Page 55 of Burned in Stone
Cash cups my face, thumb brushing my cheek. “I need to deal with some club business. Stay with the girls, OK?”
“Should I come?” I ask. “If it’s about Gabriel?—”
“It’s club business now,” Bones says from the doorway. “We’ve got it handled.”
I want to argue, but Cash kisses my forehead. “Let us handle this part, angel. Please.”
There’s something in his voice that makes me nod. “OK.”
They disappear down the hallway, and Ginger pulls me over to the couch and sits right up against me, her body radiating thatfierce older-sister energy I always wished I’d had in my growing-up years. Poppy sits up, setting Rose down in her little vibrating bouncer. Then she grabs my hand and squeezes it, like she knows exactly how close I am to spinning out. “You holding up, babe?”
“Yeah,” I say, but my voice cracks a little at the end. “I’m just…so fucking tired of this.”
“I can imagine,” Ginger says, tucking her legs beneath her then waving Tank away when the Santa biker starts hissing out air. “I thought I told you to take that outside!”
“You said not to bring it in there,” Tank returns.
“So you decide to stay in the doorway with it? Honestly! Take it out back.”
Tank mutters something under his breath then slinks away, dragging the Santa behind him.
“You’d think that somewhere inside that giant of a man there’d be some brains,” Ginger says, sighing. “He’s lucky he’s great in bed and an absolute marshmallow when it comes to the people he loves, otherwise I’d have buried him under a fucking Santa years ago.” She turns her gaze to me. “But you didn’t come here for marriage advice. What else happened, Mercy?”
I sink into the cushions, suddenly exhausted. “We had the meeting with Josie—went great, actually. She’s filing in a neutral county where Gabriel has no connections. But when we came out...” I take a breath. “He was waiting with his goon squad.”
“Bastard,” Poppy mutters. “What did he want?”
“To intimidate me. To show he could find me anywhere.” I touch the cut I’m still wearing. “He really didn’t like seeing this. Called me a... whore.”
Poppy gasps. “No wonder Cash looked livid.”
“He almost lost it,” I continue. “A couple of times. Bones had to physically hold him back, and Steel here got in between them.”
Ginger turns to Steel. “That was brave.”
Steel gives a shrug. “Did what I had to.” He pulls a knot out of the tinsel with one long finger. “Cash had murder in his eyes, and I wasn’t about to let him give that asshole cop what he wanted.”
“Well, you did good protecting him,” Ginger says. “If you didn’t, he’d be in cuffs right now.”
I’m about to thank Steel when the kitchen door slams open and the twins barrel in at the speed of a sugar rush, shrieking “STEEL! STEEL, LOOK WHAT WE MADE!” One holds a lumpy, half-frosted cookie in each hand like they’re Olympic medals; the other drags Adam by the shirtsleeve, all of them sticky with sprinkles and red-and-green frosting. The hang-arounds chase after them, caught somewhere between laughter and panic, but the kids have linebacker momentum and total immunity to adult authority.
“Sorry, Ginge,” one of the women calls through the chaos. “They heard Steel’s voice and wouldn’t stay put.”
“It’s fine,” Ginger says, waving them off. “Just bring out a damp cloth or Steel’s gonna be pulling sprinkles from his beard for days.”
The twins have decided Steel is a jungle gym. He looks at me helplessly as Amy climbs onto his shoulders while Abby wraps around his leg.
“Steel!” Amy demands. “Make us fly!”
Without missing a beat, Steel carefully lifts Amy, making airplane noises as he ‘flies’ her around the room. She shrieks with delight, and immediately Abby demands her turn.
“Higher!” Abby commands when he picks her up. “Faster!”
Adam toddles over, arms raised. “Up! Up!”
I watch Steel juggle all three kids with the kind of easy patience I’ve never seen in a man before. Gabriel used to complain when kids were too loud in restaurants, would glare at parents like their children existing was a personal affront. But Steel? Steel flies them around, making whooshing noises, and he doesn’t look annoyed or put-upon—he looks genuinely happy.
Maybe that’s the difference between men who are actually strong and men who just need everyone to think they are. Real strength looks like Steel letting two little girls climb all over him for their entertainment. False strength looks like Gabriel calling me a whore because I dared to leave.
