chance to know before.

Sweet possessiveness.

Healthy disagreements.

Both parties’ feelings carrying equal weight.

Not getting slapped in the face for a simple mistake.

I wasn’t mad that the girls were paying a visit. If anything, it felt like a step in the right direction for us. Me meeting more of his very large extended family. Feeling like I belonged with them.

Even if, objectively, I was nothing like any of these women currently in my kitchen.

Fiona was gorgeous, covered in tattoos that seemed to maybe be hiding old self-harm scars. She was married to a tattoo artist, one of the Mallick brothers who was not involved in the family business, and ran her own phone sex empire.

Lea, one of her best friends, was married to Shane Mallick. The giant of a man who was the family’s enforcer. She’d been raised in a biker club and had escaped because of the abusive president—and her boyfriend.

Peyton was, like Fiona, covered in ink, and had bright mermaid-colored hair. She’d driven to the house in a hearse. And had earrings dangling from her ears that I was reasonably sure were vaginas disguised as flowers. She was, incredibly, a librarian, though, and I kind of loved the idea of future generations of kids seeing very alternative-looking people in places of learning.

Autumn, Peyton’s sister, and the owner of a sex toy store was, arguably—aside from Atlas’s sister Scotti— the most ‘normal’ of the bunch with her pretty looks, lack of tattoos, and blonde hair.

Apparently, though, their differences only rounded out this group. They seemed incredibly tightly bonded, laughing and teasing each other as Fiona made another round of ‘Boozy Hot Chocolate,’ even though most of us still hadn’t finished our first.

“Fee, slow it down. This shit is rich,” Lea said, waving her drink at Fiona.

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