Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Sabrina

My head was kind of swirling with the options.

Honestly, I didn't think there would be so many things to choose from.

Clearly, this club knew a thing or two about how to survive dangerous situations.

"I wanted to give you the choices first, so if there are any that are absolutely out for you, you can decide to omit them when you talk to Daph."

I knew I was supposed to be thinking about important things. Like the best way for my daughter and myself to stay safe.

But, God, I loved how he'd started using that nickname for my kid. I knew a guy once who always insisted on referring to her as "your kid," in a way that always felt to me that he had absolutely no intention of ever wanting to get to know her or be involved with her. And my daughter and I were a package deal.

Callow's comfort with her was clear whenever he discussed the situation we were in.

I mean, knowing that I would want to keep options secret from Daph was really intuitive. Because I knew my kid. She would be packing up a bag to try out that weird survivalist camp called Hailstorm. Or, yeah, even staying at this biker clubhouse.

I wouldn't say those ideas were permanently off my list of choices. I just wasn't sure I needed them to be the first line of defense. For all we knew, the attack was isolated and wouldn't happen again. Until I had evidence of there definitely being major risk to us moving forward, I wasn't comfortable completely upending our lives to live in, as I understood it, shipping containers behind electric fences with attack dogs and men and women walking around with machine guns.

I wouldn't lie, the idea of staying at the clubhouse was definitely tempting. Not necessarily for the protection aspect, though.

Oh, no.

It had nothing to do with that.

And everything to do with what had just happened with Callow in his room.

I honestly wasn't even sure how things had progressed so quickly. One moment, we were just sitting close. The next, I was dry humping him like a teenager. The next after that, he had me bare from the waist down and was devouring me and driving me up through an orgasm that I swore let me see through time and space for a moment.

Then I got to taste him too, be in control of his desire and pleasure.

If there'd been any concerns on my part that my incredibly long dry spell might have meant that I might have forgotten how to… do stuff, well, that, deep "fuck" he uttered afterward cleared away all those worries.

Maybe it had been selfish to indulge in that with Callow when so much was now going on. But, damn, I felt so much more clear-headed afterward.

"I'm leaning toward guards in our house," I told him.

"I figured that might be the choice. Less disruption for Daph."

"Yeah. I mean, I have to ask her. She might feel weird about people being in her space all the time."

"Well, you can have your choice of guards. Whoever makes you guys the most comfortable."

He said it in a hesitant way. Almost like he was concerned that our choice wouldn't be him.

"You included?" I asked.

"Yeah," he agreed, tentatively hopeful.

"Then, obviously, we're going to want you. But, I mean, I understand if it can't be you all of the time. If you have other things to do."

"I don't."

He was so quick with that. Like even if he did have other things going on, he would move them to accommodate taking care of us.

"Okay," I said, sucking in a deep breath, pretending my whole body wasn't doing a little joyful dance at the idea of Callow practically living with us for the time being. "Let's go talk to Daphne," I said, running my hands down my body, making sure everything was in place. "How's my hair?" I asked.

To that, Callow shot me a bemused smile. "Yeah, you're gonna wanna fix that," he said.

I yanked it out of its ponytail, then quickly smoothed it into a neater one before following Callow to the door.

When we made our way out of his room, there were several other bikers in the clubhouse that hadn't been there before.

Daphne was sitting at the bar, legs dancing, casted arm set on the bar top, watching as a tall, handsome guy with golden skin sketched on a sheet of paper.

Croft, I assumed.

And the other twin, Rune, was standing a few feet away talking to Sully.

"Any luck?" Callow asked as he walked up behind Croft.

"Getting there," Croft said, erasing an eyebrow and trying again.

I glanced down at the paper, seeing a mostly fully-formed face looking back at me. He wasn't as traditionally good-looking as the guy with the dragon neck tattoo. This one had a very distinct nose that hooked at bit at the end with a prominent bump on the bridge, eyes that were set just a little too widely apart. But I guess they kind of had to be to accommodate his nose. His lips were thin and he had a very square jaw.

"Is that a mistake with the ears?" I asked, noticing how obviously misaligned they were.

"No," Daphne said, shaking her head. "They were really different. He had really low symmetry," she added.

She would know. There'd been some sort of filter on a social media app that rated faces on their level of symmetry and she'd been wildly happy when hers had been very close to perfect. Ever since then, she'd occasionally mention someone's symmetry. Which made me start to notice that kind of thing.

