could have killed Cum Shot, but he wanted River to do it. I’m guessing, though. I didn’t know them any better than I did my mom or my girlfriends or my club president. Why would I think I can read someone like Shelby, then?
“I’ll see you around,” I mutter and head for the stairs.
Shelby says nothing, sniffling as she gets teary-eyed over my rejection. Becklyn pulled the same dramatics when she wasn’t getting her way.
I walk up the narrow stairs, ducking my head since it’s a close call around the halfway mark. On the main level, I hear voices and smell food coming from my right. The front door is to my left. I turn toward the exit. Then I stop at the thought of this house being where my kid grows up.
I keep telling myself Shelby isn’t really pregnant. That’s another con. Becklyn was pregnant six times. She was always pregnant when I was ready to dump her thieving, cheating ass. She’d cry and ask me to help her. Didn’t I care about her and the baby? It was a con, but I always backed down. After all, what if she wasn’t full of shit that time? My mom got tossed aside when she wound up pregnant by that married man in Tennessee. He was a player, and she wasn’t his first side fuck who got herself knocked up. Maybe if he had helped her out, my mother wouldn’t have turned into such a bitter kook.
I think of Shelby downstairs, sniffling over her hurt feelings. I try to imagine my kid inside her. How little must that fucking thing be? Sighing, I glance upward and notice a cat tile design on the ceiling.
“What the fuck?” I mutter.
“It’s a cat,” Maverick says from my left.
Glancing in his direction, I hadn’t noticed the sneaky fucker sitting right there in a weird little front room.
“No shit,” I mutter.
“Are you leaving?”
“Yes.”
“Max is making pulled pork enchiladas, and Shane is grilling steaks. You should stay for dinner.”
“No.”
“I get why you feel no trust for the Reapers. I also understand why my brother and Shelby are soft on you,” he says, standing in that smooth, ballet-like way the Majors move. “I might be sympathetic to your plight, but I’m only loyal to the club and my family. Right now, I don’t feel as if you belong with either. If that doesn’t change soon, just know I’ll watch over your kid after you’re gone.”
Normally, if a man threatens me—even quietly like the Reapers’ enforcer—I’ll puff out my chest and remind the motherfucker of how I could squash him. Except those tactics don’t work on the Majors. They don’t win fights with brute force. They have all that fancy fucking finesse. Plus, if things get too rough and they need help, they have their daddy back in Ellsberg to ride in and save them.
“Is Shelby happy about the baby?” I ask.
Maverick’s blank expression turns into a frown. “Why are you asking me?”
“Because talking to her is hard when she isn’t wearing pants.”
I see a hint of maybe a smile on his otherwise cold face. Maverick doesn’t have his brother's calm vibe. He’s more like a curled-up rattlesnake, deceptively quiet but always ready to attack.
“She’s scared of pregnancy and motherhood, but, yeah, she’s happy about the baby.”
I say nothing. He isn’t my friend, and we’re not bullshitting about sports. He wants to kill me, and I don’t want to be killed. Killing him isn’t an option. Since I’m not looking to die, what’s there to talk about?
I turn around and walk back to the basement. As I return downstairs, Shelby glances over her shoulder, teary-eyed and pouting. But she doesn’t show any relief at the sight of me.
“I never wanted this,” I say, and she spins around in her chair. “The relationship crap. I want to fuck you. I think you’re hot. The sex is what I want, but you have my kid in you. Now I got all this shit I never wanted and none of the stuff I do want.”
Shelby wipes her wet cheeks and sizes me up. “You want me to be a booty call?”
“I never want another relationship. I had enough of that shit before prison. None of it matters. It never lasts. Why pretend for a kid?”
“I don’t want you to pretend to care about me, but I’m not against that booty call idea.”
Her words are a kick in the gut. She never acts like I expect. “Why?”
“Because you’re the only man who’s