Page 10 of Hyde

I thought we had something special, at least until the day Molly came to see me—unable to lift her red-brimmed eyes up to mine. I knew what she was going to say before she opened her mouth.

Turns out, Trinity had been hooking up with one of her professors at her university. The guy’s wife had caught wind of it and not only alerted the school, but called Trinity’s father, back in Indiana, as well as Molly.

When her professor begged his wife’s forgiveness and stayed with her, Trinity announced she was pregnant. She effectively hammered the final nail into that man’s marriage.

To this day, when I actually stop to say a prayer, I’m thankful that the DNA test proved I wasn’t the baby’s father. Because, yeah, the sniveling bastard tried to avoid his duties by pulling not only me, but an undergrad frat boy she was also fucking, in for the paternity test.

The problem withthatkind of betrayal when you live in a clubhouse? You never have a second to mourn your first love. I had to shrug it off and party with my brothers, without missing a beat.

God only knows what road name I would have been saddled with if I hadn’t.

While Molly and I were tight before that episode, the way she came and talked to me directly was what solidified our relationship in my mind. Trinity is her blood, the cousin she helped to raise. Me? I’m just a stray that Molly’s biological father happened to take under his wing.

That day, Molly showed me that our pseudo-sibling relationship was something she valued and didn’t want jeopardized because of what Trinity was doing, behind both of our backs.

Later on, when Royce shows up to dinner that night, not only are his four sons with him, but his mom and step-dad.

While the shock of his long-single mother hooking up with a grizzled old guy like Mack, originally threw Royce for a loop, there’s no denying how happy those two are together.

“Mack-Daddy, Mack-Daddy,” Royce’s youngest, Sean, is chanting as they enter.

Bree, Flint, and I aren’t in on the joke but there’s no mistaking the mischievous looks across the faces of Royce’s brood.

“Mack-Daddy, you gonna make me regret letting you drive the kids over?” Royce asks, raising an eyebrow as he tries to keep a stern look on his face.

“Okay, shoes off or Granny will withhold dessert!” Flint growls out the emptiest threat, ever.

“I have to say, your timing is impeccable,” Royce’s mother, Colleen, says to me when we get a moment alone. “I’d hate to see you get tied up with that girl again.”

“Ma! We talked about this,” Royce mumbles under his breath.

“No, you told me to leave it be. That doesn’t mean I agreed.” Colleen corrects him. “I understand Molly loves her, but Trinity only cares about Trinity, and Joe deserves better than that.”

The grunt that Flint lets out from where he’s taken his seat half-way across the room tells me there’s nothing wrong with his hearing.

Suddenly I feel like I’m under a microscope by every other adult in the room, and I throw my hands up in the air.

“Need some help dishing up dinner, Mom?” I call out to Bree. She’s peeking out of the kitchen but by the look on her face, I know she was waiting to see if I needed a life raft.

“Please, I’ve never been much good at cutting the ham,” she easily lies, and I eagerly accept the help she offers me.

“It’s easy, you give me half of it and slice it really thin for everyone else.”

My teasing gets various replies from everyone gathered and while I had invited them to be a buffer from Mom, I can see that backfiring now.

“I talked to Riley this morning,” Bree says, stacking the plates beside me. “She felt bad about how difficult dinner was last night.”

“Yeah, you know I love those kids, and seeing Leslee that upset tore my heart up,” I admit, as always, saying things to Bree that I’d never say to anyone else.

“Nice idea about the postcards,” she says, hip checking me when I shrug.

“I’m lucky Gunner won’t let her have a cell phone yet, she probably would have suggested a tracking app.” I chuckle with a shake of my head.

“You saved the night with the peas,” Bree counters with a laugh of her own. “Remember when she was little and you’d pick the peas out of the veggie blend for her?”

I give Mom a sideways glance, not realizing she knew about that and she rolls her eyes at me.

“You’ve always had the kindest heart,” she whispers.

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