Page 15 of The Devil's Scars

“I’m glad you’re here. Really glad.”

“Yeah.” She brushed away a few more tears that bubbled up. “Me too.”

**

Kansas, Ice and Jinx stood shoulder-to-shoulder, staring down at the crib. They were way the fuck out of their element here, and they knew it, but they were going to get Zee’s baby girl the nicest damn crib in the place. If only they knew what the hell they were looking for.

To their relief, the changing table had been straightforward – it was just a table that extended out from some shelves for stuff like diapers and cream and clothes. Even the high chair had been easy enough: they’d just picked the most expensive one, one with all the bells and whistles, like a sliding tray, shoulder and waist straps, decorated and padded backs that could be changed. But the crib was a whole different thing, and they were feeling the pressure.

Jinx turned from the crib to the other men. “This one?”

Lost at sea, they shrugged.

“So… this one?” Jinx repeated.

“What about this one?” Kansas said, wandering over to yet another crib that looked exactly the same.

“It’s the same,” Jinx pointed out.

“No, it’s not.” Kansas read the sign attached to the bars. “On this one, the side goes up and down.”

“Oh.” Jinx blinked. “Does that matter?”

“I fucking don’t know.”

A gasp behind them caught their attention, and they turned around to see a little girl with her mother.

“Mommy, he said a swear,” the kid whispered, horrified and delighted. “A really bad one.”

“Yeah. Sorry about that,” Kansas mumbled. “Just trying to figure out these goddamned… these gosh-darned cribs. They all look the same, you see.”

Bianca Morgan stared at the three of them, even more taken aback than her daughter at what was standing in front of her. All three men were sporting tattoos and huge boots, they were all wearing matching leather vest things with patches that read ‘Road Devils’. She almost passed out when she realized that she was face-to-face with real, live motorcycle gang members. The urge to grab her daughter and run was pretty strong, but she didn’t want to piss them off.

“You’re – you’re crib shopping?” Bianca asked them, aiming for terrified politeness. “For – for one of your babies?”

“Naw, hon,” Kansas said in his rough voice. “Not one of ours. A friend’s.”

The woman in the trim little cardigan and with a messy ponytail blinked at being called ‘hon’ by a guy with a shaved head and a neck tattoo.

“Ummm. Well.” Despite herself, she walked a bit closer, thinking that it wouldn’t hurt to help them a bit. “We bought this one for Linda’s baby brother.”

“You’re Linda?” Kansas said to the girl.

She nodded shyly, clutching her Mom’s hand.

“What’s good about this one is that the whole frame moves up and down,” Bianca said. “So when the baby is small, you can keep it all the way up, but when the baby starts to sit up or even stand up, you can lower the frame and mattress to the floor. That way, the baby can’t fall out or climb out and hurt themselves, and your friend doesn’t need to buy a whole new crib.”

The men stared down at the frame, thinking about that.

“That sounds good,” Kansas said.

“So this one?” Jinx said for the third time.

“Yeah,” Kansas said, and Jinx wrote down the code on his order form. “Now we need sheets and – what was it?”

“Bumpers,” Ice said, speaking for the first time.

“What are bumpers?” Kansas asked Bianca.

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