Page 51 of The Wild Charge

“Yes.”

“Uh, what about…?” He nodded toward the couch.

“I’ll handle him.”Because I know him, because he listens to me, because he’s mine, mine, mine.

“Sweet! Okay, cool, um, tomorrow okay? I still gotta unload a buncha pallets down at the nursery.”

“That’s fine.”

“Awesome! I’ll text you, yeah?”

“Sure.”

He bounded off like an excited child.

Reese turned around to find that the common room was empty save the two of them. This was the time of day when the girls ran errands, or went to work elsewhere. Now that Jasmine had stepped down as head Lean Bitch, Chanel had taken her place; the others, like Stephanie, cycled in for parties and the occasional request, but didn’t hang around on a day-to-day basis.

After a long ride, Reese was glad of the quiet. The clubhouse was cool, and fresh-smelling from a recent mopping. Tenny had found a sitcom rerun to watch, the volume low, his posture relaxed now that they were away from the prospects.

Reese went to the kitchen, gathered two sodas, and went to sit beside him.

To his surprise, Tenny took the offered Coke, leaned forward to set in on the coffee table, and, when he sat back, slung his arm casually around Reese’s shoulders and dragged him across the couch cushion and half into his lap.

This was new.

Tenny was surprisingly touchy during and right after sex. Reese had fallen asleep last night with Tenny heavy and sweat-damp beneath him. But they didn’t touch out in the open like this, audience or no. They didn’t sit entangled, arms around shoulders, hands resting on thighs.

Reese tensed a moment, shocked, and then relaxed, because touching Tenny was nice, even if it wasn’t leading anywhere.

He settled against his side, opened his drink, and then let it rest on Tenny’s knee as he leaned against him. Tenny’s fingers fiddled with the sleeve of his t-shirt on the far side, his arm heavy and warm against the back of Reese’s neck.

They watched TV in silence a moment, before Tenny sucked in a shallow breath and said, nonchalant, “I want to go to dinner tonight.”

“Okay,” Reese agreed. “Where?”

He could hear him swallow. “I don’t know. I’ll think of something.” He soundednervous, which was silly, because they ate dinner all the time. What was there to be nervous about?

Fourteen

How’d he take it?Axelle texted about ten minutes after Fox’s bike had started up in the driveway and pulled down the street.

Eden dashed the last of her very unwanted tears with a fingertip and responded.As expected. Typical Charlie.

Yikes. Sorry:(

Sorry indeed.

She tossed her phone onto the bed and slumped back into the chair at her dressing table. The tears she could blame on hormones. But the tightness in her chest, the crushing weight of disappointment, was all her – and really, she should have known better. Fox might as well have hadDaddy Issuesstamped across his forehead in bold block letters. His loathing of his father had, she’d always suspected, translated into a disinclination to fatherhood. Theirs had never been the sort of relationship in which picket fences and babies were discussed. She’d never had much of an opinion about children; when she worked for the government, she hadn’t had time, and now that she was private, but working alongside the Dogs, it seemed a dangerous liability.

The other old ladies had children…but their husbands were good fathers.

Charlie was…well. Indifferent, she supposed.

She wasn’t sure yet howshefelt about it.

Her phone trilled with a Facetime call. Michelle.

Eden tried in vain to tidy her hair before he answered. “Hullo, you.”

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