“But won’t you stay for breakfast, Tank? I’d be more than happy to make you a plate.”
“No, thank you. I’m good. The ol’ lady’s at home with our daughter. Best not to leave them waiting.”
“Okay.” Tina looked confused yet resigned. “I’ll see you around.”
He said goodbye and left, and she turned to me.
“What was that about?” I asked.
Tina sat, pulling me down beside her. “To be honest, I’m not sure. He sat down and introduced himself, told me about his wife and their FIVE-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER.” She whisper-yelled the last part.
I understood why she would find that part unsettling. “Hehas a five-year-old daughter. Hm. His wife must be much younger.”
“You think?”
She shook herself, doubtlessly trying to free herself from society’s constraints to believe she’d be okay with that. Tina had always cared what people thought of her, and now that she’d aligned herself with this biker club, she’d worry about how society saw them, too. I didn’t understand why. I valued humanity overall, but I’d destroy everyone else to save the handful of people in my circle. Rabbit was now among my people.
“But it’s fine,” Tina continued, interrupting my thoughts. “They’re consenting adults, none of my business, socially acceptable.”
I bit my lip so I wouldn’t smile and poured myself a cup of coffee from the decanter on the table. Finished, I angled it toward her, but she shook her head, claiming she’d had enough.
“Where are your guys?” I asked.
“Kaos is in the kitchen with Rabbit.”
“Kaos pulled kitchen duty the morning after he got patched in?”
“Yep. It’s a mandatory tradition.”
“And Dylan?”
“He stayed with Carisa last night.”
Carisa was one of Kaos’s cousins who was already getting buddy-buddy with my sister. I narrowed my eyes at Tina, letting her know I meant business. “My position as Dylan’s favorite aunt will not be usurped.”
She held up her hands to ward me off. “Relax. Nobody’s trying to usurp you. I would have asked you to take him had you not been otherwise occupied.” Wiggling her eyebrows suggestively, she added, “So. Are you and Rabbit together now?”
“We didn’t actually talk about it.”
Her jaw dropped. “You didn’t over-analyze it from every direction, calculate the likelihood of it falling apart, and prepare a pie graph?”
“First of all, I’ve been analyzing relationship data for the past four weeks. And pie charts are for infants; it was a stochastic model. But last night, we just… physically reconnected.”
“You hooked up.”
I nodded. “Several times.”
“I really want to girl talk this out with you, but I’m terrified you’ll drop one detail too many, traumatizing me for life. Besides, I have news to share. You’ll never guess what happened last night before Kaos was patched in.”
“Matt hanged himself in jail?”
Her eyebrows shot up. She looked at me like I had a giant spider on my forehead and frowned. “No. I wouldn’t be excited about that.”
“Right. Of course not.” Moderately disappointed my sister didn’t share my enthusiasm to see her ex six feet under, I tamped down my fixation. “What happened then?”
“Darius signed the paperwork to adopt Dylan.”
It was my turn to stare at her like she was sporting an arachnid headband. “You’re letting a stranger adopt your child?”