Dirty Toe Drag (Nashville Assassins Next Generation 6)

“I swear. I wonder why I don’t fire the lot of them,” she complains. “No one listens to me.”

“You act like you’re not used to that,” Emery says, and her mother sets her with that “mom” look that sends a chill down my spine.

Emery isn’t in the least bit affected by it.

“Ugh,” Mrs. Brooks groans, but then she looks at me. “Thank you for taking her to dinner and for letting her hang here.”

“No problem,” I say, waving her off. “She’s a joy and delight to be around.”

When all three Brooks ladies start laughing, I can’t help but grin. “Wow-wee,” Mrs. Brooks singsongs. “Someone is hooked on you.”

She taps her hip to Stella’s, and my girl grins. “He’s a good one.”

“He is,” she says, patting my shoulder. “Okay, we’ll get out of your hair. Emery, come on.”

“Momma, carry me,” she cries out, and Mrs. Brooks scoffs.

“No. I tell you all the time, you have to stop when you’re full.”

Emery groans loudly as she gets up before she falls into me, hugging me tightly. I hug her back, and she looks up at me with those wide gray eyes that sparkle with the promise of fun and murder. “Carry me?”

“Emery! Go!” Stella yells, but Emery just grins at me.

“Thanks for dinner.”

“Anytime, kiddo.”

We all say bye, and once the door is shut, Stella leans into me. I wrap my arms around her, kissing her nose as she rubs it against my lips and jaw. “Thank you for being patient with her.”

“It’s really nothing. I like her, almost as much as I like you.”

She grins against my lips. “Almost?”

“Almost,” I tease, kissing her top lip.

She kisses me back and then whispers, “I got you something. Or somethings.”

“Really? When?”

“This morning,” she says, kissing my chin. “Come on.”

She laces her fingers with mine, and she presses her lips to mine softly. I bring her in closer, squeezing our entangled hands behind us as I hold her. I love the taste of her mouth, I love the thickness of her lips, but most of all, I love that little intake of breath she makes right before our lips crash together. I honestly adore everything about her. Her, her family, everything.

I almost push her into the wall to have my way with her, but she pulls away, leading me with her as she walks backward. “Come on,” she repeats, and I follow like a little dog on a leash. I almost don’t even notice where she’s pulling me, I’m so enraptured by her. She’s all I see. That is, until I see my mom’s face. It’s almost like being hit in the chest by nine hundred pucks, one after another, as I take in all the photos I have of my mom. Each photo in a beautiful wooden frame. I’m suddenly choked up, unable to form any words as I look at the only pictures I could get of my mom from my dad. Emotion rattles me, something the size of a frozen puck clogging my throat.

Stella must have noticed my struggle with words, and she fills the void with her voice. “They’re such gorgeous pictures, and I felt they needed to be in frames. If you’ll let me, I’d love to put them around the house.”

I reach out, picking up the one of my mom in the hospital bed, the day before she passed. I’ll hate that date. The day I lost the first woman I ever loved. I have trouble with God. How could he take my mom and then put me through the shit I went through? That didn’t keep me from praying to Him for help. From asking for peace to help me get through the pain and, ultimately, to heal. I know my mom is sitting beside him, watching me, and I can’t help but feel that she sent Stella into my life.

When I don’t answer her, she reaches for a few of the frames, and I watch as she walks to the entryway table, setting them there. She comes back and grabs more, putting them around my TV. When she comes back again, I notice there is one more frame with a picture of us together on our first date. “I know it’s a little crazy that I got it printed, but it’s such a great photo.”

“It is,” I agree.

“I was going to put this one and that one on your nightstand.” She reaches for the frame in my hand, and I let go of it for her. “Is that okay?”

“That’s perfect.”

She grins at me before heading toward my room, so I reach for her bag and follow her in there. I place her bag on the bench at the end of my bed as she sets up the pictures, moving my charging dock and then throwing my water bottle off to the side. Pretty sure from now on, when I see a water bottle, I’ll think of Emery. When Stella looks over her shoulder at me, she shrugs. “What do you think?”