West (The Henchmen MC 19)

"Helping him?"

"Well, yeah, but I think more being around a stable, older man. I didn't have that. He was full of gems of wisdom."

"Such as?" he asked, eyes dancing, already knowing I didn't mean the guy told me to pray more and respect my elders.

"To have as much sex as I could because you only ever regret not having it. To do everything stupid and reckless while my body was young enough to bounce back from it all. To never take life too seriously."

"You certainly ran with that advice, huh?"

"It's funny, even after all these years, it never fails that the patients I work with give me almost identical advice. I mean, of course, you have your occasional stick in the mud telling me I need to settle down while I am still pretty enough to land a man. Or something stupid like that. But most of them say to live it up. I think it is good advice."

"You don't want to land a man?" he asked, head cocked to the side a little. "Have two-point-five kids. Attend PTA meetings?"

"If I can find a man who doesn't want to change me, then yeah, I would be happy to do the wife and mom thing. Have half a dozen little miscreants that all the uptight parents don't want their precious Braydens and Emmas playing with."

"Half a dozen kids, huh?"

"I never do anything by half," I told him, shrugging. "Do you want kids? Or have kids?" I added, realizing I didn't actually know much about the guy. Aside that he had some great ink, a killer smile, and had magic fingers.

"No kids. Don't want to make lifetime commitments like that to temporary people. So I am careful. But someday, I'll have them. My mom would whoop my ass if I didn't. She says I have to at least have one son who is just as bad as I was because that is God's way of punishing me for what I'd put her through growing up."

"It only seems fair," I agreed. "It must have been nice," I mumbled, mostly to myself. But West shot me a confused look, making me include him in my thought process. "Having a mom. One who gave a shit anyway."

"It was," he agreed. "Is. You turned out alright without one, babe."

"Yeah," I agreed. "But it would have been a lot less awkward to ask my mother, not my big brother, to bring me to the store to buy period products for the first time."

"I can't count how many trips I was sent on to pick up tampons and chocolate bars when I was living at home. I think it's good for a guy to grow up with sisters," he added, shrugging. "Gets you more acquainted with shit at a younger age before society tells you to be freaked by it. I don't miss having to move half a dozen bras off the curtain rod in the shower, so I could close it every time I wanted to clean up though..."

"You miss your sisters?"

"Yeah. I mean, after a certain point, though, you know that it would never be like it was, y'know? They moved on, built careers, have lives. Got married. All that shit. Even if I was back there, it wouldn't be like it was back in the day."

"That makes sense." I mean even just moving into my own place had changed a lot of the dynamic between my brother and me. It would change more still once he changed careers, and had less time to put up with my bullshit. "Oh, this is my song," I declared, hopping out of my seat, reaching down to grab his hand.

"Babe, no," he said, shaking his head.

"No? Give me your phone," I demanded, surprising him enough to not try to remove my hand from his.

"My phone? Why?"

"Because I am going to call your mother and tell her that when a lady asked you to dance, you turned her down. It's not very gentlemanly of you."

"Pretty girl, no one would ever accuse me of being a gentleman," he shot back, eyes liquid sex.

"Just too chickenshit to dance then, huh?" I asked, knowing a man was always a sucker for a challenge.

This time, when I pulled, he got to his feet.

I turned, raising my hand to hold his over my shoulder, forcing his body to follow closely behind mine as we made it over to the dance floor. Even when we got there, I kept him behind me, leaning a bit into his chest, letting my ass press against him too.

I honestly didn't even know this song. All I knew was it was the kind you could get sexy to. And like everyone around us, we were too.

There was some song my brother used to listen to when I was younger. Not much of it ever stuck with me, but I remember this one line, something that had always stuck with me.