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"No man," Donovan said as he came into the kitchen, pressing a hand to the center of Seeley's chest when he tried to walk into the living room. "Trust me, you don't want to go in there right now," he said, giving Seeley big, traumatized eyes. "I heard things out there that I can never un-hear," he added. "Did you know their tits crack?" he asked, eyes going wide as his lips thinned out. "'Cause they crack. They have to use special creams on them and shit. There were pictures on the paperwork that came with the creams, Seel, pictures," he added, shaking his head. "I'm never going to look at nipples the same way again."
Huck and I shared a smirk when Seeley looked as equally horrified as Donovan. It was a look we shared often when one of the single guys discovered something new about marriage or pregnancy or child-rearing. It was one that said I can't wait for them to experience it firsthand.
The girls were having a baby shower.
Not for Harmon or Sass, who each had several months to go still.
No, this shower was for Ayanna.
Who was pregnant with twins that were due within the next few weeks.
"Jesus Christ," McCoy said, rushing in from the living room as well, checking over his shoulder as he went. "Careful, they want blood right now," he said, looking around at us.
"For what? What did you do?" Teddy asked.
"Well, Gus somehow got them all riled up over the video call about how unfair it is that we don't have to carry the babies."
Gus had been a notoriously miserable pregnant woman. She'd had her second baby a couple months before, and was still in the "not getting nearly enough sleep" stage, making her crankier than usual.
The back door opened, bringing in Remy. "Hey, I found someone hanging out by the gates. I figured I'd bring him in through the back, where it's safe," he said, glancing toward the front of the house with dread.
As he did that, though, whoever he was talking about moved into the kitchen.
Eddie.
"Heard you reproduced," Eddie said, giving me a nod. "Congratulations. Just what the world needed. More pretty fuckers," he said, shooting me a smirk.
"I'm surprised to see you here after so long," I admitted.
In the end, Donovan had shown up for the open house. So had a bunch of Seeley's friends, and some random other small-time players in the area.
But Eddie had been nowhere to be found.
"Yeah, man, me too. That boss of mine, he decided he needed that miserable wife back. And that has made him miserable again. Said he doesn't have any interest in helping me out anymore."
"So you want to be a biker?" Huck asked. "That's a big risk with immigration."
"I figured I'd ask to work in the repair shop for now. See if I can work on getting my shit legit on my own. Or score me a hot green card wife like a certain Cuban bastard," he said, shrugging.
The Shop, named aptly, had been open and running for a while. It had been more successful than any of us had anticipated. Which meant it went from a side-gig of ours, each of us pulling some shifts back like we used to, to needing to hire actual full-time mechanics to handle the load.
"We could use the hands. Especially someone who is good at the upgrades for racing cars. Saskia's business has kept us even busier since it opened."
Sass had ended up running into some roadblocks in getting the building next to The Shop since it had been caught up in a lengthy court case between feuding business brothers. But once she finally got the go-ahead, she'd thrown everything she had into it, getting it up and running within two months of getting the keys.
Which had been good timing.
Because just two months later, we found out she was expecting.
Everything got thrown into overdrive then.
Huck had his addition on the main clubhouse, tucking away Harmon and Ax in their own private space, away from all the partying and strange people in and out. But we had still been in the room I'd always been in. There was no way we were going to be able to raise a baby in it.
In the end, we'd gone with the solution that made the most sense. Sass and I bought the house next door that Harmon had lived in when she'd met Huck. We'd both decided we wanted to stay close. We wanted our kids and the other club kids to grow up together, create deep, lasting familial bonds. And we wanted to be close to a safe space if some shit was going down. Which was a valid concern given it seemed like we'd been handling one shitstorm of a situation after the other.
"Shit. Incoming. Make yourselves useful," Huck recommended, turning to start doing the dishes as McCoy and Seeley started to clear the kitchen table, and Donovan seemed to be inspecting the structural integrity of the wall.
