Page 74 of Wait For Me

I smiled down at my nephew who fell asleep in my arms twenty minutes ago as my boyfriend continued to have this awful conversation with my brother.

“He’s so precious. How could she put him in danger like that? They could have hurt him just because of who you are.” My words tumbled out before I could bite them back.

“She brought Nova on, so at some point she must have felt bad or been worried about him,” Jared added.

“Who the hell knows. On the days that Nova had to go to school, she was still fucking taking him with her.” My heart hurt for my brother, because the more he learned the sicker he felt about it all.

“Let’s focus on something else,” I told them both.

“You’re right. We should focus on how quickly I can get you knocked up with one of those.”

I glanced up at Jared and noticed his features had relaxed into a soft sort of adoration as he watched me gently rock my nephew from side to side. I could see that. How many times when I was younger had I imagined holding his baby and having him look at me like that, with so much love in his eyes?

“Don’t talk about fucking my sister in front of me.”

“I was talking about her having my babies, but read into that whatever you need to, asshole.”

“Shh, you idiots are going to wake this precious boy, and I’m not going to stick around when he’s cranky,” I warned, even though it wasn’t true. I’d still be there because I promised my brother. Nova had other things to do, and I was pretty sure those “other things” had something to do with a certain club enforcer who couldn’t keep his eyes off her.

“All right, Auntie Viv is here, give me that baby!”

I turned to see both Viv and Uncle Mack standing in the middle of Kip’s entryway. “I didn’t know y’all were coming over too,” I told them.

“That’s because you weren’t supposed to. Now, get your booty up, give me that baby, and get the hell out of here.”

“Wow, that was abrupt,” I whined to my aunt.

“Come on Twinkles, we have somewhere to be,” Jared told me as he took hold of my hand after my aunt stole my nephew from me. I didn’t bother asking where we were going, since it was obvious that everyone was trying to surprise me. I turned back to see my brother staring at the wall, with a lost look on his face.

“Can he come with us?” I whispered to Jared. He turned back too.

“Grab a bag, man.”

“Can’t. You forget that I have a kid here?”

“We can take care of him for a few days,” Aunt Viv assured him. “Can’t we sweet boy?” She cooed to my nephew. It sucked that they had never been able to have children because my aunt and uncle were the two people in my life who were most suited for parenthood.

“Where are you going?” Kip asked.

“I didn’t even know we were going somewhere,” I told him.

Kip’s phone dinged and he glanced down to see a text before he looked back up at Jared. “Yeah, okay. Give me a few minutes.” He turned back to Mack and Viv as the worried father look settled into his features, creating deeper lines than he appeared to have before. “Are you sure about this?”

“Positive. You know we won’t let anything happen to him while you’re away and I’m sure Breakneck will be over to protect Nova if she’s here, so you don’t have to worry about the house sitting empty either.”

“Okay, if you’re sure.”

“Get your shit together and go, for fuck’s sake,” Uncle Mack ordered him.

“Got lucky, there was another seat available,” Jared called out. “Same flight, two rows back from us.”

“Great,” Kip answered back. Five minutes later, he had a backpack slung over his back.

“That’s all you need?” I questioned, as I hoped it would lead to a hint of where we were headed.

“I can travel light too. You forget, I have experience packing for road trips on two wheels.”

“Fine. Whatever, don’t let anything slip then.” I stuck my tongue out at Kip and gave a wink to Jared as he tucked me into his side and led me out to his truck. If we were headed to the airport to fly somewhere, it suddenly made sense why we brought the truck over to Kip’s place rather than his motorcycle or my Beast. Neither of us would leave our babies at the airport for strangers to fondle, or worse.

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