Jerk It by Lani Lynn Vale

CHAPTER 26

I never lose. Either I win, or you’re a bitch.

-Mavis to Murphy

MURPHY

6 weeks later

“Thanks, man.” I held out my hand to Jeremiah.

Jeremiah rolled his eyes and took my hand anyway.

“It’s not like I really did much. The dogs died. I had them cremated,” Jeremiah grumbled gruffly.

A motorcycle pulled up into the alley that Jeremiah and I shared between our two places, and I was surprised to see that it was Haggard.

Haggard got off his bike, his leather cut slightly askew, and that’s when I finally made the connection.

The two of them were in the same motorcycle club.

“Damn, I’m slow.” I shook my head, a grin forming on my face.

“What?” Haggard asked as he strolled toward us.

“I just now realized y’all were in the same motorcycle club.” I laughed. “I’ve been seeing the two of you separately for a while now, but I just now put two and two together.”

Haggard grinned. “Jeremiah doesn’t usually wear his cut all that often because it makes his ex-wife a little stabby. He wears it more now that they’re divorced.”

My brows rose. “When did that happen?”

“While you were dying,” he grumbled. “I told your wife. But I’m sure she had other things on her mind rather than my problems.”

I snorted. “A few other things.”

I eyed the patch on Haggard’s breast pocket. “Thief?”

“Road name,” Haggard said. “At least mine’s not ‘Sparkle’ like his.”

I looked at Jeremiah’s patch and sure enough, his name was ‘Sparkle.’”

I snorted. “I like it.”

Jeremiah snorted, but then turned thoughtful as he checked me out.

“So does your being here mean you’re gonna be back?” he asked.

I grinned. “A few more weeks yet. I just wanted to come down here and check the place out, make sure everything was okay. I know you’ve been keeping an eye on it for me, and I really appreciate that.”

Jeremiah jerked his head in understanding. “I’m sorry about the dogs.”

I sighed.

The dogs were old.

I knew that when I’d bought this place and they’d come as kind of a package deal.

I’d only had them for a short time, but it bothered me more than I realized, them passing away.

“Gonna be lonely here when I come back,” I admitted. “I enjoyed having them here.”

Haggard remained quiet while Jeremiah and I spoke but perked up when the woman that dominated my dreams rounded the corner of the alley with a very pissed off Vlad in her hands.

Since I couldn’t take him—I’d yet to be allowed to pick up more than ten pounds, and sadly, Vlad was almost triple that now—I had to watch her struggle with him.

That was until Haggard offered her his hands.

“I’ll take him,” he offered. “I don’t mind screaming kids. I had to get used to that shit when my girl was little since her mother poisoned her against me. Getting her on the weekends and holidays was like a bittersweet dessert. You enjoyed the hell out of it afterward, but during, you’re not quite sure it’s worth the calories.”

Mavis handed Vlad over gladly.

“I really should be more upset that he hates me,” she admitted, “but I’m just glad that he likes other people.”

Haggard frowned, but it was Jeremiah who said, “He hates you?”

“He definitely doesn’t prefer me,” she admitted. “Since he was a little bitty baby, he’s always preferred everyone else over me, and I don’t know why.”

Jeremiah grunted out something unintelligible before saying, “My youngest was like that. Absolutely couldn’t stand her mother. Loved me. Drove my ex-wife batty, too. She didn’t handle it anywhere near as well as it sounds like you are.”

Mavis shrugged. “I mean, it sucks because I can’t even hold my own kid. But I can make him happy. He doesn’t mind sitting near me, he just doesn’t like me holding him. It is what it is at this point.”

“Funny that you say that,” Haggard said. “The moment you handed him over, he stopped crying. But though I’m holding him, he’s staring at you.”

We all blinked, and I thought back to all the times that I’d been holding him after Mavis had handed him off, and how every single time, Vlad had turned to stare at his mother.

“You know,” I said softly, “I’ve noticed that, too. It’s like he wants to see you.”

“Something to consider the next time he’s acting up. Does he really want to get away from you? Or does he just want to be able to see you?” Jeremiah rumbled.

Mavis sighed. “Something that I’ll hopefully know when he starts talking. In the meantime,” she looked at me. “I have some bills to pay in the office, and I need your keys to get inside. Do you mind providing those for me?”

I grinned and reached into my pocket for the keys, handing them over to her.

She started to step toward Haggard, but he shook his head. “Go get your bills paid. If I need to leave before you come back, then I’ll bring him to you.”

Mavis glanced at me, offered everyone a smile, and started away.

I caught her by the belt loop before she could take two steps in the opposite direction.

“Kiss me before you walk away, baby,” I ordered. “You always have before.”

Instead of turning around, she leaned her head back, and I curved my hand around her throat before dropping a kiss to her upturned lips.

