“Can we talk about something else? You just got home and I’d just like to revel in that for a bit,” I answered, leaning up to give him a peck on the lips.

“Yeah, but we’re gonna revisit at a later date,” he warned.

“Fine,” I pouted, then ordered, “Tell me how much you love me.”

“More than my bike, less than my dick,” he answered with a straight face.

“Ha! Asshole!” I laughed as he began to tickle me.

That weekend with him would become one of my best and most important memories.

Chapter 59

Grease

Callie was sending photos of her belly every day, and I swore I could see a difference in each of them. I was fucking done with having her so far away from me. She was already halfway through her pregnancy, and I was still dragging my ass to Sacramento each chance I got. It was insane—how long we’d waited to finally be in one place together.

As far as I was concerned, Farrah could deal with her own shit. She was still partying and doing fuck all to help herself, and I didn’t see an end in sight. I hated it that Callie was down there taking care of her shit when she should be worrying about herself and our kid. She was tired all the fucking time because she was having a hard time sleeping, and I knew that having Farrah stumble in drunk as shit in the middle of the night wasn’t helping.

The bullshit needed to stop.

I was packing up my bike to hit the road that morning when Tommy Gun came lumbering out of the clubhouse calling my name. I was standing right in front of him, and I shook my head when he bellowed my name again.

“What?” I snapped, anxious to get on the road.

“Slider wants to see you,” he mumbled, raising his hands with his palms out.

“You know what it’s about?” I questioned, stuffing the rest of my clothes into the saddle bags.

“Nope. I’m just the messenger!” he called almost a minute later as I was walking back inside.

Slider was sitting at the bar when I got inside, and he raised his chin at me as I headed toward him. He had a packet wrapped in brown paper on the bar in front of him, and he palmed it as I reached him.

“You heading south?” he asked, rapping his knuckles on the countertop.

“Yup. Callie’s got a doctor’s appointment that I’m gonna miss if I don’t leave now,” I answered impatiently.

His brows lowered in response to my tone, and I automatically took a step back.

“Not gonna hold you up. Just need you to drop a package in Sacramento when you get there,” he replied quietly, sliding the package to me across the countertop.

“That it?”

“That’s it. I’ll see you when you get back,” he responded, standing from his stool. “Check on my girl for me, would ya?”

“Yep. I’m outta here.” I turned and strode toward the door, raising my chin at Dragon who’d been passed out on one of the couches and was looking blearily at me over the head of some blonde chick.

The first hour of the ride was uneventful. I’d taken the trip so many times I could probably sleep through it, and I had gotten complacent about watching for speed traps and highway patrol. I was thinking about the ultrasound, excited as fuck to see my kid again.

I know most people say some stupid shit about not caring if their kid was a boy or a girl as long as it was healthy, but I didn’t think about it that way. Of course I wanted a healthy kid, which went without saying, but I wanted a fucking boy. I wanted a boy so badly it was like a weight in my gut, something I thought about constantly, no matter what I was doing. I figured Callie probably wanted a little girl that she could dress in frilly shit, but the thought of a little girl made me anxious as hell.

I wanted a boy that I could teach to throw a football and take apart a motorcycle. I wouldn’t know what the hell to do with a girl.

I was flying down the highway, thinking about Callie’s appointment and how the hell I was gonna talk her into moving and leaving that fucking weight around her neck, so I didn’t see the police car under an overpass with a radar gun waiting for stupid fuckers like me.

When I noticed the lights in my mirror, I was annoyed as fuck that they were going to hold me up. It was getting later and later and Callie would have my balls if I didn’t meet her at the doctor’s office that afternoon.

I pulled over to the side of the road and shut off my bike, putting the kickstand down and taking off my helmet as I waited.

“You know why I pulled you over?” the cop asked as he walked up beside me.

“Speeding,” I answered, running my hand over my beard. Damn, I needed to trim that shit so I didn’t look like a fucking mountain man the first time I met my kid.

The cop looked at my beard and then down to my cut, his mouth lifting into a sneer.

“I’m going to have to ask you to step off your bike,” he told me condescendingly, taking a step back and dropping his hand to the gun at his waist.

Fucking prick. He was going to mess with me and there was not a goddamn thing I could do about it. I climbed off my bike and stood with my arms at my sides as he spoke into the walkie-talkie on his shoulder before raising his eyes to mine.

“License and registration.”

As I reached for my wallet inside the pocket of my sweatshirt, he pulled his motherfucking gun.

“Hands where I can see them!” he bellowed, pissing me right the fuck off.

“My wallet’s in the front pocket of my sweatshirt,” I told him, hands raised in the air. “Thought you wanted my license and shit?”