Tatum looks back at me before entering the house, but she doesn’t smile upon realizing I’m still watching her. I hadn’t expected her to be so nervous. Last night, she showed anger and sorrow, though not timidity.

One layer pulled back on my dream woman with a million more to go.

I don’t leave until a car parks two houses down from Tatum’s. One of our minions, Brian, texts to say he’s all set. I messaged him a photo of Tatum earlier and told him to keep an eye on her until I return at six. If he needs to piss, he can use a bottle. If he needs food, have someone deliver it. If for any reason he leaves her unattended, I’ll run his ass through a meat grinder.

Returning to White Horse, I smile at how Tatum froze whenever stumped by something. My sister, Cricket, freezes when on the spot. She’ll then bitch slap someone or claim she needs to pee.

I park my Range Rover next to Cricket’s jeep in the Waffle House parking lot. On the other side of the empty disabled spots are my dad’s monster truck and my little brother’s red Harley. I find everyone already eating when I enter the restaurant.

Hayes and Mom sit at the counter while my siblings and nephew eat at the nearby booths. Once I settle onto a bench near them, I announce, “I met the woman I’m going to marry.”

Cricket glances at me but can’t respond because her mouth is full of hash browns. I notice her brown hair is pulled into a half-ass ponytail and she’s wearing her hallmark pink sweatpants. I assume her oversized black T-shirt belongs to her husband, Poet. She has a habit of stealing men’s shirts she likes. Cricket even stole one of our father’s, even though Hayes is so frigging gigantic that the thing looks like a dress on her.

“Is she a whore?” Cricket eventually asks while feeding her son, Murphy, another bite of his waffle. Her four-year-old is better put together than his sloppy mother. Looking spiffy in his checkered blue and orange shirt and dark blue khakis, he waves at me. I smile at the kid and Cricket who adds, “I just want to prepare myself if your beloved smells like a porno theater.”

“Do they even have porno theaters anymore?” Hayes asks.

“Yeah, there’s one in downtown Nashville,” Cap replies and we all stare at the seventeen-year-old. Noticing our interest, he shrugs. “I drove past it once.”

“Sure, pervert,” Cricket teases while patting his massive hand.

“Don’t touch me,” he growls, pulling away from her.

“You don’t touch me!” Cricket cries theatrically, and Murphy claps. “Stop getting your cooties on me! Mom, Cap’s being clingy!”

Sighing loudly, Hayes turns to Candy. “Make them stop.”

“I forgot their off button at home. Sorry, hon,” she says, patting his giant shoulder.

Cap flicks a piece of sausage at Cricket who tries—and fails—to catch it with her mouth. Murphy laughs hysterically at his mother’s antics, and Cap grins a little too big before remembering he’s just too much of a fucking man to fucking smile.

“Where’s Minnow?” I ask my sister about Murphy’s twin sister.

“Home with Poet,” Cricket says and helps Murphy with his cup of juice. “She was up last night with a cough. She and Poet were sleeping when we left.”

“I plan to have more kids than you,” I say as the waitress delivers my waffle and hash browns.

“With your hooker love?” Cricket asks, snickering.

“Yes.”

“Where did you meet this harlot?” Mom asks.

“At Salty Peanuts after my meeting with Camden. She was there to kill Howler.”

Oh, I have their attention now. My family—with the exception of Murphy—turns toward me and waits for more juicy gossip.

“Tatum is one of Howler’s bastards,” I explain after forcing them to wait for me to very slowly chew my food and swallow. “I talked her out of killing him and getting herself killed in the process. Then she slept off her booze brain at my place.”

“Tell me you didn’t leave a drunk, violent slutbag at your house alone,” Cricket says, gripping her fork with genuine fear.

“Not a drunk, violent, or a slutbag, but, no, she isn’t at my place. I dropped Tatum off at a house in Hickory Creek where she’s renting a room. I thought about bringing her to lunch, but she puked a lot last night. No way was she ready for the level of charm you fucking fucks crap on people.”

“Bring her to my house tonight,” Cricket says, wide-eyed and smiling. “I want to meet the hussy who won my brother’s heart through a single night of hip-thumping.”

“We didn’t thump.”

“So she’s frigid now?” Mom asks. “Don’t trust teases. I always put out with men. All good women do.”

“Stop giving bad advice,” Hayes tells his wife before turning to me. “Does Howler know she wants to kill him?”

“He has no clue she exists.”

“Are you saying he didn’t notice the woman trying to kill him?”

“Howler was distracted by a pair of tits in his face.”

“Bring her to my house,” Cricket says again. “I want to meet her.”

“I’m taking her to meet Bonn tonight.”

“Why?” Hayes asks, tensing at the mention of his handsome minion who runs nearby Common Bend.

“They’re half siblings.”

“So? She probably has a dozen.”

“I’m trying to convince her life is worth living.”

“She’s suicidal?” Mom cries. “This girl sounds like way too much trouble. You ought to dump her.”

“No,” Cricket says, leaving her table to join me. “You’re her hero. Dumping her is a bad move.”

“I am her hero. I’m a great guy.”