Apparently, one of my eyes was just infinitesimally higher than the other. Not enough that anyone ever would have really noticed if not for the stupid app. And I found myself constantly scrutinizing my reflection ever since.

I didn't even have that damn app on my phone and it was giving me a complex.

"What color are his eyes?" Callow asked, since the sketch was just in pencil.

"He was further away. I think they were a dark blue, though," Daphne said, reaching for her soda and taking a sip. "What were you guys talking about?" she asked.

I just barely managed not to look at Callow, showing my guilt in front of the whole club. Because we'd mostly not been talking.

"We were discussing how to stay safe from now on," I told her.

"What conclusion did you come to?" another voice asked, making me turn to find a man approaching. He was tall and handsome with an equally good-looking man with dark skin at his side as he got closer.

"Fallon, Brooks," Callow said. "Sabrina. You met Daph."

"Sorry you're wrapped up in this, babe," Fallon said, nodding at me.

"It is what it is," I said, shrugging, not wanting to condemn my daughter's behavior in front of mixed company like I had privately with Callow. "My only concern is staying safe moving forward.

"If it's cool with Daph, I'm gonna be their guard at their place. Unless shit gets stickier and they need to come here," Callow explained.

"That's a great idea," Daphne said, brightening.

"Tone it down," I whispered to her as I pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

Turning her head up at me, she shot me a mischievous little smirk.

"This way, our lives don't have to be too… disrupted," Daphne added, making me almost roll my eyes at how thick she was laying it on.

Oblivious to her ulterior motivations, or just trying to ignore them, Callow nodded. "That's the plan."

"What about work and school?" Brooks asked.

"That's where you behaving yourself comes in," I told her.

"Teasing aside, your mom is right," Callow agreed. "No sneaking around. No cutting class. Know where you're supposed to be and be there. Your school is pretty safe. If you are in it."

"Okay, Dad ," Daphne griped. But almost the second the word was out of her mouth, she seemed to realize what she'd said. As did Callow. Both of them looked both shocked and a little, I don't know, hopeful?

Or maybe that was me projecting.

"I'm serious, though," Callow said, recovering first. "We will have someone at the school, but they can't be inside of it. Also, I'd like to get you a smart watch or one of those GPS tags to put in your shoe or something. In case shit goes down, we have a way to track you. But shit isn't going to go down if—"

"I am in school where I'm supposed to be," Daphne finished for him with an epic freaking eye roll.

"And Sabrina's work?" Fallon asked, looking at me.

"I'll cover that," Callow said automatically, making my stomach swoop in a really delicious way. "And same thing with something GPS on you. Just as a precaution."

"Yeah, I'm not complaining. I'm always where I'm supposed to be," I teased Daphne, giving her hair a little tug.

"Hey, these cookies are banging," another voice said, coming out of the kitchen with the whole plate in his hand, his other heavily tattooed hand bringing one to his lips.

"Dezi, for fuck's sake. Those aren't for you," Callow called, making a few of the others chuckle.

"It's in the kitchen, it's fair game," Dezi said, shrugging.

"Those were for Callow," Daphne informed the stranger. "My mom made them for him," she added.

"She bakes for you?" Dezi asked, looking at me, then at Callow. "Why isn't there a ring on that finger yet?" he asked, making the color rush to my cheeks. "These are ‘marry me' type cookies."

"I'm gonna have to trust you on that if you don't stop fucking eating them all," Callow grumbled.

"Mom will make you more," Daphne assured him. "She makes the best oatmeal and snickerdoodle too."

"I do love me some oatmeal and snickerdoodles," Callow said, nodding.

"I'll buy some," Dezi offered.

"How are you not three-thousand pounds?" Croft shot back at him. "Never seen anyone eat as many sweets as you do."

"All the fighting keeps ‘em fit," Fallon said in a way that suggested the fighting was both a problem and somewhat humorous to him.

"Alright. How's that?" Croft asked, pulling Daphne's attention back to him.

She looked at it for a long moment before nodding.

"Yeah, that's him."

Croft turned, showing the image to Fallon and Brooks.

"Well," Fallon said, "at least he's not so generic-looking. Might be easier to track him down."

With that, he took a picture of it, then started texting the picture out to, I assumed, the bikers who weren't present.

