Camden (The Henchmen MC 18)

So he was.

We didn't do a whole lot more talking the rest of the night.TWELVEAnnieI woke up to something that didn't seem to fit.

A smell that wasn't quite right.

Even half-disoriented from too little sleep after an almost all-night sex session, I could place each of them individually.

Scrambled eggs.

Pancakes or waffles.

Breakfast potatoes.

Bacon.

While it wasn't possible, I swear I could almost smell the orange juice too.

Thus far, Camden hadn't proved a very skilled cook. Or a cook of any skill level at all, really.

I'd been trying to show him some easy, basic meals, things I thought everyone should know how to make.

I swear he burned water.

You'd think it wasn't possible.

You'd be wrong.

As far as I knew, he hadn't been practicing outside of when I was showing him how to cook.

So that meant there was a real threat of him setting the entire apartment building ablaze.

I knifed up in bed, a little disoriented, having to sit there for a second before the world came fully into focus.

I reached for one of Cam's tees, slipping it on over my body, then digging a clean pair of panties out of the drawer.

I was still finger combing my hair as I made my way out into the main room.

Where I froze.

Because Cam wasn't in the kitchen with bacon grease dangerously close to catching fire.

In fact, I didn't see Camden anywhere.

Instead, there were two women in the kitchen.

One, the dark-haired one with her back to me was flipping something in a pan. The other with slightly lighter, and shorter, hair dressed in a band tee, tight black skinny jeans, and Chucks, was perched on the counter near her, hands cradling one of Cam's mugs.

I didn't have to ask to know.

Liv and Astrid.

His girls.

Come to finally interrogate me, see if I was worthy of Camden.

And I showed up to the interview in a wrinkled tee with sex hair and morning breath.

I took a breath, ready to retreat, run back into the bedroom before they saw me, make myself more presentable before remerging.

But just when I took a single step backward, Astrid realized I was there.

"Look who it is," she said, her tone something I couldn't quite place. Maybe there was suspicion there? Dubiousness. Like maybe I didn't deserve to be a part of Cam's life.

But no.

I wasn't going to let myself go there. At least not until they gave me a reason to.

"Hey Annie," Liv greeted as she turned, smile genuine, voice seemingly so as well. "Did we wake you up?"

"I, ah, no. But the smell of food certainly got me out of bed," I admitted. "Partly because it smells so good and partly because I thought Cam was about to burn the place down," I added, giving her a smile.

"He really can't cook, can he?"

"No, but bless him, he sure tries," I told her. "Did he have to go to the clubhouse?" I asked, not seeing him around. It wasn't exactly a big apartment, I would have seen him.

The girls shared a look, a long enough one that I felt myself stiffening slightly.

"What?" I asked.

"He just asked us to come and hang out with you today, that's all," Liv told me, but turned away quickly. Like maybe she wasn't telling me the truth.

"She's not a baby. We can tell her what is going on," Astrid insisted, making Liv sigh a bit as she reached for the coffee pot, pouring a cup.

"How do you take your coffee?"

"Almond milk and sugar with a side of pure honesty," I suggested, watching as she shot me a smile before making my coffee.

"Alright," she conceded. "I guess Camden didn't expressly tell us that we couldn't tell you what was going on," she added, giving me my coffee as I walked closer.

"He went to handle your problem," Astrid launched right into it.

"My problem?" I repeated, taking a long sip of coffee, feeling like I needed it to straighten out my knotted-up thoughts.

"The one whose lower lip goes right into his neck," Astrid told me, making me spit out my sip of coffee, choking hard for a long minute.

"Come on, we all thought it," Astrid told me, tossing a clean tea towel at me to ripe off my face and hands.

"Alright, I maybe noticed that before anything else too," Liv agreed.

"I didn't notice it as much when we first started dating," I admitted. "But it seems so glaringly obvious now."

"Could you imagine if you hadn't wised up, and you ended up having a brood with him? A half a dozen no-chin babies..." Astrid said, forcing a horrified shiver.

"I'm pretty sure that even if your kids aren't, ah, fortunate looking, that you still love them," Liv piped in.

"Oh, what do you know? Your kids could be baby models. You could be making a fortune forcing them into beauty pageants and selling your privacy to TLC."

"You would make cute babies too," Liv told her.