Page 28 of Static

"She's Taylor's friend from school," Priest answered. "You're not her father. His name is Jim and he works over at the dump."

The relief on Toxic's face was so palpable I almost felt it myself.

"Jesus f-"

Priest cleared his throat.

Toxic swallowed the word and glared over at Butcher. "Don't ever do that to me again, you asshole! Shit, I'm sober now. Like really sober." He ran a hand through his hair. I'd never seen him look so stressed out.

"Pay back for making me be your wingman with the grandmother," Butcher said with a smirk.

"Dick," Toxic muttered, but there was a grin growing on his face. "At least I don't have a granny trying to jump my coc-"

"Toxic," Priest snapped. He looked over where the three girls were staring at him.

He cleared his throat. "Chicken. Jump on my chicken." He checked to see if the girls accepted the change in word. When they didn't immediately start asking questions, he wandered off, probably to order five years’ worth of rubbers online.

"Should she be staying the night?" I asked Priest, pointing toward Taylor's friend.

"Yeah, we're letting the girls have this one last sleep over. Who knows when they'll get the next one."

I nodded in understanding. The kids here were cooped up a lot because of everything that was going down. The women, too. Thankfully, the women were taking it well and helped the kids adjust. We did our best, too, but there was only so much we could do when safety dictated our every move.

I walked over and sat next to Butcher. "Where'd you get the photo?"

Butcher snorted. "Cynic sent it to me." He took it from me when I handed it to him.

Chuckling, I shook my head. "You're a devious bastard."

"It was too easy." He shrugged and got up, clapping me on the shoulder. "Let's go get a drink."

"It's too early for a beer," I told him.

"I need something to keep me busy until tomorrow night," he insisted.

Spending the next few hours killing time with alcohol was easy enough. Toxic eventually ordered his condoms and came out to join us. We started up a poker game with the girls and I grinned as I watched Toxic and Butcher teach Priest's girls, and their friend, the most efficient ways to cheat. Taylor was already pretty adept at it, but they were teaching them to deal from the bottom of the deck.

Movement caught my eye, and I stood up as Gwen came down the stairs. I went up to her and took notice of the exhaustion still on her face. Frowning, I reached out and rubbed my thumb lightly under her eye. There were faint bruises there, telling me she hadn't gotten much sleep. "Are you alright?" I dropped my hand away from her face, realizing what I'd done. Every eye in the place was on us.

She smiled at me. "I'm fine."

She hadn't flinched away from my touch. I was counting that as a huge win. There was a time I couldn't reach for her without her shying away. Who could blame her? Her piece of shit ex-husband had nearly killed her.

If Jordan hadn't been there that night and ran in to help, Gwen—and mostly likely Sean and Grace—would be dead. Just thinking of what could have happened if Gwen and Jordan hadn't put up a fight against that fucker made rage fire through my veins.

Most days, I wanted to dig him up out of the ground and destroy what was left of his remains, then piss on his bones. He was lucky he'd been killed in prison. What I would have done to him would have made him pray for death.

And I hardly even knew Gwen back then. But each day I'd gotten to know her and her kids more and more and before I even realized, I was in so deep there was no getting out. I was finally acknowledging it.

We still needed to have that talk, but with the kids being sick and us gearing up to take on Fremont, I wasn't sure when I would get a chance. It wasn't one of those things where I could steal five minutes of her time. I needed to sit her down and make her understand that what was between us was real. That I would do anything for her. For her kids. Fuck. It started with babysitting and ended with me being so head over in heels in love with all three of them, I couldn't risk losing them to someone else.

It didn't matter that it would be safer and easier if Gwen fell in love with that fictional schmuck I'd made up in my mind. I wanted her. I wanted those kids to be mine. To help raise them. To show them that even though the world can be a shitty place, your family made it all worthwhile. Your family protected you.

"Where are you headed?"

"I have an appointment I have to keep. I asked Lockout if it was okay," she replied.

"I can take you-"

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