Whiskey has a child. Derby doesn’t argue using him.
Sophie continues, “Royal’s house is absolutely not where I’m sending a five-yer-old unless I want August quoting poetry about graves by lunchtime. Besides, Becki is about to pop any minute. He’ll have his own baby.”
Derby’s jaw works.
“Lottie and Holler, their basement flooded. I’d take her to Paradise Falls if my brother wasn’t visiting. You know he likes to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong.”
Sophie softens her voice, but not the decision. “Your house is the best option.”
He looks at me.
I look back.
For the first time since I opened the door this morning, the humor is gone from his face.
All of it.
I see the objection under his objection.
It isn’t only inconvenience. Not only privacy. Not only a biker who doesn’t want a woman and child in his space.
It’s fear.
He doesn’t want us in his house because a house tells truths a man can hide at the clubhouse.
I understand that too well.
“I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable,” I say, and immediately hate myself for it.
Derby’s eyes flash. “That ain’t the problem.”
“What is?”
He doesn’t answer.
Sophie does. “He don’t like people in his space.”
“That’s one way to say it,” Derby mutters.
“I don’t either,” I say.
His gaze returns to mine.
There.
A fragile piece of common ground.
Sophie stands. “Then set rules.”
The word rules makes my stomach knot.
Derby sees that too.
Sophie corrects herself immediately. “Boundaries.”
That word lands better.
A little.