"Well, if you ever need to get into her place, just to check and make sure, I know how to jimmy a lock."
Gamble shook his head. "God, man. Where'd you learn a handy trick like that? The state pen?"
Wow, let a guy know you'd done a little time and he immediately thought you were some hardcore ex-con. I guess that's what I got for beating the piss out of one of Tristy's tormentors.
"I never went to the pen, ass wipe. It was county lockup for, like, two weeks. And, no, I didn't learn how to break and enter in jail. You meet all kinds of interesting kids when you grow up in the foster care system."
His eyebrows lifted. "I didn't know you grew up in foster care."
"Yep. From birth until I graduated out of it at eighteen." And that was exactly why I never, ever, not even for one night, wanted Julian put into foster care. I knew exactly what kind of shit he could face.
Spotting the address Lowe had given me for his place, I pulled to the curb, my stomach jumping with excitement. "Here we are."
My adrenal glands spiked. I felt so hyped and alive, ready to see her, a person might've thought I was ready to race in an Olympic competition.
I almost forgot about Gamble as I climbed out of my car and strode toward the open bay door of a garage attached to a decent split-level apartment complex.
She was here, somewhere in this building. I couldn't wait to see her again.
But as I approached the opening, I caught sight of some guy standing inside the garage, his back to me and his hands on his hips. It wasn't Mason, that was for damn sure. I was about to call out some kind of greeting to him, make sure he wasn't some creeper lurking around when he said, "Holy shit, you got fat."
That's when I spotted Eva in the garage, trying to pull something out of an open chest freezer. Her ass was pointed out at us, which didn't look fat at all to me. Hell, I couldn't even tell she was pregnant until she popped upright and spun to face the other visitor.
Her face instantly drained of color as she said, "Oh my God. Alec?"
Shit.
I ducked out of the doorway and grabbed onto Noel when he tried to pass me to walk into the garage. Then I yanked him down next to me while I crouched to my knees.
I have no idea why I wanted to hide while she had a talk with Alec, but meeting her baby daddy was not high on my priority list. I wanted to race in there and remove his balls from his nut sac in the most painful way ever, which I doubted Tinker Bell would appreciate.
This was none of my damn business. That was not my woman, and that fucking douche probably meant way more to her than I ever would.
That's what I kept repeating to myself, anyway. I had to hum in my head to give her some privacy and not listen in, though.
When Alec stepped too close to her, I almost lost it. Gamble had to grab my arm because he must've known I was about to go ape-shit.
"Don't," he warned in my ear. "This is their fight, man. They obviously have issues to work out. If you get involved and break your parole, you'll land right back in jail."
Yeah, but if Eva was in trouble, parole was the last thing I'd be worried about.
I watched her face closely. She wasn't putting out any anxious or frightened vibes. She seemed to be used to arguing with him this way. But I hated how he grabbed her and moved in close. If Gamble hadn't yanked me back again, I would've intervened.
Why the hell hadn't I just intervened?
Chapter 12
EVA
I was going to see him again! Any minute now.
I'd been a flurry of anxiety all day. Ever since Reese told me Mason had invited Pick over to look at her new car, I hadn't been able to calm myself down. It was pathetic really. I should've been deciding what I was going to do with my life after Skylar was born, or looking for places to live, or researching parenting tips, or finding a job. Anything. Instead, my mind kept lobbing back to his tattooed arms, the one on his neck, and oh, I'd noticed one on his chest when all those horny women had ripped off his shirt in the bar.
God bless horny women.
Pick Ryan possessed one fine naked chest. Definitely a Jake Gyllenhaal lookalike, with a freaking nipple ring. His muscles had been packed into a set of wide shoulders and a tapered frame that led down to the slimmest waist ever. It had been impossible to contain the drool when he'd playfully scolded the women for undressing him during the auction. His smile, added to those pecs and his Mohawk plus the tattoos, had been too much to take. I'd melted into his arms the moment he'd forced that dance on me.
And his singing voice. Oh, my. The guy could actually carry a tune.
Humming "Baby Love" under my breath, I opened the door to Reese and Mason's garage. Since they lived in a split-level duplex, there were quite a few steps to climb down to reach the cement floor. I'd come out here in the guise of looking for a bag of frozen peas in the chest freezer that was kept in the garage, claiming peas sounded good to make with the meal I was cooking for supper. But in truth, I was watching for him.