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CONOR

COVER ME IN SUNSHINE - P!NK, WILLOW SAGE HART

“Maverick!” Katina screeched.

She seemed to do things at three volume levels—shouting, screeching, and shrieking. Sometimes, she broke shit up by mumbling, but that was only before bed and after waking up.

What surprised me was that I didn’t mind it. Had it made me jump at first? Sure. I was a bachelor who lived alone. Having a kid racing around that made more noise than a jumbo jet was definitely a change of pace. But after ten days of living together, I was adapting.

I was also acclimating to my sofa being used as a scratching post, my decorative tree doubling up as a coat stand, and the second bathroom down the hall smelling of weird perfume thanks to the litter boxes we stored there.

Maverick winced at the screech, but when Katina approached him, she slowed, and her hug was gentle, as if she thought he was fragile. My experiences with the man said he was anything but, and when I neared, I waited for him to stick out his hand first.

We shook on it, mostly because Lodestar had threatened me on the ride over, and he grimaced. “I’m sorry about?—”

“The concussion?” I prompted.

His grimace deepened. “Yeah. That. But this little shit had freaked me out.”

Katina oohed. “Wait until I tell Alessa you swore in front of me.”

She raced off, giggling, maneuvering through the crowds that were her people—she was a Sinners’ brat. For the moment. I’d make her a Fecker before she was done with childhood.

Maverick grunted at her departure. “Thanks for bringing Star home.”

“I wasn’t about to accept any other alternative.”

“She needs someone like you. Smart enough to keep her on her toes, quick enough to chase after her when she lets herself get caught up in other people’s problems.” Maverick lifted his can of Bud Lite to his mouth. The sight was incongruous, what with the ink and the leather cut, but I figured he probably wasn’t even supposed to be drinking that with all the meds he was on. “Saw that ring on her finger. You wifing her?”

“Was I supposed to ask the Sinners for permission first?” I drawled, tone smooth as I looked onto the gardens where a couple guys were smoking.

Maverick’s mouth quirked into a smirk. “You could ask, and we’d have said no. That wouldn’t have stopped her though.”

“Not much does.”

“Sure as fuck not the law, and definitely no Sinners’ bylaws either.” He pulled a face. “Crazy not having her around, can’t deny it. And the peace is fucking weird now that Kat’s gone too. I’m used to tripping over her shit wherever I go. Didn’t think I’d miss it, miss them , but I do.”

“I was relieved when Alessa didn’t stop Star from moving out of Jersey,” I admitted.

“She knows who Kat’s mom is. She also knows that I’d rip you both a new one if you tried to tear Kat and her apart and didn’t allow her to visit.”

I lifted my own can of beer to my mouth. “Does this mean I’m part of the family if you’re only offering to ream me and not kill me?”

“It does,” he groused.

“We have plenty of space in our apartment,” I offered. “You can come and stay whenever you like.”

“Same goes here. Lily won’t mind. This place is a secondary clubhouse anyway.”

'This place' was a billionaire’s mansion.

“Does that mean the Sinners have gone bougie?”

Maverick snorted as he tipped his beer at me. “I think we have.”

I grinned at him then, when I saw a bunch of women clustered around Star, asked, “They giving her shit?”

“Yup,” he said placidly. “They’re our Old Ladies. She cut and run without warning them and they’re not happy about it.”

“I’m glad she’s got people who care about her.”

“She thinks she doesn’t, but she does.”

We were definitely on the same page about that .

Maverick chuckled. “Just wait until Rex and the rest of the council get a hold of her.”

“They’re pissed at her too?”

“Wicked pissed.” His grin was lightning-fast and malevolent with it. “I’m surprised she came today, to be honest. Shit’s still fresh.”

“She mentioned something about ripping off a Band-Aid quickly…”

“Yeah, she never let nerves hold her back. I’d be impressed if I weren’t pissed at her myself.” He cut me a look I didn’t spot because I was watching Kat do some cartwheels next to a table loaded with?—

Well, it was loaded with drinks before .

The table tipped as she kicked it with her toes. Somehow, she landed neatly on her feet, but that didn’t mean the room survived unscathed.

