“Pull one a’ those for me,” Boz ordered.
“I gotta go get Nash from Lanie. She’s got a meeting comin’ up,” Hop muttered. “Later.”
Then he took off.
“Carrie and me got Travis this week,” Joker said. “Goin’ home.”
He took off too.
“You’re holdin’ your shit a lot better than I expected you would,” Pete remarked, and High looked to him. “Thought you’d have Valenzuela hung up by his balls by now.”
“Finally got a life not worth fuckin’ up,” High replied.
“Had that when you got your two girls, High,” Pete noted.
“You did, too, lotta folks depended on you for a lotta things when you went off the rails when your girl passed, Pete,” High said evenly, not sounding angry, even though Pete had ticked him off with what he’d said. Just making his point.
“Fair enough,” Pete muttered, grinned, then looked away and called, “Pull me one, too, Hound,” and he peeled off.
Tack got close.
“Shy’s on their team, High. Tab won’t give a shit about Rosalie. But you know security better than anyone,” Tack said. “That dope run is happening this weekend. Know you can’t go ’cause you got your girls and they’re meetin’ Millie. Next run, though, it’d help a lot you were on it.”
High nodded.
“In the meantime, be good you keep Snap’s shit sharp. Roscoe and Speck got more experience, so they’re on the women, only got half a mind to Rosalie and she needs more. It’d help, you helped him cover Rosalie.”
High nodded again.
“Millie good?” Tack asked.
High’s mind filled with her sweater dress and the lace of her thigh-high.
He felt his lips twitch.
Tack read it.
“Good,” Tack muttered, then noted, “Women are goin’ out Saturday night.”
He knew that. Millie had shared it on the way to go pick up cats the night before.
“Just got her back, hope she survives.”
At that, he watched Tack’s lips twitch.
“Got shit to do, brother,” High told him.
Tack sighed. “We all do.”
High slapped his shoulder and Tack returned the gesture. They traded chin lifts.
Then High headed out to find Snap, get a brief, and make sure he was covering Rosalie’s shit.
* * *
“This?” Millie asked.
High was lounging on his side on the bed.
Before he got that way, he’d scooped up the cats and deposited them there. They were wrestling—so damned little, the match was vicious and he didn’t feel a thing—and likely fucking up her precious sheets.
She didn’t seem to care.
He definitely didn’t care.
But she didn’t because she was in a fucking tizzy.
She’d just run into the room and was holding up a pair of jeans folded over a hanger at her bottom, a sweater dangling down her front at the top.
He was helping her pick out an outfit to meet his daughters.
This was not what he thought he was going to do when she’d led him into her bedroom after they cleaned up after dinner.
That was bad.
But it got worse when he found out what she was up to.
She started this shit, he’d approved every outfit, and she’d nixed it, tossing crap aside and rushing back to her closet only to come out again with another outfit he’d approve and she’d nix.
This had happened eight times.
He was done on the first one.
“Babe, it’s fine,” he stated.
“I don’t know,” she mumbled, pulling the sweater away and looking at it. “When it’s on, this sweater is kinda tight.”
“Then it’s absolutely fine,” High declared, and she turned narrowed eyes on him.
“I’m not gonna wear something suggestive to meet your girls, Low.”
“Babe, you got a killer body, you’re an unbelievably great lay, and both a’ those are mine... again. You could wear a bag over your head and mom jeans , I knew it was you under all that, I’d still wanna fuck you.”
He saw pleasure mingle with irritation in her eyes but she went with the last.
“You shouldn’t think those things when you’re with your daughters,” she announced.
“The only time I don’t think those things is when I’m unconscious. But I probably dream about ’em and I’ll definitely be doin’ that shit after you woke me up takin’ my dick down your throat.”
She straightened her spine and stated, “I’ll never wake you up that way again.”
“Fine with me,” he returned. “Opens me up to do it to you.”
With hanger in one hand, sweater in the other, she planted her hands on her hips and rapped out, “Logan!”
He sighed, pushing up and hauling his ass off her bed. Then he approached and she glared at him as he did, but he ignored it and got in her space, lifting his hands to cup her jaw.
“It’s gonna be okay,” he said quietly.
He saw her shoulders slump as she replied, “I want Zadie to like me.”
“Wear a tiara,” he suggested on a tease. “Only way that’s gonna step that shit up.”
She looked like she was considering that idea and it was cute, so he grinned. But it still disturbed him she’d consider going to those lengths, which indicated the depth of her anxiety.
He dipped closer.
“Baby, listen to me,” he coaxed gently. “They’re my kids. They’re good kids. They love their dad. They’re social, good with people. I told you, Zadie will come around. But she won’t if you get wound up.” He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “Kids are like horses, they can read you’re spooked, which will spook them and make ’em act up. You gotta be the adult in this situation, which means you gotta fuckin’ relax, be patient, and give her the real you, which she’s got no choice but to wake up and love due to the fact that there’s a fuckuva lot to love.”