“You like kids?” I ask.
Alex shakes her head in dismissal and avoids her mother’s curious gaze, but she answers quickly, saying, “I’m too young.”
I look around the table at the women my man’s brothers have chosen. I was almost four years younger than Alex when I had Zander, but I keep that to myself. Ruby was even younger when she had Ian. Again though, it’s none of my business. I’m certainly not going to push her into procreating with her ass-hat boyfriend.
“She’s just being awkward because Trigger keeps asking her to marry him,” Nic says bluntly. Nic Whelan is barely older than Alex. She’s not really one to talk since she’s been refusing to marry Duke until her dad, Butch, a Forsaken brother, is released from San Quentin. Eyeing Nic and then Holly, Grady’s woman, I spot a rather peculiar pattern when I look around the table.
“Interestingly enough, Ian’s the only one here aside from good ol’ Jim who’s gotten his woman to agree to marry him,” I say with a raised eyebrow in Nic’s direction.
“Hey,” Holly says, finally piping up. “Grady and I are getting married. Now’s just not the right time.” We’re doing this little wedding prep shindig in her and Grady’s house, but she’s been eerily silent the entire time. Mindy’s her cousin, I’d have expected her to be much more excited about this crap than she is.
“What does that mean?” Mindy shoots Holly a dark look. It seems there’s some family tension here. I’m dying to know what’s going on. I could almost scream at Wyatt for leaving this out. I wouldn’t know any of the Forsaken family gossip if it weren’t for my man and his chatty post-coital ass. Even Elle, my best-fucking-friend minds her goddamn business, much to my chagrin. Speaking of Elle, I wish that bitch would show up to these things instead of busting her ass on whatever it is she’s been working on.
“Don’t get an attitude with me,” Holly says. In the distance, Robin, Duke and Nic’s eight month old baby, starts crying. Nic quietly thanks god and heads off to fetch her daughter.
“Not everything is about you.” Holly’s follow-up remark has Mindy dropping her plastic fork.
“You think this is a bad time for us to get married? Well, what about you getting knocked up? On purpose?”
Leaning across the table, I glare at Ruby and hiss, “Do something.”
“Fuck that,” she says with a smirk. “You can handle this, Queen Bee.”
I shoot Ruby a look that says this is anything but cool and try to figure out how to calm the Mercer women down. Mindy is one dark bitch who might actually have sicker than her man, but Holly is conniving and ballsy as all hell. On their own, neither woman is likely to back down.
“I get why you’re upset, but you can’t keep taking it out on me,” Holly says with one hand slamming down on the table and the other rubbing her small bump. Mindy’s eyes shoot to Holly’s belly and soften just slightly. It’s only a second though, before they narrow again and turn cold.
“It’s not my choice, okay?” Holly shouts frantically. Piper squirms in my lap and covers her ears with her chocolate covered little hands. I snap my fingers to catch Holly’s attention and point at Piper. The crazy pregnant lady softens immediately. “I told him this was a bad idea. Grady won’t marry me until the club gets back from New York, now just shut up.”
“I’m sorry, what?” My voice is tight and the tension in the room rackets all the way up. Even Nic, who’s returning with Robin, is avoiding my eyes. Alex is looking at her mother, Nic is focusing way too intently on the wall behind my head, and Mindy is picking at her piece of cake. Holly’s covered her mouth with her hand and has lowered her head. Only Ruby has a straight face, way too even for her to not know what’s going on.
“Somebody better start talking,” I order. Wyatt doesn’t talk about the club or whatever has got him so stressed. I keep hearing murmuring about New York, but it always dies down quick the second I walk into the room. The last time I asked ended with Wyatt telling me not to show up at the clubhouse without permission first. He gave me some bullshit about Segreti and safety, but I could tell he was full of crap. We fought about it, but the argument ended quickly when I noticed the bulge in his jeans that hadn’t been there a minute beforehand. It’s shameless how easily we fall back into the same patterns. Not this time though. I’m done letting him control the conversation.
“All I know is Jim’s been evasive about the club since he stepped down,” Ruby says.