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“So, you want to be a possessive asshole, but you’re not offering yourself up either?” She made a noise that let me know she was more than disgruntled as her head tilted back to soak in the morning sun. “You can just admit that you don’t want to be with me. I’ll understand, but when you do, that means you don’t have a right to say anything about who I’m with or who makes me an offer. You don’t get to have it both ways just because you accidentally knocked me up when you thought I was someone else.”
I groaned at the way she made that last bit sound. It was true, but it made it sound like I’d known it was her but pretended it wasn’t. She couldn’t have been further from the truth.
“Kim, I don’t know you that well. That’s all I’m saying. Don’t you think it would be best for our kid if our focus was on how to be friends and communicate well with one another first? We both came from shitty situations with our families. Don’t you want better for our kid? We need to focus on being friends, so we can be the best parents for him.” I pointed to where her hand rested on her barely noticeable baby bump.
“Or her,” she corrected.
“Or her.” I smiled at the way she looked triumphant when I admitted the baby could be a girl. “I want to put them first, then worry about us. If something happens along the way, then great, that will be even better for our kid, if you know… Well, if both parents are together and around to show them what a healthy relationship is like.”
“I think that sounds really good, Tripp.”
“Good. The other thing is going to be harder to process.”
“What other thing?” I didn’t miss the wariness in her voice as she asked.
“Wicked gave you a time limit, Sparkles threatened to claim you.”
“No, he offered to claim me, if that’s what I wanted.” She smiled at the memory and it damn near drove me mad again. The guy looked like he was halfway to being a zombie that sat up and walked away from a battlefield, and Kim was making moon eyes over him. I shook off the imagery, knowing Sparkles wasn’t that bad, but still.
“Anyway,” I muttered to get us back on track. “I’m going to claim you in front of the club.”
“Nope, you’re not.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“I don’t want your pity claim. And they’ll know that’s exactly what it is.”
I growled a furious noise into the air and swiped my hand through the grass by my leg. “It’s not a pity claim. You’re carrying my child. How about we call it what it is, a trial basis claiming or whatever. You don’t need to be inked. I’ll get you a cut, and if anyone asks, we’ll just say you can’t get inked until after you give birth because of the chance of infection.”
“How did you know you’re not supposed to do that?”
“I asked around.” I had spoken to her doctor, outside of his normal office hours, to get some answers I needed about pregnancy in general. Her doctor and I kicked back and had a couple beers, despite his initial protests that I was too young to drink. Once I told him,“I’m too young to be a father too, but here we are while I ask you all sorts of bullshit questions about a baby who shouldn’t be on the way.”After that, he handed me a beer and talked about pregnancy and tattoos, sex, childbirth and what Kim might be feeling right now. Physically anyway.
I’ll get you a cut to wear that says you’re my property. We’ll work on being friends. If, after the baby comes, we both decide it’s not going to work between us, we’ll figure out where to go from there. How does that sound?”
“It sounds like a huge thing for you to decide when you don’t know someone. Taking an old lady is akin to marriage, Tripp.”
“Yeah, well people get married for all sorts of reasons and when it doesn’t work out, they get a fucking divorce. This is no different, minus all the legal paperwork.” I grabbed her hand and squeezed it gently. “I’m worried about making sure you’re protected. No matter what happens between us, you are always going to be just as important as my kid. I want to make sure you have the same level of respect and protection. I need to know that my child’s parents are both covered by the club in case anything happens to either of us.”
She nodded her head without looking back up at me. “Okay.”
“Okay?” I questioned, not believing she actually agreed.
“That’s what I said. You can be the one who breaks the news about how it’s all for show to my brother. Somehow, I don’t think that’s gonna go over very well. If you want to claim me, try getting to know one another, and see where it goes from there, then that’s what we’ll do.”
“I guess that’s the least I can do, but for the record, I don’t think Mack’s gonna have a problem with what we’ve agreed to.”
“No, it will only encourage him to keep pushing us together, though.”
“We can handle it,” I told her. Though, if I was being completely honest, I wasn’t so sure about that.
Chapter 16
Kim
November
“Tripp!” Ratchet called the minute his far-too sexy ass came into the clubhouse. Since Ratchet had parked his ass in front of me at the bar, Tripp threw me a grin as he sat down to see what Prez wanted.
