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“Hello, Tucker, nice to see you again.” She smiles at us.
“That helped,” Tucker says as he steps back, and I lean my head down trying not to laugh out loud. “Hello, Mrs. Parrish,” he says, then holds his hand out to Micah. “I’m Tucker, nice to meet you. Are you keeping my girl safe?”
“She’s my aunt, not your girl,” Micah says, and again I feel the laugh about ready to bubble up. Tucker chuckles before he walks into the living room. “Baby, you did some work today.” Tucker is looking at all the pictures that are up on the walls.
“Yeah, I decided to unpack most of the office and get it set up.”
“Tucker, did you know she took all these pictures?” My mom brags as I take Mari to her room to change her diaper and put her in a sleeper for my mom before we take off.
I can hear them talking about the pictures, and my mom points out her favorite. It’s a large print I had done on canvas of a bull elephant running through water. It appears like he’s charging the camera, but I was zoomed in and a safe distance away from him.
“Aunty Syd,” Michelle’s soft voice comes from the entrance. I turn to look at her with Mari in my arms. Her back is to my chest and her little arms and legs are kicking and moving.
“What’s up, Michelle?”
“Did Mommy and Father have an argument?” I move over to her and squat down to her height.
“Baby, you need to wait until your momma gets here.”
“But Father told us when he left that he would be gone a while.”
My hands flex ever so slightly around Mari’s body. The fact that Colton was planning to leave Lydia and the kids is obvious now. I want to punch him in the face and make him feel the pain he’s causing those he professed to love.
“Come on, sweetie, let’s get you some pizza and settled. What movie do you want to watch?”
“I don’t know.”
We move out of the room, and as we get closer to where Tucker and my mom are still talking, Mari gets more excited. Tucker moves toward us without taking his eyes off my mom and their conversation and reaches out without thought to take Mari from my arms. She instantly reaches for him and he holds her to his chest gently. He doesn’t look uncomfortable at all. He’s not stiff or awkward. My heart bursts when I see her in his arms. She lays her head on his chest and starts sucking on her fist. He doesn’t care that she’s drooling on him at all. He keeps talking to my mom, who I can tell is also rocked by his actions. She turns to me and smiles, but I see the faintest shininess in her eyes. I move away before I start crying from the joy. I head into the kitchen and pull out the pizza menus and hand them to the kids so they can start figuring out where and what they want.
An hour later I’m standing in the open courtyard of the clubhouse chatting with July. When Tucker and I had walked in, he had his arm around me, his big hand holding my hip protectively. People had stopped to look at us, a couple of the women looked at me with squinted eyes and pursed lips.Jealous much, bitches.The question of how many of those women he’d slept with had crossed my mind, and I stiffened. He’d looked down at me and I pushed the thought away. But now that I’m talking to July, I can’t help myself.
“I guess some people are upset that Tucker and I are seeing each other.” I nod my head toward a woman who is openly glaring at me. She’s dressed in a short leather skirt and half shirt that barely covers her tits.
“Who is upset?” July follows my line of sight. “Oh, ignore her. She’s pissed Tuck never gave her the time of day. Don’t worry. He never saw the same girl more than once and he was actually very private about it. I only know because Wes mentioned one once.” She pats my shoulder.
“I don’t expect him to be a virgin, but it sucks to know others have been with him and are right here in front of me.”
“Oh, I remember that feeling.” She chuckles. “But don’t worry. He’s all about you and I doubt he’ll let you go.” She smiles and her eyes move across the courtyard to where Wes and Tucker are standing and talking with beers in their hands.
A loud bang like a gunshot sounds through the area and I dive for the table screaming. I can see him looking at me with the gun pointed right at me. I scream again. Blood pumps through my veins so fast and hard I can feel it. I can feel the blood seeping from my wounds. My ankle is almost useless, and I crab crawl backwards, my back hitting something. I cry out as I feel the pain in my side. God, I pray my baby is okay. I just found out I was pregnant a couple days ago.
“Please don’t shoot me. Bahati, no.” I hear the screams of my team members calling for help before they are silenced. The engines from the vehicles revving as they race around the camp. The lights bouncing through the darkness. Bahati just shakes his head.
“You’ll die,mdogo.”Hisvoice sounds bitter as he calls me little one in Swahili.
Another voice drowns out Bahati’s and breaks through the pain in my ankle and side. I hear his voice and turn around looking for him. Why is he here? How can he be here? He can’t. He can’t die like they all did. I push up and start running away into the darkness. Arms wrap around me and I fight kicking and screaming.
“Sydney.” My name is whispered in my ear, but I fight harder. I have to protect Tucker from what is coming. The helicopter is about to take off again, ending it all. “Please don’t hurt him, Bahati,” I beg, fighting harder.
“Spitfire,” he says, and everything fades away. I’m in the courtyard. I hear voices around me, and someone laughs. My eyes focus on the woman I was just talking to July about as she points and laughs at me. My breath is sawing in and out of my body. Every muscle aches like it did that night. But I don’t hear the helicopter. The guns are silent. I don’t see the fires in the tents but in barrels. “Baby, are you okay?” My head drops and tears roll down my face. I just had a panic attack in front of everyone. I just proved why I shouldn’t be with Tucker.
* * *
Tucker
I know the moment she has come back to me. Her body goes slack and tears roll down her face. I look up at that bitch Ginger, who’s been chasing me for a long time.
“Shut the fuck up, bitch,” I growl, and Sydney’s body spasms. “No, baby, not you.” I twist her around and pull her up against me. She wraps around me, her skirt pulling up and showing her legs. She buries her face in my neck, and I rub her back trying to calm her down. As soon as the car backfired, I heard her scream and watched as she went into her head and lived whatever nightmare is in there. I tried to calm her along with July, but she started fighting. I don’t know who this Bahati person is, but I’ll hunt him down and kill him for hurting her.
