Elka loved playing fetch, but Squatch didn't quite get the gist. Elka would run after the ball every time Lyon chucked it, and Squatch would haul ass to keep up, completely ignoring the ball as he ran back and forth alongside Elka.
“At least he's pretty,” Dillon chuckled, stretched out on a lounge chair to make room for her stomach.
She'd eaten so much her belly hurt, but damn, it was worth it. She'd never tasted anything so good as Nasa's lemon ricotta waffles.
He still had Harper, only now she was sitting on his shoulders, her fists twisted in his hair, her legs completely swallowed in Nasa's grip.
“Yeah, s'pose so. I finally got some intel back from one of my contacts in Dallas. Your pink-haired girl's nameis Rachel Sterling. She's fifteen, ran away from her foster home at thirteen. Got all her background info coming from my guy at DPD.”
“Rachel,” Dillon repeated softly, finally putting a name to the face. “I knew she was younger than nineteen but not by that much. God.”
“Nasa tells me you helped him get a handle on us having two Ghosts.”
“We talked after I had another nightmare. Whatever I said got that genius brain of his going and sorted through my rambling until he came up with pupil distance.”
“That happens a lot with him,” Top confided. “You been having nightmares a lot?”
Dillon's smile felt brittle, but there was no use denying it anymore. “Off and on for ten years, but it's been happening every night since Ghost came to my house.”
“Nothin' in the world worse than being afraid to go to sleep at night.” Top sighed, gingerly lowering himself into the chair beside her like his entire body hurt.
“Happened a lot after I got back from 'Nam. The stuff I seen and did over there, stuff that was done to me, what happened when we finally left that shit hole, only to come back to a home that felt every bit as hostile as the jungle we just left?
“I didn't sleep right until I joined up with my first MC, the Baytown Bruisers. It was good to have boys who understood what I was goin' through.
"Nasa don't much care for seein' the people he cares about sufferin', so I'm glad you shared that burden with him. You give any more thought to what we talked about?”
Dillon nodded, watching Nasa dance from side to side to avoid Lyon wildly swinging the ball chucker like a baseball bat.
Harper had two fistfuls of Nasa's shaggy blonde hair, bouncing and giggling as she enjoyed riding atop her gigantic pony.
“A lot, but I'm not...” she trailed off, not sure what else to say.
“But you're still not sure whether or not you're gonna stick around,” Top finished easily. “Is it his shit or your shit holdin' you up?”
She sighed, drawing her legs up to rest her chin on her knees, hugging her shins despite the pressure it put on her full belly. “It's not like I have anything to go back to. My therapist is singing his praises, you're telling me he's changed since I got here, and I know I've changed, but I feel like someone should be telling me not to make big emotional decisions in a high stress situation.”
Top started to chuckle. “Life is too fuckin' short, and if you're feelin' stress, well, maybe Nasa failed to wake you up on the right side of the bed.”
Dillon spluttered, her cheeks hot with embarrassment as she tried to figure out how Top knew what she'd been up to last night.
Was it that obvious? She almost reached up to her neck to feel for hickeys.
“I'm old, darlin', not blind, and my boy thinks you hung the moon. Only a matter of time before he got down to business.” Top winked at her, pushed to his feet, and sauntered off.
A shadow fell over her, and Dillon looked up to find Nasa right in front of her. She hadn't even finished lifting her hand to shade her eyes before he shifted his stance to completely block out the glare.
“You good?” His frown was deep with concern, but he kept rubbing and squeezing at Harper's chunky toddler legs, holding her steady no matter how she squirmed and wiggled.
Dillon let out the breath she'd been holding, feeling that effervescent wave relief come back to wash away her anxiety. It was him. Nasa’s proximity, his enormous looming presence.
“Yeah. Did I tell you I have a bad habit of overthinking things?”
Nasa's lips canted up in a crooked smirk. “Is that what you're over here doing?”
“I was, but Top reminded me life is too short and suggested if I'm feeling stressed out, maybe I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”
Nasa’s eyebrows slid up slowly as his smile deepened. “He said that, huh?”
“Sure did.”
“You feel like you woke up on the wrong side of the bed?” Nasa barely winced when Harper shrieked and yanked on his hair, demanding action from her pony.
Dillon tipped her head from side to side. “I feel like I had the best night’s sleep ever. I'm a little sore, and I can't wait to do it all over again.”
“How sore?” Nasa asked immediately, reaching down to offer his hand.
Without a second thought, Dillon took hold and let him help her to her feet. Nasa pulled her in with his arm around her waist.
“Sore, like I spent the night wrapped around an extremely well-endowed man after not having had sex in a decade,” she whispered, feeling self-conscious about Lyon overhearing when he came tearing past with another ball to chuck.
Nasa grunted, giving her a squeeze before reaching down to palm her butt. “I never made good on that bath I promised you. Come downstairs, I'll fix that right now.”
Dillon went up on her toes and touched a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “You've kinda got your hands full; I can wait.”
He gave
