He got that. He wasn’t going to push for more.
So he let more than Zadie’s hand go and asked, “Anyone want dessert or just me?”
“Cherry cream cheese pie,” Cleo declared.
He winked at his big girl and looked to his baby, who still had eyes to her lap.
“Zadie?” he prompted.
“Cinnamon bun ice cream,” she muttered.
Deb would tell her to look at her mother (or her father) while she was speaking.
High didn’t push shit like that. She was feeling a lot, she was a little kid, and she needed space in her head to sort through it.
So he left her to it and flagged down a waitress.
He ordered his girls’ dessert.
They ate it.
He paid the bill.
Then he got to the part that sucked, even when Zadie’s dreamworld had been crushed and she was in a mood because of it.
He took them home and left, leaving them behind.
*??*??*
He walked into the back door to Millie’s house and saw Joker slouched back in her big chair, Millie stretched out on her couch, and that British program on the TV.
But before he even stepped through the door, he saw Millie’s head up and her eyes to him over the arm of couch.
She’d heard his truck.
She was glad he was home.
“You’re torturing a brother with that shit program?” he asked.
The gladness leaked out of her face as attitude took its place.
“It’s not shit,” she returned. “Joker actually likes Downton Abbey.”
High looked to his brother.
Joker was already looking at him and High could see at a glance that was bullshit.
He was putting up with it because she was Millie.
He’d probably do the same thing with his woman, Carissa.
Many brothers in hard ways, and the older brothers who’d been around awhile in hard ways they learned in the brotherhood, knew what was important.
They all knew a TV show was not that.
“You’re off duty,” High told Joker, and saw the relief.
He wanted to be home with his woman and her kid, a kid who was not Joker’s kid but the man treated him that way.
And he wanted to be free of Downton Abbey.
High felt for him having to watch that program but Joker was there because High asked him to be.
The brothers all had assignments on the Valenzuela deal and there was work to do at the shop and store.
High wanted Joker on Millie.
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his other brothers. It was that he liked the kid. They were tight. He felt something coming from him. The important kind of something that came from having a shit life, knowing what he was missing, and going all out to find it.
And keep it safe.
Joker found it with Chaos.
Then he found it with his woman and her kid.
And he’d go all out to keep who or what was important to any brother safe.
Truth was, they all would.
But for Joke, he was young, but he’d taken his licks, too many of them, and that ran deeper.
Joker pushed out of his chair, muttering, “Later, Millie.”
She called, “Xbox pause,” and shoved up, getting to her feet, following Joker to the back door, saying, “It was cool you looking out for me.”
“Not a problem,” Joker stated, caught High’s eyes, and said, “Brother.”
“Brother,” High replied as Joker moved past him and Millie got close to him.
He took hold of her. He let his brother hit the back door.
“Looking forward to meeting Carissa and Travis,” Millie said.
Joker looked back to her, hand on the handle. “She’ll be the same. We’ll get on that.” He jerked up his chin to her, slid his eyes to High, then moved out.
High let Millie go and followed him. He locked the door, went to the alarm panel, armed it, and then looked out her window.
Someone had brought Joker’s truck. He was in it and backing out of Millie’s driveway.
High turned to Millie.
There she was.
No sexy tight turtleneck, sexier tight skirt, and sexy as all fuck boots.
No sexy jammies either.
Instead, dark gray, loose-legged pants that still clung to her hips and a thin, tight, light pink long-sleeved top that had a deep vee showing cleavage.
Nice.
He moved her way.
“How’d it go with the girls?” she asked.
“Think Cleo’s lookin’ forward to meetin’ the woman in her dad’s life ’cause she loves her dad and wants him happy.” He got to her, put hands to her hips as she lifted hers and settled them on his chest under his shoulders. Once they had hold, he shuffled her back. “Think Zadie’s gonna act like a little snot ’cause she loves her dad and mom and wants to live the dream of her family together. So, my guess with my baby, it’s gonna take six point five visits with you to break through with her.”
She tipped her head to the side, both fear and amusement warring in her eyes as she asked, “Six point five?”
“Halfway through the seventh, she’ll find it,” he stated.
She grinned. That had fear and amusement too.
They’d got to the couch, so he let her go to shrug off his cut. He dropped it to the coffee table, where it slid to the floor. Then he put them on the couch, him on bottom, her on him.
“You have your boots on, Logan,” she told him.
His reply was, “Xbox turn off.” Then when he heard the tone, he said, “Yes.”
She looked to the TV that was blanking, then back to him. “I was watching that.”
He slid his hands from her waist to her ass. “Now you’re talkin’ to me.”
It didn’t take her long to decide what she’d prefer to be doing. It lasted about half a beat.
After she decided, she melted into him, shifting her face closer and sliding a hand up to curl it around the side of his neck.
“You worried about Zadie?” she asked.
“With you?” he asked back. When he got her nod, he answered, “Yeah.” He watched worry start to etch into her features and he slid his hands from her ass to wrap his arms around her. “But she’ll get there. Still worried but not about her and you. Just worried she lives in her dreamworld and life is far from a dream.”