Page 39 of Lick

After a minute, she slips her small hand into his. “Yeah. Emma Harrison. Mother of two and a bit and president of nothing.”

My dad looks from her to me in surprise.

“Two and a bit?” Dot asks.

“I have two kids in their twenties. Twins actually. And then I have the jellybean.” She presses her hand protectively to her stomach.

Dot’s expression turns to one of shock before he looks at me and grins. “You gonna be a daddy, Lick?”

“Looks that way.” I grin back.

“Fuck, congrats, man, and you too, mama. Do you have any names picked out yet?”

Emma laughs, the sound soothing the worry in my chest. “We’re still adjusting to the news. Let’s just say it was a huge shock for both of us.”

“How did this even happen? We’ve been teaching you to wrap it up before you even really knew what your dick was,” Hauler asks, cutting Emma’s laugh off.

“You’re fucking with me, right? There is no way you’re being that much of a dick with my girl sitting right fucking here, one who already had a shitty first meet with the RBMC.”

“Oh, come on!” He waves his hands like I’m overreacting.

“No, he’s right. Emma, ignore us. Sometimes we don’t think before we speak,” my father says.

Emma sighs and shakes her head. “Why do I feel like you guys permanently keep one foot in your mouths?”

Now it’s Hauler’s turn to grin. “Seems you’ve figured us out already. I can’t pretend we won’t offend you again. Ignore it or dish it back. It’s nothing personal. Trust me, you’d know if any of us had an issue with you.”

“Alright, I think I need a crash course in things I might need to know about a biker and what not to ask. I wonder if there is a book in the library I could check out?” She mutters the last part to herself.

My father takes a seat on the other side of her, making her head whip around in his direction. “We’re not a bad bunch, first impressions aside.”

She softens when she takes in his expression. “You’re protective of your son. I get it. I can’t say I’m a fan of big scary men going out of their way to seem menacing to a woman who hasn’t done anything wrong, but I shouldn’t have turned up out of the blue either.”

“You were scared?” Dot grunts.

She looks over at him and shrugs. “I was an idiot. I’d been sick all night, I was feeling sorry for myself and knew if I didn’t make one last ditched attempt to find Lick I was going to give up. I put myself in a potentially dangerous situation. You might not be bad guys, but I didn’t know that when I rocked up here looking for him.” She points to me but doesn’t take her eyes off Dot.

“Then your president came out and was mean to me⁠—”

“You were mean to her?” Dot snaps.

I look at him, bemused. What the hell has gotten into this guy? I’ve never seen him react this way to anyone, let alone a woman. I narrow my eyes at him. If he thinks he stands a chance with my woman, he is sadly fucking mistaken.

“I thought she was scamming Lick—” My father starts by trying to explain himself, which is enough for both me and Hauler to look at him because the man never explains himself.

To be fair, nobody wants Dot’s legendary temper aimed their way. The man reacts first and asks for forgiveness afterward. “So the fuck what? If that had been my daughter—” His mouth snaps shut, his chest heaving.

A moment of clarity moves through us. Dot lost his daughter when she was sixteen. She was bullied at school, and though Dot and Nessie’s mom did everything they could, it ended with Nessie taking her own life. It tore the whole family apart. Especially when Dot went on to break the legs of the boy who orchestrated the series of events that led to Nessie making her final decision. He’d asked her on a date, spent weeks being sweet and kind to her, earning her trust, only to lure her to a friend’s party and sleep with her. He recorded the whole thing and sent the video to everyone he knew.

Emma gets to her feet and walks over to Dot, standing right in front of him. She looks up at him and says nothing for a minute as he watches her with intensity that has me looking at my dad. He’s too busy watching the scene unfold to notice me.

I turn back just as Emma wraps her arms around the man. “I’m okay. I promise to be more careful from now on, but it’s sweet that you don’t like the thought of people being mean to me. I have tough skin, Dot. People are mean to me all the time. It says more about them than me.”

He looks at me and swallows before gently hugging her back. I see it then, that whatever is between them isn’t the least bit sexual. I don’t know what it is, but something tells me Emma just made a friend for life out of one of the most dangerous men in the country.

“Tell me who the fuck else has been mean to you?” he growls, making me sigh. It’s gonna be a long night.

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