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Dex rumbles with laughter, shaking the whole bed. “Morning, kid!”
“Oh, Jesus,” I gasp. Louder I shout, “Have a good day, pudding!”
She mutters something I can’t make out and stomps down the stairs.
“God, what am I doing?” I cover my face with my hands and slide under the sheet.
“What’s wrong?” Dex asks, peeling the sheet back and prying one of my hands away from my face.
“Nothing. I just don’t have guys sleep over. My sister’s still a teenager. I want to set a good example. Not—”
“Hey.” He pries my other hand off my face and cups my chin. “I’m not ‘guys.’ I’m not some rando one-night stand you brought home from a bar.” Hurt twists his voice into a low rasp.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean thatyouwere. I trust you around her.”
“Whoa.” He pulls back, staring at me with a curious frown on his handsome face. “What does that mean?”
“She’s a teenage girl. I don’t just let any man around her.” It’s way too early to have to think this hard. “The last ‘boyfriend’ I actually dated was inappropriate around her.”
“Inappropriatehow?” he asks in a deadly tone.
“I can’t quite explain.” I press my hand against my stomach. “It was a feeling in my gut. He’d ask her about boys, and if she had a boyfriend. Tell her how pretty she was. He’d go out of his way to hug or touch her. She was likeeleven.” I grind my teeth together as the old anger bubbles up again. “The last red flag was this fucking see-through shirt and miniskirt he bought her as a ‘back-to-school’ outfit.”
“What the fuck?”
I’m so ashamed I let someone like that near my sister, I can’t look him in the eye. “Libby, thankfully, thought it was ugly, so she gave it to me.”
“And then what?”
I lift my gaze. “I kicked him to the curb.”
“He go willingly?”
“More or less.”
His jaw ticks. “Where is he now?”
I cock my head. He’s seriously considering hunting down a guy I broke up with years ago, isn’t he? “I don’t know. Last I heard, he moved to Denver.”
“Still not far enough way.”
“I haven’t heard from him since.” I shrug. “I told him I’d call one of my dad’s old cop buddies if I ever saw him again.”
It had been a lie. None of them had reached out to me in years by that point.
Dex stares at me. “Forgot your dad was a cop. I can’t believe none of them tried to help you after he died.”
I glance away. That’s not a topic I want to go near.
He snorts. “Ifwehave a brother who dies, the club takes care of their family. We don’t leave them to fend for themselves. But everyone callsusthe criminals.” He shakes his head in disgust.
The angry urge to defend my dad’s friends comes on hot. But as fast as it bubbles up, it ebbs away. After the funeral and goodbyes, no one had cared about what happened to Libby and me. No one but our aunt.
“Even if they did something bad?” I ask. “You still take care of the family?”
“Bad, how? Against the club?”
“Uh, yeah. I guess.”
