“I love you. I love you so much,” he told me seriously, and I fell against the wall as I heard his breath hitch, my legs giving way until I’d slid completely down to my ass.

“I love you, too,” I whispered back. “I want to be with you.”

“Sugar, things are worse than we thought. I wish I could explain it all to you, but the lawyer said not to talk about it on the phone, so you’re just gonna have to trust me.”

“Trust you with what? What’s going on, Asa?”

“They think they found something on my bike that I wasn’t supposed to have,” he mumbled, pausing to sigh deeply, “I was coming from the clubhouse, and your friend’s dad said to bring her his love.”

Confusion set in and I sat silently for a few moments before I realized he was speaking in some sort of code.

“When I got pulled over, they took me in. Judge let me out on bail, but it’s only a matter of time before they arrest me again. The lawyer thinks they’re gonna make an example outta me,” he told me quietly. “I don’t want you driving all the way up here before the court date.”

I inhaled on a sob, scared as hell. “I’ll just come up and see you and then leave again. I won’t be there long!” I pleaded.

“Not good for you to sit that long in a car, Sugar,” he answered gently. “Round trip, that’s almost twenty hours. You gotta take care of you and the baby.”

“But I miss you,” I whimpered, not willing to give up.

“Fuck, I miss you, too. But I don’t want you driving all the way up here,” he told me firmly. “I gotta go, Sugar. I’m sitting in the fuckin’ parking lot of the jail, but I wanted to give you a call first thing. I’ll call you back as soon as I get home, okay?”

“We’re having a son,” I replied quickly, in an anxious bid to keep him on the phone.

“A son?” he whispered.

“Yeah.” I smiled, tears rolling down my face. “They even took a picture to prove it.”

“They took a picture of our son’s dick?” he asked, his voice rose at the end in disbelief.

“Chill out!” I giggled. “It’s a grainy black and white photo. It’s not porn!”

“A son,” he muttered again quietly. “Thank you.”

“I’m pretty sure you determine that, but you’re welcome.”

“I gotta go, Callie. I’ll call you back,” he muttered abruptly, shattering the moment we’d been having.

“As soon as you get there?”

“Yeah, Calliope, I’ll call you the minute I park,” he assured me. “I love you.”

“Love you, too,” I murmured and then listened to the click as he hung up.

Cody found me bawling on the kitchen floor only a few minutes later.

“What the hell, Callie?” he panicked, lifting me to my feet with his hands under my arms.

“Asa called,” I told him dully as I grabbed a glass and filled it with water. “He’s out.”

“Then why the hell were you crying on the floor?”

“He said it’s bad, Cody,” I whispered, looking directly into his eyes. “He said they’re going to arrest him again.”

“What? Why?” he asked, bewildered.

“I don’t know! He said that they’d caught him with something, and then said something about Slider sending his love to Farrah! He wasn’t making sense!” I barked, running a frustrated hand through my hair.

“Wait, what does Farrah have to do with it?” he asked protectively, pushing out his chest and crossing his arms over it.

“I have no idea. I think he was trying to tell me something without really saying it.”

“What exactly did he say?”

“That he came from the clubhouse and my friend’s dad asked him to bring his love to her.”

“Holy fucking shit,” he mumbled, looking at the floor and rubbing the back of his neck. “He was carrying something for Slider.”

“What?” I screeched.

“It makes sense. Think about it—they found something on him, right? And he said Slider sent his love to Farrah, but that would be a pretty fucking weird thing for him to do,” he told me intently, his eyes boring into mine. “Slider sent something with him.”

“You think he was making a drop for Slider when he was supposed to be coming down for our doctor’s appointment?” I asked incredulously. “That would be so fucked up!”

“That’s what it sounds like,” he confirmed.

“No way,” I mumbled, pushing past him. “Tell Gram I’ll be over later. I need to take a shower.”

I strode into the bathroom, effectively ending our conversation. I needed to think.

Asa wouldn’t have made a drop when he was coming down for something so important. I knew him. I knew he wouldn’t taint our day with club shit. He knew how I felt about the club even though I’d never voiced it.

My mind ran a thousand miles a minute as I took a shower, and I tried desperately to find something else hidden in his words.

When I climbed out and dried off, I noticed a missed call from Asa, but I didn’t call him back. I needed to get my head together before I talked to him and didn’t want to accuse him of something that wasn’t true. I was afraid that if I called, I’d demand he tell me that Cody was wrong—that he hadn’t made his trip to see me into some sordid club errand.