Inked Babies (Inked Brotherhood 6)

She’s right, but I’m frustrated with the delay while my friend is suffering. I’m just as bad as Dylan, thinking we’d solve this from day one, and that information would be easy to come by.

I lower my phone, about to put it away, but find myself typing, “Are our babies okay?”

She sends me back two hearts and a smile, and I grin like a fool, staring at them.

Tyler chuckles. “Oh man, you’re pussy-whipped all over again, bro.”

“You’re one to talk,” I say without heat, still grinning. “Besides, you already have two chicks in your life.”

“So you want a princess of your own, huh?” He whips out his phone and scrolls through pics of Isabella—then of Jax, and Erin, not even trying to hide how proud he is.

“I really wouldn’t mind,” I admit, though I love my boy to bits. “A girl would be nice. Or another boy. Fuck, either is fine.”

“Hey, Dyl. Your turn?” Tyler thumps the back of Dylan’s seat. “Time to get some tykes of your own?”

“I’ve got my brothers, man. Same thing.”

“Nah, not the same. You don’t know what it’s like being a parent until you’ve drunk beer with baby pee in it.”

Rafe snickers. “Or until all your shirts have drool and milk stains that won’t go away from getting the baby to burp after eating day after day.”

“Or,” I say, “until you’ve paced your room with a wailing baby in your arms at three in the morning trying to memorize the information for your college exam coming up in five hours.”

“Did you pass?” Tyler asks.

“I did. Then I went back home and passed out for two hours.” I shake my head, snorting, and turn automatically to Zane, waiting for him to add his story, or tell us we’re idiots.

Instead, I find him with a hand splayed on the window and the other gripping the back of the driver’s seat.

“Has he seen something?” I ask. “Z-man?”

Tyler taps on Rafe’s shoulder, and the car slows down. “What is it?”

“Zane.” I reach over Tyler to grip his arm. “Talk to us.”

“Here. I think it’s fucking here. That tree.”

The car slows to a crawl. I shiver. We’re driving through a quiet neighborhood close to the river. The tree in question is a massive oak, like the one I used to climb with Audrey when we were kids, with a wooden bench built around its gnarled trunk.

“I thought you said the tree was a maple?” I ask, trying to see.

“Is this the house?” Dylan seems one second away from climbing over Rafe’s lap to get a better look. “The green one with the nice porch?”

But Zane is staring past that, transfixed, to a red brick house with white curtains fluttering at the windows.

“That one,” Tyler says quietly, pointing, and the car rolls on, past the oak tree. “Stop here.”

Despite the curtains at the windows, the house looks untended. Maybe abandoned. Weeds are crowding the porch and sprout all around. The fence is peeling, though the house itself isn’t faring that bad. It’s as if it was painted relatively recently.

We throw the car doors open and spill out. It’s past midday, and the sunlight is golden, blinding. Shading my eyes with my hand, I stretch my legs as I walk toward the gate. It’s low, easy to jump over, and in fact Dylan is already doing just that and walking down the path to the house.

Zane is standing by the car, staring.

“You sure this is the house?” I ask him.

He swallows hard. “I think.”

“You think.”