I’d managed to find a second button down shirt for dinner. The first one was missing most of the buttons since Devyn ripped it off. That didn’t bother me in the slightest.
My hand was on Dev’s lower back, guiding her into the room that Ruck had made into a massive dining room for when we had get togethers like this. He’d poured over these plans with me and he’d really stressed having areas that would be beneficial to the families he hoped we’d one day have.
At the time we were discussing the blueprints, I’d thought he was nuts. These guys weren’t going to settle down. That had been almost a year ago. Now both Kilo and OD had old ladies, I was on the verge of convincing my girl to be mine—officially—and there were kids here at the clubhouse. There were going to be more soon once Camila, Rue, and Devyn had their babies. Until then it was just a couple of rowdy teenage boys, but theywere good practice for us. Easing the way into what it’ll be like having kids underfoot.
Shooting my brother a smirk when he glowered in my direction, I flipped him off. His scowl deepened and he mimed slitting his throat. It wasn’t a threat to put him out of his own misery. It was a promise that he was going to kill me for this. How any of this was my fault, I wasn’t sure. Because I brought a woman home?
If he wanted to blame someone it should be Kilo. It was his old lady who insisted on doing this dinner to welcome Devyn into the family. She’d been upset when we hadn’t been able to do the same for Rue when OD brought her home. But then again Rue had arrived with an unconscious mountain of a man that we’d needed to torture and kill, then we were so busy trying to track down her brother there hadn’t been time.
This dinner was for both women really, even though Rue was helping Camila with cooking it. Clearing my throat, I caught everyone’s attention. “Everybody, this is Devyn. Dev I’m about to throw a lot of names your way. None of them really matter. In a pinch you can just point and say ‘hey asshole’. They’ll respond.”
My brothers chuckled as they all waited to be introduced. “You’ve met Drifter, Strike, and Flir.” All three either gave nods or—in Flir’s case—raised his hand in acknowledgment. “And you know that asshole.”
Dev gave Relay the sweetest smile. It almost made me want to grab her and haul her out of the room. To take her upstairs so I was the only one she smiled at like that. I was the one who took care of all that nervous and anxious energy she had going on. And yes, we both got something out of that—fuck the sex had been amazing—but I wanted the smiles too. I glared at my brother, but he was too busyactuallysmiling at my girl.
“Fuck,” Code said loud enough to draw attention.
“What?” I growled.
He looked over at me. “No, sorry, it’s just…he never smiles.” The other two—why Hype, Merc, and Code were each other shadows made no sense to any of us, but that was just the way it was—nodded in agreement.
“I think he likes your old lady, Bolo,” Hype said, a sly smile spreading over his face.
“Not tonight,” Kilo said, giving them a hard look. “You fuck this up and Camila is going to be devastated. She’s about to pop any day and I’m trying to keep shit low stress.” Kilo was the one who looked stressed out, which was understandable.
“And if she goes into early labor because of it, I’m letting him have a free shot at each of you,” Ruck added.
“Those three idiots,” I muttered, scowling at them, “are Merc, Hype, and Code. They share a brain, so talking to one is the same as talking to all of them.”
“Code… The one you suspected of stealing Flir’s socks?” Dev asked with a mischievous smile.
The little troublemaker. Now that she wasn’t a vibrating ball of nerves and anger she’d found her sense of humor again. Maybe I needed to make sure she was stress free as often as possible. You know, forherbenefit. We wouldn’t mention that it also gave me exactly what I wanted, too. That was just an added bonus. Of course, right now there wasn’t much I wouldn’t trade to get one of those sweet smiles she’d used on my brother.
“Huh?” Code asked, giving me a confused look.
“Never mind,” I told him. “This is our president,” I told her, going down the line and continuing to introduce everyone, “Ruck.”
“You need anything while you’re here and Bolo’s not around, you come to me,” Ruck told her with a warm smile. “We’re glad to have you here with us.”
He certainly knew how to treat our families. Shit, he knew exactly how to treat us, too, and it wasn’t even close to the same as he was with the women and the two teenagers.
“Thank you,” Devyn told him.
“That’s Kilo. Camila is his old lady, and Overdrive or OD, he belongs to Rue.”
OD opened his mouth to object to that, but then the two teenage boys and very large Rottie burst in through the doors. I reached over and grabbed Dev, sliding her over in front of me—and out of the way of the chaos—so that she was protected from being jostled as they bolted in.
“Ryan! Teddy! No running!”
They skidded to a stop as Camila stuck her head out of the door that separated the communal kitchen from the dining room. They gave her twin smiles of innocence. She was already suited to motherhood. She gave them each a look that had the teens settling down. As sweet as she was, she could rule a dinner party with an iron fist, too.
“That means you too, Norman!” Rue shouted from somewhere in the kitchen.
The dog ducked his head and slunk under the dining room table.
“No, not on my-” Flir broke off with a heavy sigh. He glared over at OD. “I don’t think you’re spending enough time with your dog. He’s bothering me more and more.”
OD picked up some kind of finger food that was out on the table and popped it into his mouth. “Not my fault. He likes you… For some reason.”
