Page 4

4

Tye

I groaned and buried my face in my pillow when my phone began blaring from somewhere on the floor. Aura whined and buried her face in my chest. “Make it stop,” she mumbled. “Too early.”

She wasn’t wrong. The party didn’t even begin dying down until around four that morning, and it wasn’t until six that the music stopped completely. We’d promptly passed the fuck out as soon as the music stopped, and if I had to guess, we hadn’t been asleep very long.

Huffing, I lifted my head, then rolled onto my stomach to pat the floor for my phone. I finally found the offending device and squinted at the name on the screen.

Dad .

I swiped my thumb across the screen, then pressed the button for the speaker. After placing the phone on the pillow beside me, I grumbled, “What time is it?”

“Hello to you, too,” Dad said, amusement lining his words. Lucifer Jones, my dad, was the polar opposite of my mother. Whereas my mom was very loud-mouthed, outspoken, and serious, my dad was a bit more laid back and took more things in stride. Except when family was targeted, that was. I’d seen my dad become more frightening than my mom on more than one occasion when the school system tried to target me while my psychiatrist had been trying to find a suitable medication to suppress my sociopathic tendencies.

“Time,” I mumbled again, rolling onto my side to gather Aura’s naked body back into my arms.

“It’s a little after ten,” Dad told me. Aura whined, and Dad barked out a laugh. “Party too hard last night?” he teased, knowing neither of us were partiers.

“No,” I huffed. “But everyone else did. We weren’t able to get to sleep until six this morning. Can you call back later?”

“No,” Dad retorted, sounding way too fucking cheerful for ten in the morning on a Sunday. “Good morning, Aura. Rise and shine, girly.”

“Nooooo,” she dramatically moaned, making him laugh. Even I cracked a grin. My girl was so fucking overdramatic.

“Congrats on the win last night,” Mom said, popping into the conversation. I sighed, knowing I was never going to get any sleep now that Mom was on the line, too. I might have been able to convince Dad to end the call and call me back later, but not Mom. No one pushed Hayley Jones aside. Not even me.

At one point in time, my mother had been the president of the Bloody Black Skulls MC. I didn’t know much about her past while she was an MC member. But I knew my mother’s hands weren’t clean, and if pushed too hard, the outlaw in her would rise to the surface in a heartbeat.

“Thanks, Mom,” I mumbled, reaching up with one hand to rub at my gritty, sore eyes. “I’m not getting more sleep, am I?”

“Nope,” Mom said, popping the P. “Aura, how did your date last night go? Are things still going well with Trent?”

Aura’s shoulders shook with laughter. “Timothy,” she corrected. “And no. They went pretty horribly, actually.” She heaved a tired sigh. “I caught him cheating.”

“Need me to deal with him?” Dad asked, all hint of playfulness gone from his voice. “Making him disappear is easy, sweetheart.”

“I dealt with it,” I spoke up, running my hand down Aura’s spine. She curved into me, her nipples hardening against my chest. Fuck . Damn my parents for calling and waking us up before we could wake up on our own and I could slide into Aura’s warm, wet body. “And now, she’s mine. No more douchebags in her future.”

“As if you can’t be one yourself?” Mom scoffed.

I rolled my eyes, not the least bit offended. It was hard to be offended when the only person truly capable of affecting me was the woman in my arms. “I’m not one to her ,” I clarified.

“Wait—you two are together ?” Dad asked, catching up to the conversation finally. “When the fuck did this happen? Congrats, by the way,” he added as a second thought.

I snorted. “It happened last night. She finally took me out the friend zone.”

“Oh, my God ,” Aura groaned, smacking my chest. “You friend-zoned me first.”

“ Actually ,” Dad said, making me grin because I knew he was about to take my side, “ everyone could see how Tye felt about you. You were the only person blind to it. If you’d given him even a hint of how you felt about him, he’d have claimed you years ago.”

“This is embarrassing,” Aura bemoaned, burying her face in my chest again. “Can we not discuss my love life?”

“ Love ?” Mom questioned. “Should we be expecting a wedding invitation in a week then?”

I huffed. “Go away,” I muttered. “Seriously. I’m going back to sleep. You two are too cheerful for this early in the day. You’re intruding on my first day of being in a relationship. It’s rude.”

Mom scoffed. “You—offended? Fuck out of here, kid.” Aura laughed. I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “But yeah. Get some more rest. Don’t forget to hydrate and stack up on your protein intake today. Your coach is going to work you hard next week.”

I hummed in answer, letting my eyes slide closed again. “Bye,” I said, reaching for my phone.

“Rude,” Dad grumbled, making my lips quirk. “Bye, kids. No babies yet.”

“Oh, my God ,” I grunted. “Fuck all the way off.”

His cackle was the last thing I heard before the call ended. I tossed my phone back to the floor, then pulled Aura flush against me, tucking her head beneath my chin.

“Let’s go back to sleep,” I mumbled. “I’ll wake you up later when I get hungry enough.”

“Hungry for what?” she asked, her voice already husky with sleep. It always amazed me how she fell asleep so fucking fast.

“ Mmm ,” I hummed, a small smirk tilting my lips even though she couldn’t see it. “We’ll see.”