That kiss was so nice that I gave her a few more before letting my hand slide away from her throat.

When she looked back at me over her shoulder after getting halfway down the alley, I grinned at the look of lust in her eyes. “Don’t forget we have to meet my grandmother for dinner in an hour.”

I gave her a thumbs up before turning back to the men.

My gaze fell on Vlad, who was watching Mavis go.

Maybe the two men in front of me were onto something with the kid.

He definitely never allowed his eyes to stray far from his mother when she was around.

Yes, definitely something to ponder indeed.

“I wish I had a boy,” Haggard grumbled. “You’re a lucky man. Your son’s a pretty good one.”

I didn’t correct of his assumptions.

Because, for all intents and purposes, Vlad was mine.

One day he would openly carry my name, too.

• • •

Dinner that night was exactly how I would’ve expected it to be.

Awkward, time consuming, and annoying.

The Pope matriarch was just as much of a bitch now as she had been when I’d lived on her property.

And it didn’t make it any better that Fran had decided to invite my mother, a woman Grandma Pope definitely noticed and recognized.

“I thought we said this was going to be a family affair,” Pearl glared at the occupants of the room.

There was my mother and me, Vlad who was in my arms, then Mavis who was leaning against the back of my chair. She had a death grip on the chair top, and she was ‘going to be good’ as long as her grandmother didn’t ‘pile on the bullshit.’

Then there was Taos and Fran, Fran being the one to answer the door.

“What do you mean?” Fran asked with a frown. “This is our family.”

“I wanted just you and Mavis.”

Mavis snorted, drawing her grandmother’s attention, but didn’t say anything more than that.

I curled my arm around the back of the chair, cupping her calf with my large hand and squeezing lightly.

She growled under her breath, causing my lips to twitch.

“That’s not possible, seeing as we’re both in relationships now,” Fran said. “We’re sorry that you don’t know our men and Guilia, but we do.”

Pearl narrowed her eyes as she said, “What do you mean husbands? Plural?”

She looked at Mavis as if just the idea of her being married was laughable.

“Mavis and Murphy were married a couple of months ago,” Fran shrugged. “Before he got his heart transplant.”

Pearl’s lips pressed into a line of annoyance, but ultimately, she didn’t say anything to that. Which was a good thing, because I didn’t think that Mavis would’ve been able to keep her shit in check if Pearl had.

This time, it was my mother who snorted.

Pearl turned to stare at Mavis then.

“We need to talk about the young man in the hospital that is the father of this one,” Pearl pointed at Vlad.

Vlad who was nodding off despite the excitement in the room.

His head was pressed against my chest, and his mouth was open widely with drool leaking out. Every few seconds, his eyes would pop open, then close just as fast for longer and longer each time.

“Do you know his name?” I asked quietly.

Pearl’s eyes narrowed as she said, “What does that have to do with anything?”

“It has to do with everything seeing as you don’t have anything to do with him. So why would we need to talk about the man that helped conceive him when you don’t know anything about the situation?” I pushed.

Pearl crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m just trying to make sure that if he decides to pull his head out of his ass when it comes to my grandson, he won’t be taken away because we ‘didn’t tell him’ about the baby. Signed away rights or not. He can still make a stink. I don’t give a flying fuck about who the man is. I give a flying fuck about the money he has, and how one day he may think he has the ability to smear the Pope name.” She frowned. “And we don’t know if, once he’s better, he’ll suddenly have a change of heart and decide to be a responsible human being.”

That was actually kind of sweet.

But…

“I took care of it already,” I told the room at large.

This was something I hadn’t even told my own wife about yet.

Pearl unfastened her frail arms from across her chest and stared. “You’re sure?”

“Positive,” I said into the yawning silence.

“Then I have nothing more keeping me here,” Pearl said.

Then with a flourish that only a Pope could make, she swept out of the room and out the door without another word.

It wasn’t until the door stopped vibrating that Mavis said, “What do you mean you took care of it?”

She walked around my chair and stared at me.

“I took care of it.” I paused. “Well, technically, my mom took care of it for me since I was a bit of an invalid that last couple of weeks before my surgery. But I had Mom talk to a lawyer. We went through our attorneys. I didn’t want this to be something you had to worry about after I was gone.” I licked my lips. “I am, legally, Vlad’s father. On the birth certificate, it says he’s mine. Bayne can’t say anything, because I tied him up legally. He won’t be able to ever say a word unless he wants to break a very ironclad contract. Oh, and shell out millions of dollars in fines and fees.”

The sight of her eyes filling with tears had me reaching out for her.

She came, sitting down on one of my legs and leaning in so she didn’t crush Vlad.

Pressing her lips to mine, she said, “So you’re officially both of ours, now?”

“You were always officially mine. You just didn’t know it.”