“Brother, calm down.”
“I am fucking calm.”
“Does this have something to do with the fact you might have knocked her up?” Pixie asked. He quickly held his hands up in the air. “I totally went there and I probably shouldn’t have.”
“You’re a fucking asshole!” Damon went to lunge across the table, but Leo and Paul held him back.
He wanted to beat the shit out of Pixie.
“Enough!” James slammed his palm against the table.
“I’m going to kick your ass,” Damon said, pointing at Pixie.
“I’d like to see you try.”
“You two are grown-ass men, but if you don’t fucking stop, I will put you in the damn naughty corner with a pacifier in your mouths to shut you both fucking up!”
Damon gritted his teeth, and Pixie stuck his tongue out at him.
He wanted to pound on the asshole’s fucking skull and dance on his grave, but he kept himself in check. It was hard to do, but he somehow managed it.
There was no way he could let Teri go. Not now. Not ever.
“Teri’s mine. I’ve loved her for a long time. I’m not going to give her up. If any of you have a problem with that, then I suggest you tell me and I’ll give up my patch for her,” he said.
He felt all of their gazes on him, but he was looking directly at James, waiting for him to say what he needed to.
“We don’t need your patch, Damon. For fuck’s sake. Teri is family.”
“She’s family? Tell me why your woman has been treating her like scum.”
“I’ve dealt with Cora, okay? She won’t hurt Teri anymore. I don’t want Teri to go. She is part of this club, but we also can’t make her stay.”
“Can I say something without getting a pacifier shoved in my mouth?” Pixie asked.
James closed his eyes, pressing his thumb and finger to the bridge of his nose. “Can I stop you from speaking?”
“You can try, but it won’t work. You know what I’m like.” Pixie looked way too happy about that.
“Can I just hit him?” Damon asked.
“We all know we want to. I can do it.”
“No one is hitting anyone,” James said. “I don’t need any woman coming to me telling me what a nightmare my club is. I’m already cleaning up enough messes. What do you want to say?”
Pixie smiled and stood up.
“Enough with the games. None of us are interested.”
“I was going to suggest we give Teri her own leather cut,” Pixie said with a sigh. “None of you have any fucking faith in me. It’s not fair. I’m a good upstanding member of this club.”
“Shut up,” James said.
“I should get special privileges for being your brother,” Pixie said, sitting his ass back in the chair.
“You do. I stop the guys from kicking your ass,” James said.
“Good, so can we talk about the prospect of a wedding between Damon and Teri. I can see her in the white dress now, wearing the leather cut. She would look so fancy.” Pixie looked toward Kitty, who sat on Caleb’s lap. “You would help organize it, right?”
“Only if Teri wanted it that way. Some women want to organize their own wedding, and something tells me Teri is that person. We’ll need to find someone to take Teri’s place at the apartment. I’m already struggling to find a replacement for me. The last few candidates weren’t nice to Anna or Cole.”
A wedding.
Damon wanted to marry Teri. “I want to marry her,” he said.
“Are you the only one running behind with the program?” Pixie asked. “We’re already right there, brother. How did he become a patched-in member for being this slow?”
James muttered under his breath.
“But she’s interviewing and she didn’t tell me,” Damon said. It wasn’t a question. “Does that mean she wants to leave?”
“Dude, before you go judging her on not telling you her plans, you also kind of might have knocked her up. To quote you, you’re not a saint in this,” Pixie said.
As much as he wanted to beat the crap out of Pixie, he couldn’t deny the man was right. He wasn’t the innocent party in all of this.
****
Teri went straight home after her interview. This job had called twice to make rearrangements for the interview. First, they had a refurbishment, which took longer than expected. After that, the chef had stayed on, and she’d gotten the call a couple of days ago to come in for the same interview they’d been rearranging. At first, she’d been tempted to tell them no, but she figured at each time they’d contacted her to let her know before she traveled, they weren’t ready for the interview to go ahead. Anna was still up and nursing Cole.
“How did it go?” Anna asked.
Teri ran her fingers through her hair as she glanced around her kitchen. “It went really well.” She stared into the fridge, not seeing anything. “They offered me the job.” The interview had talked about her previous experience, and then they had asked her to make so many dishes for them, and had required a taste test. All of which she had passed. Teri couldn’t recall an interview ever going so amazingly well. They wanted her and were willing to pay her a lot of money to go to them.