Page 15 of Bash

“Was that not right?” he asked, feigning innocence.

“No! That was terrible!” She doubled over, grabbing her belly as she laughed. It was infectious and Smoke broke his façade and joined her, but soon after she started coughing and I had to tell them to settle down.

“You’re too cute, Little girl,” he said, reaching out and booping her nose.

I set his toast in front of him and he opened his mouth to speak, but our burner phones both dinged, signaling a text alert. He shot me a look and I hesitated. We knew who was texting us and we couldn’t just ignore the messages, but I hadn’t had timeto tell Allyson what he and I did. I hadn’t disclosed my darker side yet. Taking a breath, I nodded and we both reached for our phones.

“What’s wrong?” Allyson asked. Her body tightened and she kept flicking her gaze back and forth to each of us.

“We’ve been called into our side job, Little one. I have to go, but I’m going to call Auntie Kay to come sit with you, okay?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I can just go back to the shelter.”

“No, you’re still sick and I want you here,” I reminded her, already dialing Kay’s number.

“I can wait outside then, until you get back.”

“Hey, everything okay?” Kay said, answering. I normally didn’t call her. She was more of a ‘text me’ type of person.

“Any chance you can be on Auntie duty for a few hours?”

Bless Kay, she didn’t even ask a single question or tease me about who she would be playing Auntie duty for. “Of course. I love Auntie duty. I’m on the way.”

“Thank you,” I said, ending the call and turning my attention back to Allyson.

“No, you will wait right here in this house, Little girl. You absolutely will not be going outside to wait for me.” Then not wanting her to feel like I was scolding her, I added, “That would make me very sad.”

Letting her know my true feelings worked like I’d hoped it would.

“I promise I’ll stay here. I won’t even touch anything. Please don’t make Kay come babysit me. She’s going to have to leave work and Leland will be mad at me because that’s more people who are missing work,” she said, suddenly sobbing. “I’ll be so good, I promise.”

Okay, so maybe my plan hadn’t worked as good as I thought.

Handing my burner phone to Smoke so he could reply for me, I walked around the bar and scooped my upset Little girl in my arms.

“Meet you in twenty?” I asked once he’d finished.

He nodded and shoved the rest of his toast into his mouth before heading toward the front door.

I carried Allyson up the stairs and back into my room before setting her back on the bed. “Look at me, Allybaby.”

She lifted her teary eyes to me and I reached out, cupping her face. I wiped her tears with my thumbs and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“Do you remember what Leland said about families loving each other unconditionally?”

She nodded.

“Do you remember how he said you could never be a burden?”

She nodded again.

“That still applies, Little one. You’re not a burden because you’re sick. I’m not a burden because I don’t want you to be here alone. Kay isn’t a burden because she’s leaving work to come over and sit with you while I’m gone. We’re just adjusting some things to make life work for everyone and it’s not a big deal.” I released her face and lifted her hand to my mouth to kiss it.

***

Allyson

Bash was so sweet and gentle… well, with me anyway. I’d literally seen him toss drunk customers out by their shirts before and I heard he’d beaten the snot out of some guy who attacked Rouge, another one of our coworkers and Leland’s Little girl, a few months back.

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