Inked Babies (Inked Brotherhood 6)

Are you hiding, or do you think nobody will ever go looking for you?

After I get my brothers up and make them breakfast, I call the agency, give the guy’s name and ask why his address isn’t in Zane’s file.

“Apologies,” a nice-sounding lady tells me. “Sometimes data is incomplete for one reason or another. I am double-checking now, but it looks like we don’t have the address you’re looking for. It’s not in our files.”

Tyler had been right. I thank the lady and hang up.

So that one was a bust. It’s okay.

I’ll get this guy. I’m on it.

The one thing where I’m completely off my game is Tessa. Next time I see her, I’ll make it clear to her I wasn’t thinking straight today and that she shouldn’t worry. I’ll cook us something good, go pick her up from the airport with Miles and Teo, and everything will be normal once again.

Only then it strikes me that I know nothing about this trip. Where she’s going. When she’s coming back.

She never told me.

Goddamn.

***

“So are you guys okay now?” Miles asks as we walk through the park, dappled sunlight filtering through the foliage overhead. He’s been walking by my side instead of running about with Teo like he would have done a year ago.

Not sure how I feel about these changes that mean he’s not a little kid anymore.

Then again, going through the things we did last year would take away anyone’s innocence. Our dad visiting to write ominous things on their faces, predicting the end of the world, then setting the house on fire and dying in it…

Dad had gone off the deep end, and now Miles is a little grown-up, already aware of the craziness of the

world and the instability of it all.

Teo doesn’t seem affected, though. He’s already running ahead of us, chasing a butterfly. It’s like a scene from a Disney movie, I kid you not.

“Are you, like, taking time apart?” Miles asks.

“Me and Tessa?”

“No, you and Santa.” He rolls his eyes.

“We’re not taking time apart. Tess has a lot of work.” Or she’s trying to keep away from me. Wish I knew which it is. “Couples argue sometimes. It’s normal.”

“You don’t argue.”

True. Until now we never did.

“You love her.”

I shoot him a sharp glance. “Yeah.” And then wait, because Miles has his moments of insecurity, too. Once, when Teo was really sick, he ran away from me at the hospital, crying that I didn’t love him as much as I did Teo. I don’t want him to feel I love Tessa more than him.

But Miles just nods. “She’s cool.”

A weight lifts off my chest. “Good.” I lick my dry lips. “Hey, Miles… if Tessa and I were to have kids, how would you feel about it?”

“Are you guys having a baby?”

“No, not yet. I mean, I don’t know if we are going to. Thought to ask you first.”

“Shouldn’t you be asking her first? I kinda think girls are the ones having the babies.”