Page 31 of Lash’s Love

“I know, sweet girl.” He gives her another kiss on the forehead. Then goes to pay attention to Lucas in his arms. “Now I can’t wait for you boys to get a little bigger so you can spend the night with all of us. Alright kids, you ready to go?” He hands Lucas to me as he goes to grab Delaney.

“YES!!” All the kids yell as they rush to the door.

“Be good!” Sophie yells after them.

After the door shut the house got extremely quiet except for the cooing sounds coming from the boys.

“Well now we can talk now that the kids are gone. You want to tell me what’s going on? And you can stay over on that side of the counter to avoid trying to use that extremely sexy body against me.”

“I don’t know why you think something is going on Toby. I just made new friends, that's all.”

I sigh, “Fine. You don’t want to tell me what’s going on, don’t. But you better be safe. Because I’ve come so close to losing you on more than one occasion recently and I’m not feeling that way again. I’ve installed better security at home. We are getting ourselves some dogs, we can go out today to pick up the ones I chose. Also I updated your security system and shit at Daisy’s. There will be no fighting me on any of this because you refuse to tell me what you are up to and this is the only way I will be at peace with that.”

“Fine. We will get all the dogs you want, now will you drop it? I don’t know why I can’t make new friends. I mean fuck, Toby.”

I look at her across the counter, “Because you know those women are not ordinary women. I know that something is going on. If you want to keep it to yourself for now, fine. You better not be doing anything dangerous or stupid.”

“Yeah whatever, when are you going back to work? I also want to get back to work as well. I need my outlet and I’ve got clients who want to schedule appointments.”

“Baby, you want to go back to work, go. I know that tattooing helps you and is a nice outlet for you. I was thinking you could add to my tattoo to add the boys. So if you could design some shit from me that would be great. I also know you’ve been painting a ton, I know you used to sell your paintings. Have you thought about doing that again?”

We have a good chunk in the bank from her artwork. My woman is talented. She has sold paintings in the past especially when she’s painted a lot at once. She has been in that studio coming out smelling like paint, so I know she has been busy.

“I don’t know right now, I just want to stick with tattooing right now. The series I’ve been working on isn’t complete yet. Plus I’d have to talk to someone about selling them since I used to sell them at mom’s boutique.”

I nod my head, “Well we will figure everything out, you can always ask your sisters since they now own the boutique, but like I said don’t do anything stupid. I don’t want anything to happen to you. So I think you need to reevaluate the friendships you are making.”

I know that might have been a bad thing to say especially when she glares at me. “You have known me since we were in diapers, when in the hell have you ever thought it was okay to tell me who the hell I can be friends with. Shut the fuck up. Seriously Toby? What the hell is your problem? I keep a small group of friends and I have never done anything stupid. I’ve always been open and honest with you, can you say the same? You and the club keep so many secrets. I think you should be able to tell your ol’ ladies, especially since I grew up in this club. It has been my family since my mother gave birth to me. You men act like us ‘little ladies’ are so fucking helpless. Well you’d think that if you think I’m so fucking helpless Toby, that having some powerful women on my side. I deserve to have female friends. I keep my circle small, you know that. But the next time you want to come at me about keeping secrets and hiding things, look in the damn mirror.”

With that she turns and storms out of the room leaving me with the boys.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Sophie

I have been back to work for over a month now. I have been pretty much tattooing during the day, mommying during the evening and being a bad ass bitch searching for these fuckers who ruined my life at night.Toby and I have been fighting because he knows that something is going on, but I haven’t been opening up to him like he wants me to. We have been trying to communicate about everything in counseling, but I know that if I tell him what is going on he will make me stop doing what I’ve been doing.

Now that I have healed all up, I have started a lot more physical training with the Sirens. A lot of the times he thinks I am just at the gym trying to lose the baby weight he insinuates that I do not have. But we have been fighting and fucking like bunnies. It is like his personal mission to knock me up again and honestly, I have been worried he probably has. I mean do I want more babies with Toby, yes. We have always said that we would have as many kids as we can because those beautiful babies are just our outward signs of our love.

It is just bad timing. I am late and honestly I am hoping that Toby just doesn’t notice. Which probably won’t happen because the man knows my cycle. Me being in a coma for months didn’t stop him from tracking everything apparently. So I am hoping that I can pretend that I am on my period and not in the mood for the angry fucking that we have been doing, but I don’t know how that is going to go. I just don’t want him to put me under 24/7 watch like he does when I’m pregnant. So I’m going to avoid getting a test and acknowledge the man more than likely knocked me up again when my boys are only a little over three months old. But I have been so happy to be back at the studio. Ruby has been amazing and already brought in some loyal customers. She is a fiery little redhead. She is currently living in the apartment above the studio. I know that something is going on with her and my brother, but I'm not really sure what is going on. I hear the bell chime above the door as I am in between customers so I head out to see who it is.

“Well look who it is. You never visited my shop before, but now I see you multiple times a week. Does this have anything to do with that little redhead I have working here now? Cause I know you aren’t here for the boys.”

Luca chuckles at me, “Yeah well maybe I wanted to stop by and see how my beautiful sister is doing.”

I look at him and just start laughing, “Yeah, okay. You could careless how I am doing, but hey come back to the office. I want to talk to you.”

“Well sure, I’ll meet you in there. Let me say hey to Ruby.”

“She’s with a client. It looks like it is a back piece. So you should be okay. Her door is still closed. I’d knock.”

I walk to my office and honestly I want to talk to him about what is going on with him and Ruby. He’s technically still married. Tisha is a real piece of work and she won’t sign the divorce papers or custody papers of the kids that she hasn’t seen since their youngest child was a baby. It’s sad. Noah has never wanted anything to do with her having all the memories of how fucked up she was. Nash has some memories as well, but not nearly as many as Noah. Noah is my buddy and has been since he was a baby, he will always come over here and hang out at the shop or even at our house to sit with the kids.

I pick up my phone as I sit behind my desk and look to see I have four messages, I roll my eyes when I see that two are from Toby. He is always up my ass lately, yes I get it I’m being sneaky, but fuck, he’s always got ‘club business’ that he won’t tell me everything about and look what all that cost me and yeah maybe I’m still being a bitch about it, but at least the asshole is at home and getting some now that he didn’t for the first four months after all this went down.

Toby: hey, how late you working today? I’ve got a late client this afternoon? You gonna be home to have dinner?

Toby: You better not be hanging with those ‘friends’ of yours.