“They’re only cans. We learned at her first barbecue not to have glass bottles out when she’s around,” Maverick assured me as the women stopped haranguing Star and clucked around Kat, checking on her, while some other bikers, Sin being the only one I recognized, started gathering the cans and restocking them on the table they’d just laid out again.

“Bet you don’t miss her knocking everything over,” I joked.

He smirked his agreement. “Anyway, you don’t want to stick around with me. I’ll have to go in for a fucking nap soon.”

I frowned. “You’re feeling ill?”

“No. But sleep keeps the migraines at bay, and it makes me feel fucking ancient to say it but it’ll make tomorrow less miserable.”

“I’m okay with sticking around until you need to go in?” I asked hesitantly, knowing that Star had loved this man at one time and that she still cared for him as a friend.

“Yeah?” He shot me a sheepish grin. “I thought I’d give you an out. Alessa told me to play nice and I figured Star did the same thing…”

“Oh, she did,” I retorted, “but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a lot in common.”

Maverick shrugged. “Guess we do, at that.” He held out his can. When I stared at it, he made a show of tapping his against mine. “You can call me Maverick.”

“I’m Conor.”

“Pleased to meet you, Conor.”

“Pleased to meet you too, Maverick.”

He chuckled. “There, we appeased the women.”

“For the moment.”

“True dat.” He arched a brow at me. “Is what I’ve been hearing about you and the NSA real or bullshit?”

I pulled a face. “Why does she keep telling people about that?”

“It’s impressive. Very niche.”

“Niche isn’t good. I’d have preferred the fucking Feds. My da was close friends with the director.”

“That’s why it’s impressive. The NSA are a bunch of robots.”

Thinking about Riggs made me grimace. “I can’t argue with that.” I cleared my throat. “Star’s given me access to your worm.”

Maverick snorted. “She likes that bit of kit.”

“Can’t blame her. It’s fucking effective.”

His lips twitched. “Not totally useless.”

“Useless?” I choked. “It’s the most destructive malware I’ve come across in years!”

Maverick went inside after ninety or so minutes of me praising his beautiful piece of coding and sharing the various ways in which I’d used it.

Afterward, I was left hovering around the edges of Lily Lancaster’s living room. I didn’t mind, not when Kat was enjoying herself and Star was having fun too—arguing with Rex’s Old Lady Rachel about only the fuck knew what.

As I stood there, looking over the house that had been bought and paid for with Sparrow blood money and ancestral funds from Lily’s mother’s family who was an American blue blood, I had to chuckle to myself at how full circle things had become.

The Sinners had only cropped up on the Five Points’ radar when Mary Catherine, my cousin and Sin’s half-sister, had fled her dipshit father’s notions of an arranged marriage with an older Pointer.

When her father had declared the Sinners had ‘kidnapped’ his daughter, Da had waded into the fray and had promised to bring her back.

That was when he’d learned she was married to a brother already—Digger.

They both lived in Ohio now, but they’d been the start of the ties that bound the Irish Mob to Jersey’s most notorious MC.

It seemed fitting that Star and I would tie all that shit together with a fancy bow.

“Star says only crazy people talk to themselves.”

I blinked down at Kat. “She talks to herself all the time.”

“She says she is crazy and that the best kinds of folk are.” That sounded like her variation of logic. She entwined a strand of hair around her finger. “Conor?”

“Yeah?”

“Would you braid my hair, please?”

Though I stared at the rat’s nest on her head, I only answered, “I’ve never done anything like that before, Kat.”

“Would you learn how to do it?”

Ah, Jesus Christ . “Now?”

“Star’s fell out already. One little cartwheel and it was in my face.” She leaned into me. “I don’t want to hurt her feelings though.”

“Since when?” I teased, knowing that bickering was their love language.

She giggled, and that sound warmed up a part of my heart that I didn’t even know was stone cold until she came along.

Inwardly wincing, I curved my arm around her shoulders. “I’ll learn but not to?—”

“Yay! I’ll go and borrow Alessa’s hairbrush!”

