“Maybe you should go to the library then,” I told him. “They have all kinds of stuff you can check out.” Something nudged at me right then. It was the indulgent smile he gave me when I first told him about where I'd gotten the novel. Smart ass. I smiled slowly, feeling that familiar verbal geyser of crap ready to sprout out of my mouth and unable to control it. “Like picture books if the ones with words don’t work for you.”

Silence.

And then Dex tilted his head back and laughed so loud it made me smile even though I didn’t think he would appreciate it. To be honest, I was surprised that the tease came out of my mouth. Unintentional and all, but still, it was like tap dancing on ice with him.  How thin was the ice? I’d never know. “All right, I probably deserved that, Ritz.”

Score one for Team Iris. If I could high-fived myself without looking crazy, I would have .

But luckily for both Dex and I, he started speaking again. “Come up front. We’re pullin' straws.”

“For what?” I asked him carefully. The last thing I needed or wanted was to pull straws to see who had to clean a backed up toilet.

He waved me forward, waiting until I was off my chair and at his side before explaining. “I didn't tell you about the conventions we go to?”

Pssh. I could have pointed out that he didn't really tell me anything period but I kept the comment to myself. “Nope,” I replied.

Dex shrugged like the absence of information wasn’t a big deal. “We hit up tattoo expos a couple times a year, and the next one is two weeks away in Houston.” He shot me a look as we walked down the hall toward the empty reception area. “We’re pullin’ straws to see who’s goin’ this time.”

That didn’t exactly sound like a bad thing. “But I just work the front desk,” I told him like he didn’t already know that.

Slim, who had wheeled his chair to sit in the middle of the shop like usual, was being nosey—also as usual—and listening in on our conversation. “Consider it a learning experience,” he claimed. “We always need help doing other stuff anyway.”

I thought about it for a second, and then shrugged. It’s not like I had anything else to do and if it was technically a part of my job, a job that I might not have for too much longer, then it'd be fine. “All right then.”

Dex took a handful of straws out of his pocket, covering them with his hand as he arranged, and then presented them to me. “Ladies first.”

I couldn’t help but glance up at his dark blue eyes for a split second before I pulled a straw right in the middle of the four. Dex went ahead and held out the collection to Blue next before letting Blake and Slim grab the last pieces.

“Wait a sec, you okay sharin’ a room?”

“Sharing a room with you guys?” I repeated the question right back to him, to make sure I understood correctly.

“Yeah, sharin’ a room. You okay with that?” he asked.

I looked over at the three men I worked with slowly. “No one’s going to tattoo a peen on my forehead when I’m sleeping, right?”

They all looked at me straight for a minute before starting to laugh, even Blue, who only laughed at me when I said something exceptionally stupid.

“I’ll take that as a no,” I shot Slim a nasty look. “In that case, no, I don’t care.” Though I’d prefer it not be Dex, I wasn’t going to say that out loud. “As long as you don’t do gross stuff in the shower, I’m fine.”

Slim snorted. “Blake, that’s all you man.”

“I told you I didn’t do it,” he retorted, his face reddening as the words flew out of his mouth.

“Right. You didn’t do it when you were the only one who took a shower that morning—“

Dex cleared his throat, biting back a smile. “Okay, okay, let’s see who the hell is goin’ before we argue over who jacked off in Seattle.”

That was my cue to laugh. By myself. Awkward!

After comparing straws, it looked like Blue and I were the losers with the short ones. Based on the looks we shot each other—she wasn’t much of a talker and I liked to make facial expressions that she seemed to understand—neither one of us was too heartbroken.

“Feel free to do whatever the heck you want to do in the shower since I’m not going,” I blurted out, already taking a step back to head into the kitchen. My book and lunch were calling my name.

Blake’s eyes cut over to Slim’s accusingly. “I didn’t fucking do it, man!”

Right.

~ * ~ *

"Someone left a voicemail for you, kid," Sonny noted, his gaze locked on the epic gun battle going on in the television screen.

I'd just come in from work, dropping my purse onto the couch that I'd rightfully claimed over the course of the last month and let myself get excited for a brief moment. "Who?"

He made a humming noise in his throat. "Umm, someone named Gladys or something from a place with a stupid name. There were a bunch of Rugrats screaming in the background."

It had to be one of the daycare centers I'd applied to.

"Yes!"

Two minutes later, I'd written down Gladys Ortega's phone number and high-fived Sonny for finally getting a callback.

"I don't get why you're so excited. The idea of working with a bunch of kids sounds like hell," he murmured.

The last time I'd worked at a daycare center, I'd been twenty and fresh out of radiation therapy. At that point, nothing could have brought me down. But now that I really thought about it...crap. I liked kids but did I like them that much? The better question was, did I dislike Dex enough to sacrifice one moody devil for a bunch of innocent demons?

The answer didn’t come as easily as I would have expected.

"I can just see what they have to offer."

He shrugged and it made me narrow my eyes.

I didn't understand what was going on with him, but every time I asked, he always answered the same way.

He was fine. Always fine.

And he was completely full of shit.

"What's wrong with you?"

For the last two days, Sonny had been acting really erratic. One of the most laid-back people I'd ever met in my life, he wasn't the type to sit back and let things bother him. He was an advocate of either ignoring things or dealing with them head on. Preferably with his fists it seemed, when he came home two nights ago with a busted lip and refused to tell me what happened.

I made sure he was okay, and then changed the subject. The problem was, he was still acting weird. Something was bothering him and it was nipping at him, over and over again. He still smiled but it was shadowed and guarded.

I finally had it though. Only one of us could be a moody shit, and that would be me.

"What's wrong?" I asked him again when he didn't answer.

Those hazel-brown eyes slid over to me, a small smile lifting up one corner of his mouth but it didn't do anything. My beloved half-brother was missing. "I'm fine, kid."

"Bull."

He cracked a little smile. "My innocent little Ris."

Innocent, maybe a little. But really, he knew as well as I did, that I just wasn't used to cussing. At least on his level, much less the rest of his friends’.

"Just tell me what happened," I insisted.

Sonny looked at me for a long moment, blowing air out of his mouth before letting his head drop back dramatically onto the couch. "Can we talk about it later?"

I poked him in the thigh. "I'd rather not."

He sighed again, still looking up at the ceiling.

His silence was killing me. The longer he went with hesitating to tell me, the worse it made me feel.

"Please?"

Sonny grunted. "Our sperm donor came by."

And... that was absolutely not what I was expecting to hear.

"Are you joking?" Of course he was serious, but I was an idiot and what he'd said seemed so ridiculous he wouldn't be making it up.