make this woman be what she was born to be.
Our sinning saint.
When she strode over to me after Bridges walked out, practically skipping with her glee, her head was tilted to the side as she saw me watching her.
The instant she was close enough, I shoved my hands in the back pockets of her short shorts and hauled her over to me.
“You look gloomy,” she stated brightly.
“Nope. Just pensive.”
That had her narrowing her eyes. “Why?”
“Just thinking about your tats.”
She stiffened. “You still want me to have yours, don’t you?”
I smirked. “Without a doubt.” I leaned down and nipped her earlobe. “I want it there. Behind your ear.”
She squirmed in my arms. “That’s gonna hurt.”
“All the best things do, babe.”
“True.” She stared up at me. “If I get mine there, then you get yours there too.”
I grinned. “Deal.”
“I have something to show you.”
“You do? Something good?” I squeezed her ass cheeks to tell her I was joking.
“Hopefully.”
She pulled away then grabbed my arm and tugged me over to the reception desk. I heard the buzzing of the tattoo machine and saw that Saint had removed his shirt and was laying down on the seat, having Ama’s name and her flower inked above his heart. The amaryllis was dripping ruby-colored blood that puddled underneath her name.
When she shuffled some papers, then dropped her sketch of my tattoo there for me, I felt my heart stop.
My first reaction?
“It’s perfect.”
My momma was there, her face pristine with the dark bob that had framed her delicate features. Her large eyes stared up at me, and underneath her chin was the egg timer. Ticking away, the sands of time disappearing too fast for her.
I gritted my teeth as the pain of loss, so recent after Kenzie’s betrayal, hit me hard.
Shaking my head, I whispered again, “It’s perfect.”
She was there, like I knew she always would be, at my side, clinging to me. She raised up on tiptoe again, and whispered back, “You’re perfect.”
I dropped a kiss on her nose. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Being you.”
❖
Saint
“What you been doing?”
I winced at my dad’s question, and when my stepmom, Dorie, arched a brow at me, I just shrugged.
“That isn’t an answer, Lawrence.”
Blowing out a breath, I murmured, “Been hanging at Ink’s place. Keeping Ama and her brothers safe.”
“I knew that. I was at the council meeting when that talk went down,” my dad argued, “but what I want to know is what you’ve been doing.”
My brow puckered. “What are you talking about?”
“I think he wants to know if you’re boning me,” Ama interjected politely, her eyes wide and her face expressionless.
Before I could choke on my coffee, Wheels, my dad, was snorting into his. “Well, I wouldn’t have put it like that, Ama.”
“Wouldn’t you?” Dorie replied with a wicked grin at him.
“Nope. Not to my Prez’s girl, and…” He pulled a face. “I mean, I don’t even know what you’re going to be to me yet.”
My mouth worked uselessly for a few seconds as I tried to process just how messed up this conversation was. When Ama was about to speak, intending on saying only God knew what, I quickly inserted, “Dad, it’s a little soon to be talking about this stuff.”
He slouched back in his La-Z-Boy and shrugged as he settled his mug on his jean-clad knee. “Not according to Ink.”
“Why? What’d he say?” I grumbled.
“That he was wifing her.”
Ama’s eyes flashed. “That’s what he said?”
My dad nodded, his gaze flashing between her and me. “That’s it. Pretty much word for word. I wanna know how you feel about that, Lawrence.”
I winced, because the question didn’t only catch me on the raw, but I didn’t even know what I felt about that. “I guess I’m glad,” I said hesitantly.
“Glad that another brother is wifing your woman?” He cocked a brow at me, and I knew Dorie, God love her, nudged him with her foot even though I couldn’t see it from the sofa across the room.
Dorie and my dad may only have gotten together because my birth mom had dumped me on him when I was five, but that didn’t mean their relationship had all been about the convenience. I had three sisters to prove otherwise.
Three sisters who were somewhere in the house, giggling and shit—I could hear them from down here in the place my pop had bought to make a family home for us when I was young.
I could remember him back then. He’d been young and brash, pretty much like me now I guessed, but when