“You?” I knew there was more to Ray and her story then the beautiful young mom before me.

“Yeah, and I’ll tell you the entire tale some day, but it’s actually not me I’m talking about.”

“Grace?” I looked over to where she was sleeping on the couch. Her deep snores growing louder and louder with each inhale. “Who would hurt Grace?”

Ray shook her head. “No, not Grace.”

“Then who?” I hoped to God she wasn’t going to say one of the kids.

Ray looked out the door toward the garage and then back to me. “Bear.”

It was the last person I expected her to say, but after she said it, it made sense. Why he hated that I’d been hurt. Why he wanted to heal me. Why he hated me all at the same time.

Why he wanted me gone.

I was more than just a burden. I was a reminder. No wonder he walked away from me last night. He was dealing with his own shit.

He didn’t need to deal with mine too.

If I wasn’t sure before, I was definitely sure now.

The second I could figure out how, I would be gone.

Consequences be damned.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Bear

“You got any weed?” I asked Ray who was on the couch in the living room.

“I don’t know, Bear, do you know how to knock?” Ray asked, shooting daggers at me with her eyes.

“Never knocked before.”

“I wasn’t breastfeeding before,” Ray said, and that’s when I noticed the little bundle of pink pressed up against Ray’s bare tit. I’d never seen anyone breastfeed a baby before. Not in person at least. I always thought it would be something gross, but I was wrong. Baby attached to it or not, a bare tit is still a bare tit and although I knew my feelings for Ray had never been anything real, she was still fucking beautiful…and her tit was still out.

“You got any weed?” I asked again, trying not to look at her tit but in the process managing to only look at her tit.

She grabbed a small blanket from over the couch and slung it over her shoulder. “You can look now.”

“Don’t think I ever stopped,” I admitted. “But do you? It’s kind of important.” It was actually very important. I’d fucked up. I kissed Thia. I pressed my tongue into her pussy and in all my life I can honestly say that I’d never tasted anything so fucking amazing.

But then I got up and left her sitting there probably wondering what the fuck she’d done wrong when she’d done nothing wrong. It was the opposite. She’d done everything right.

Too fucking right.

She was so responsive and I knew that if I spent any more time with my mouth on her or touching her in any way that she would have come.

It was the mere thought of her coming around my tongue that set me off and made me start to lose control. Shit¸ it was probably that first fucking kiss. Her innocent tongue finding its way to mine.

My cock was so hard it fucking hurt and I was seconds away from taking her right there at the edge of the fire pit. If it wasn’t for a crackling of the fire, a reminder of what I’d been through in that very same spot bringing me back to reality there was no doubt that I would have done just that.

The weed was my peace offering to her. My way to show her that I really did want to make her forget in a way that didn’t involve me plowing through the barrier of her virgin pussy with my cock. I also had something else to tell her. Something that kept me on track with my original plan to get back on the fucking road.

“You think I can smoke weed while breastfeeding?” Ray asked, calling me back to the present.

“I take it from the way you’re looking at me like I’m a fuck up that the answer to that is a big resounding motherfucking no?” I asked.

“You would be right,” Ray said. “King is in his studio, he keeps everything locked up pretty tight these days with the kids around, but he probably has something.” She shifted the baby and her shirt before sliding the cover off. “Now was that so hard?” I liked arguing with Ray almost as much as I liked arguing with Ti.

HA HA you just admitted you like fighting with her. You have a crush you big fucking pussy!

I rolled my eyes at Preppy’s mental commentary.

King was in his new studio, on the other side of the garage from the apartment, just as Ray had said he would be. He was hunched over an angled desk, his pencil moving quickly over the page. I leaned over to check out what he was drawing, it was an old school style dragon, breathing flames and it was one of the most detailed sketches I’d ever seen him do. Dramatic. Bold. “Nice digs,” I said, looking around his new studio. His old one was just a small room in the house, outfitted in neon and posters. This one was cleaner, more grown up. More sterile. Pictures of previous tattoos he’d done hung in frames on the wall, a KING’S TATTOO sign with a skull wearing a crown hung over the door.