Kiddo
I got back to my apartment an hour later, giving a quick nod to Bandit who was leaning against my front door, unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.
I angled my chin up at him. "You gonna light that or just make out with it for a while?"
The cigarette bounced with the guttural grunt that exhaled from between his parted lips. "Your old lady damn near chopped my balls off for even thinking about lighting it."
I cocked my brow at him. "But you're outside."
Another grunt. "Something about: If she was gonna be a prisoner, she at least wanted the window open for fresh air."
Ahhhh. And that fresh air did not include second hand smoke.
A smile twitched at my mouth. Sounded like Tricia.
"Have the dogs pissed yet?"
"Yeah." Bandit kicked off the door where he was leaning, standing upright. "I walked 'em for you. Cute lil fuckers if you ask me."
"They are." I wasn't sure I could afford to keep all of them, but it was good to know that if I needed to find homes for them, some of my brothers might want one.
And Bandit wasn't wrong. They were cute as fuck.
He tugged a lighter from his back pocket and lit the cigarette, inhaling with a sigh.
I jerked my head toward the stairs. "You better get the hell out of here with that thing."
His smile widened. "Yeah, yeah. But now you're here to absorb her wrath."
He slowly ambled down the stairs, the breeze catching the smoke and blowing it back up toward me.
He wasn't wrong about that. Bandit was two hundred and fifty pounds of pure muscle, whereas Tricia was one hundred and fifteen pounds, soaking wet. Yet I knew which of the two of them terrified me more. And it sure wasn't the chain smoker.
Speak of the devil... or rather, the angel—the front door swung open, revealing Tricia standing there, hand on her hip, toe tapping impatiently. Her hair was piled high in a twisted bun on top of her head, her eyes red and wild. "What did I say about smoking!?"
Her expression softened, hand lowering from her hip as she recognized me. "Oh."
"Bandit's off the clock." With a twitch of my head, I told him to get the hell out of here before she ripped the cigarette out of his mouth. He didn't waste any time and scrambled down the stairs.
It was almost laughable, seeing a tattooed man as burly and muscular as Bandit running away from Tricia with his tail between his legs.
"I expect you to have nicotine gum next time you babysit me!" Tricia called down the stairs after him.
I could've stopped her if I'd wanted. Lots of my brothers believed in some archaic shit like keeping your woman in line or whatever. But the truth was if Tricia was going to be my old lady and stick around for the long haul, then she needed to be able to hold her own with my brothers.
And it was obvious she had no problem there. Smirking, I remembered the time Sam and I took a couple of her Barbies so we could have hostages for our GI Joe's to save.
She was only six at the time, but she chased us around the yard, beating us with her stuffed elephant.
She'd always been a force.
You know it, Sam's voice said in my head.
"What are you smiling at?" Tricia narrowed her eyes suspiciously at me. She clenched her fists at her sides, combative, ready to strike. Figuratively... and maybe even literally, too. "You think this is funny?"
YOU ARE READING
The Prospect
RomanceKiddo almost has everything he's ever wanted. As a Prospect with Boston's notorious car club, the Harrison Street Crew, he's finally found the family he never had as a kid. The only thing missing? The love of his life since their first kiss in middl...
