“They found me first.”
Her eyes flick up to mine, wet and furious. “They hit you?”
“In the face.”
A flush climbs her throat. It shouldn’t interest me. It does anyway.
The kid inside the truck makes another noise. Small. Half-asleep. Unhappy.
The woman turns immediately, all embarrassment gone, and leans into the cab. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. Mama’s here.”
Mama.
Of course.
Because my night can never just be weird. It has to be weird with responsibilities.
I angle my head and see the kid in the back seat, strapped into a booster, hair stuck to his forehead, cheeks flushed from crying or sleeping too hard. Little thing. Maybe four. Maybe five. I don’t know. Kids all look like drunk tiny people to me until they get old enough to steal beer out of coolers.
He clutches another stuffed dinosaur against his chest and blinks at me.
I blink back.
Nope.
I don’t do kids.
I do engines. Fights. Club runs. Women who know better and want worse. I don’t do car seats, sticky fingers, bedtime stories, or little eyes that look at a man like he might know what the hell to do.
The kid’s gaze drops to my cut.
Then my boots.
Then my beard.
Then the bike behind me.
“Is that a dragon?” he whispers.
The woman stiffens.
I glance back at Widowmaker, black and mean in the dark, even with the engine off.
“Close,” I say. “She bites less.”
“Derby,” the woman snaps.
I look at her. “We’ve known each other thirty seconds, and you’re already scolding me. That’s quick.”
“I don’t know your name.”
I glance at it spelled out on my cut. “Derby.”
Her eyes narrow. “Like the hat?”
“Like the horses.”
The kid lifts his head more. “Horse dragon?”