Before I could finish the ‘tonight’ part of that sentence, I heaved a sigh as she raced off to steal a hairbrush from her sister.

Sitting down on one of the benches in the hallway, I waited there, picking up my cell to find a ‘how to’ on YouTube.

As I watched, I inadvertently overheard a conversation between Star and Rachel, the MC’s First Lady.

“…I think it would be a great idea, Star.”

“Not yet. It’s too soon.”

“How is it too soon? Charities don’t just pop into existence overnight,” Rachel retorted. “It takes time and planning to organize this kind of foundation.”

“I don’t want to cause extra work for you. Not now that you’ve got Sommer.”

“I’ve got Sommer, yes, and having a baby is tough with my job, but Rex has stepped up like crazy and I have two assistants and I can always hire more if need be.

"This is important to all of us, Star, not just you. But I wanted you to be on board. Hell, on the board. If anyone should be, it’s you, Alessa, and Amara.”

Star choked, “Amara? You want her on a charity board?”

“Why not? Sure, she’s deranged, but have you seen her offload all the animals that follow Quin around? She’s the perfect kind of person to ask for money?—”

“From fancy socialites?”

“Sure. She’ll get cash off them and they’ll leave the party full of salad leaves and with a cat or dog—whichever she has a surplus of hanging around the clubhouse.”

Kat appeared in front of me like one of the moles in a whack-a-mole game. I jolted in surprise then ducked out of the way when the hairbrush she was brandishing in her hand almost collided with my nose.

Grabbing it before she could inadvertently grace me with a second concussion on Sinners’ territory, I asked, “You okay with kneeling on the ground?”

She hitched a shoulder but had dropped to the carpeted floor before she finished saying, “Sure!”

With one ear on Katina’s chatter about how many cats Amara had now, and then Rachel and Star’s discussion about the charity, my focus switching between them and the YouTube video, I was amazed when, after thirty minutes, there was something resembling a braid on her head.

Some of the pleats were a little loose so, knowing partly what I was supposed to do now, I untucked the braid and set to doing a better job than with my first attempt.

“What are they talking about?”

With the thin brush between my teeth, and the odd silver stick that acted as a handle dangling out of my mouth, I mumbled, “Rachel wants Star to help her with a charity.”

“What kind of charity?”

“To help people like her.”

“Why does she need help?”

My lips twitched. “She doesn’t now. But she did.”

“Star’s awesome.”

“She is.”

“How awesome?”

“Very awesome.”

“Do you like us living with you?”

“I do.”

“Why?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“Star told you that already.”

“She didn’t tell me. I think I inferred?—”

“Why do you like us living with you?”

Pondering the question, I hummed as I tucked the pleats tighter on her head, making sure the line followed her parting. “Because you bring the apartment to life.”

She giggled, and because it was a full-body giggle, she wriggled on her knees. “You’re weird, Conor.”

“I thought Star told you only the best people were weird.”

“Nah, she said crazy .”

“Who’s taking my name in vain?”

With my hands full of thick, blonde hair, I groused, “ Now you decide to come over.”

Star peered at us both. “She was right.”

“Who was?”

“I was,” Kat crowed. “I said you’d be able to do it.”

“Do… braiding?”

“Yup. I just knew you could.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I just did.”

“Why?” I teased. “I can ask questions too, you know?”

She harrumphed, then, with more earnestness than I expected, she murmured, “I think I knew you’d care enough to learn.”

Star’s mouth rounded and the hand she placed on my shoulder was shaky. The kiss she pressed to my head was shakier. Then, she whispered in my ear, “ Thank you.”

Taken aback by both my girls’ responses, I just cleared my throat as I twisted the hair tie around the last inch of hair that I couldn’t braid.

“There,” I declared. “That should stay?—”

Back to her giggling self, Kat exploded into movement. Two cartwheels later, the French braid still in place, she crowed louder than before, “Told you so, Star!”

“I guess she did,” was Star’s tremulous retort as she plunked herself on my lap and clutched at me like I'd disappear if she didn't.

I was going nowhere, but I wasn’t about to argue with the hold she had on me.