"Alright. So guard duty," Brooks said as Fallon was distracted. "I think the twins would be good for the school," he said, getting a nod from the brothers. "They're the closest to school age we got. Won't be as suspicious. If that's alright with you," he added, looking at me and Daphne.

"Yeah," Daphne said, nodding.

"What about after school?" I asked, not exactly comfortable with the idea of my underage child alone in an apartment with two adult men. Even if they were there to protect her.

"How about after school, the twins take Daphne to the self-defense gym?" Callow suggested. "She's already familiar with it and the people. The women who run it are highly-trained themselves. And the twins will hang there too as backup. Until we swing by after your work to pick her up and bring her home."

They had it all planned out.

It was… surprisingly refreshing not to have to iron out all the details to everything myself.

"I think that'll work. What do you think?" I asked, running my hand through Daphne's hair.

"Yeah. I guess I can just do my homework while I'm there."

"And read," I reminded her.

"I owe you a trip to the bookstore," Callow told her, making her eyes brighten.

"Really?"

"Yep. Know about some sort of shopping challenge thing."

"But I can't hold that many books," Daphne said, clearly already knowing about that challenge.

"I got arms," Callow said.

"Can we go tomorrow?" she asked, practically bouncing in her seat. "There are two sequels to this," she said, reaching for her massive tome and patting it lovingly. "I need them ASAP. This is going to end on a cliffhanger, I can feel it."

"We'll see how tomorrow goes. But we got all weekend too," he reminded her. "Read that one a little slower," he added, giving her a little smile.

"Easy for you to say. You're not watching the heroine be trapped in a tower by her evil step-brother while her love interest is tortured in a neighboring kingdom."

"Just a little light reading, huh?" Callow asked, making Daphne laugh.

"If we go on the weekend, it gives you more time to convene with Allie about what other books you need to look for. It's a timed challenge, you know," I told her.

"That's true," she agreed, already reaching for her phone. "Wait… what about Allie and her moms?"

"I don't think they're in any sort of danger," Fallon said as he slipped his phone into his pocket. "They have no connection to the club. The only reason you've been targeted is, I think, because Daphne was at the drop when the shooting went down. They've probably just assumed you were the kid of one of the club members."

"Okay good," I said, relieved not to have to worry about them too.

"But, for the time being, no play dates," Fallon said, clearly fucking with Daphne. And getting the reaction he was looking for when she narrowed her eyes at him.

"You have kids, don't you?" I asked, smiling at him.

"Fucking with them brings me a lot of joy," he said, chuckling. "It's my way of paying them back for keeping me from sleeping for the first year of their lives. Alright, if we're all set here, we got some shit to do," he said, nodding toward Brooks and the two of them wandered off together.

"I'll just go grab some shit to bring to your place," Callow said.

"Mom, why don't you help him?" Daphne asked, making Croft have to fake a cough to keep from laughing.

"Callow is a full-grown man. I'm sure he's capable of packing his own bag," I said, shaking my head at Callow.

"Give me five," he said, running a hand across my lower back on his way back toward the hallway.

"See? Aren't you glad I talked you into the queen-sized bed when you got rid of your old one?" Daphne asked.

"What are you talking about?"

"How would Callow fit in a full?" she asked.

"Callow will be sleeping on the couch," I said, even if a part of me would love to have him beside me, holding me through the night.

"Why?"

"What do you mean why ?"

"You're seeing him, aren't you?"

"Oh, kid," I sighed. "This is not the time or place for that talk," I said.

"I'd be fine with him staying in your room. I'm not a little kid," she said. "I know you have sex."

"Oookay. We're going to let this drop," I insisted.

"I wasn't born of immaculate conception," she added, not ready to let it drop.

"I know. I was there," I said.

"Gross. But it's normal to sleep with your boyfriend."

"Daph, he's not my boyfriend," I told her, even if my heart squeezed at the idea.

"He kind of is. You're just being weird about admitting it," she said, so sure of herself. "He's going to come sit at your work all day, every day. Guys don't do that for girls they don't like."

"He's going to sleep on the couch tonight, Daph," I told her.

"But not tomorrow night. Got it," she said, walking away before I could object again.

Besides, maybe he would eventually transition into my bed. I didn't want time to make a liar out of me.

Callow appeared a few moments later, wearing a leather jacket over his sweats and carrying what had to be his old military duffle bag.

"All set?" I asked.

"Yep. We'll take your car since I only got the bike," he said, making his way to the front door.

And, well, that was how Callow started to live with us.