“The best,” Cricket says and steals a bite of my waffles. “I’m glad you didn’t let her get killed by those awful bikers.”

“Bikers are disgusting. Why did you marry one again?”

“Poet has great hygiene. That’s about it.”

Cricket returns to the table where Murphy messily feeds himself waffles. She wipes his mouth and ignores me.

“Tatum’s all alone in the world,” I say, knowing my mother is a sap for a woman making her way through life without a support system. “Her mother died, and they were very close.”

“How did she die?” Mom asks, taking the bait.

“I have no idea. Cancer, I think. Tatum was a bit hard to follow when I carried her upstairs to the spare room.”

“You didn’t fucking take advantage of her, did you, fucker?” Cap asks.

“Of course, I did, you smelly whore. Now shut up while the grownups talk.”

My brother smiles at me and returns to eating. Hayes decides he hasn’t complained enough about the situation, so he turns in his seat and shakes his giant head.

“Howler’s DNA is probably faulty. Seems like his kids would make shitty kids.”

“Uh, what about Chevelle?”

“Exception to the rule.”

“And Adric?”

“Same exception since he came from the same bastard. Bonn’s kids got lucky with Ruby’s strong genetics.”

“Well, my strong genetics will overcome anything Howler passes down through Tatum’s perfect womb.”

Hayes grunts. “You fucking assume you’ll take after your mom and not that balding fucking fool who knocked her up.”

“I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again, Papa. Fuck off, please.”

Hayes smiles exactly like Cap did when I put him in his place. Mom has no interest in our cussing match.

“Does Tatum remind you of Chevelle? Is that why you’re interested?”

They all stare in my direction, pitying me for setting my sights on a girl who didn’t want my long-term attention. Chevelle Fletcher was my first and only real girlfriend. I’ve dated plenty of women but never seriously except for her. When she was eighteen, Chevelle moved to Jamaica to get in touch with her roots. I expected her to return soon after. She didn’t, of course. Meeting a guy named Dexter, Chevelle got married and settled permanently into her life in the Caribbean. Her happiness left me looking like a lovesick loser, even if I never cared enough to chase after her to Jamaica. Hell, I didn’t even want to visit before she met Dexter.

“Eww, isn’t that incest?” Cricket asks. “Screwing your ex-girlfriend’s...”

“Aunt.”

“Eww.”

“It’s not incest because I’m not related to either of them.”

“I’m sticking with eww,” Cricket says, giggling to herself.

“Actually, Tatum reminds me of you, Mom.”

“Gross!” Cricket cries. “That’s totally incest.”

Cap laughs at her feigned horror. Murphy laughs too because he’s a little version of his dipshit mother.

“I think it’s sweet,” Mom says, sipping her coffee. “It shows Chip has good taste.”

Cap grunts. “I’ve never heard anything so fucking lame in my life.”

Cricket gasps dramatically, but she’s full of shit as usual. I give our little brother a scowl to slap the grin off his smug teenager face. “You haven’t been alive long enough for anyone to give two shits about your fucking feelings.”

“I give a shit,” Hayes says.

“No, you don’t. You just say that so he won’t cry like a bitch.”

Shrugging his huge shoulders, our father says, “Well, there’s that too.”

We all laugh at Cap who gives us a floating middle finger. His bird lingers long after we focus back on me.

“Who wants to throw a welcome-to-the-family dinner for my beloved?” I ask with my gaze on Mom rather than Cricket.

“I’ll do it,” my sister says, of fucking course. “Bianca Bella can help me cook. She’s been wanting to make something Greek, and I can’t be forced to eat that crap alone.”

“Crap,” Murphy says and sips his juice.

Cricket plays with his light brown hair and smiles. “That’s a big kid word. You’re a little kid, so don’t say ‘crap.’”

“Crap.”

“I feel like I’m talking to your sister.”

“Crap,” he says again, and Cricket gives him the look of a woman capable of slaughtering her firstborn. The kid gets wide-eyed and stops saying “crap.” One day, he’ll realize his mother isn’t capable of harming those she loves except with unending, obnoxious babble. Once he does, she’ll need to find a new tactic to control the little French fry.

“So tomorrow night at six?” I ask Cricket who wipes her mouth and then Murphy’s. “I’ll bring the booze.”

“Is your beloved a lush?”

“Probably.”

“Then she’ll fit in,” Hayes mutters. “I don’t know why you’re all drunk all the time.”

“Don’t you, though?” Cricket asks.

Nodding, I choose to pile on Hayes. “I feel like you do know. Why are you saying you don’t?”

“He’s being coy,” Cap adds. “That’s a fucking word, right?”

“Yes, coy is a word,” Mom says, patting Hayes on the back. “Your father is very coy. It’s the first thing I noticed about him.”

Hayes leans over and gives Mom a sloppy, fuck-inspired kiss that makes my siblings and me groan with disgust. Nothing ruins a good time like imagining our parents rutting like animals.

Without a doubt, Tatum and I will one day use inappropriate sexual displays to gross out our children. They’ll hate us for being disgusting—or grody as Tatum likes to say—but they’ll also be happy to know their parents are still in love even after so many years of banging the same drums.