He moved into her space, looked down at her and dropped his voice.

“You do not tell me how to raise my boys. You do not tell me when my woman can sleep in my bed. You do not bring drama to my doorstep or her doorstep at six forty-five in the morning or at any time. You get your support payments and we share sons. You exist for me only as their mother and that’s it. The bridge has been smoldering a long time, woman, but you just burned it to the ground. We… are… done.”

“That’s not going to work,” she shot back, leaning in and getting up on her toes to get in his face. “I know you hate it Tanner, but I’m their mother and you don’t have a choice but to deal with me.”

“Jas is in college next year, Tripp’s three years behind him. They’re nearly gone, Gabby, it’s gonna work because I’m gonna make it work.”

“Then we’ll see what the court has to say about you f**king Saint Rocky with the boys in the house,” she returned.

“Yeah, they’ll probably not like that, you know, a single man havin’ a girlfriend. They probably never heard of that. But, a single woman havin’ a live-in boyfriend who’s also an enforcer for a loan shark, they’ll like that, you reckon?”

Her face paled, she’d made a faulty play, she knew it then, she knew he had her but Gabby, being Gabby, didn’t give it to him. She went into stare down. She wasn’t as good at it as Rocky mainly because she did it with her face twisted and bitter instead of full of adorable attitude. It wasn’t nice to look at and it wasn’t fun at all.

Layne stepped back, ready to move things on but Rocky spoke and she did it softly.

“It’s almost sad,” she said and Gabby’s eyes and body swung to face her, “how much you want him and what lengths you’ll go to for his attention.”

And Rocky sounded sad, she looked it too, her eyes were no longer flashing, they were filled with understanding.

But Layne didn’t process that mainly because his gut squeezed and his eyes moved to Gabby whose face had lost all of its color and she looked like she’d been struck.

Jasper had said it but Layne hadn’t really heard it.

I see the way she looks at you, it’s the way Mom always looks at you when you don’t know she’s lookin’, but it’s more.

Jesus f**king Christ. It was Jarrod Astley, Gabby-style.

“Gabby,” he murmured and her gaze shot to him then over his shoulder.

“Screw you,” she whispered to his shoulder then turned to Rocky. “Screw you too.” She walked to the door, stopped, turned back and swept them both with a glance that didn’t really connect with either one of them. “You have it all, do what you want, you always had it all and did what you wanted. I should have known that would never change.”

“You think that, Gabby, you haven’t been payin’ attention,” Layne said quietly as he moved to stand behind Rocky.

Gabby looked at him then her eyes moved to Rocky then down them both then back to Layne.

“Screw you,” she repeated, turned, walked out the door and disappeared down the stairs.

Rocky threw the door to and turned to look up at Layne.

“Last Sunday started a whole lot better,” she noted.

Layne looked into her eyes a beat that led into two.

Then he burst out laughing.

Rocky pressed into him, her hand going over his mouth, hissing, “Layne, she might hear you!”

“Don’t care,” Layne said from under her hand.

“I do, it’s mean!”

One of Layne’s arms went to span her waist, the other hand went to her wrist and he pulled hers away from his mouth and down then he pressed it against his chest.

“Live by the sword, die by the sword,” he muttered.

“She’s mother to your sons.”

“She’s a bitch.”

“Layne!”

“What?”

She stared at him then shook her head but didn’t answer.

It was, again, time to move on.

“All right, sweetcheeks, my guess is, we got about ten minutes before the next trauma. We can brush our teeth, make coffee and barricade the door with your couch or we can go back to bed. Your choice.”

“Can I suggest an alternate scenario where we barricade the door, start the coffee, go back to bed then brush our teeth and have a cup of joe?”

“That’ll take more than ten minutes.”

Her eyebrows went up, her body pressed closer and her arm wound around his waist. “Are you saying you aren’t up for the challenge?”

He dropped his head so his face was close to hers and whispered, “No, I’m sayin’ I’m hungry and I don’t like to be rushed when I eat.”

Her body melted full into his but it did this while she shivered.

“Bed it is, then,” she whispered back.

Layne grinned.

* * * * *

“Uh… Layne?” Rocky called hesitantly. She was sitting next to him while he drove her Mercedes, which, even though Astley got it for her, Layne had to admit was a sweet ride.

“Yeah, sweetcheeks,” Layne answered.

The next trauma hadn’t happened. In fact, he’d enjoyed Rocky, Rocky had enjoyed him, then she’d walked downstairs to start coffee, came back upstairs and joined him in the shower, they both enjoyed that then he sat on the counter in her kitchen while she made poached eggs on toast and hash browns and he kept sitting there, beside Rocky, when they ate poached eggs on toast and hash browns. Then Rocky had taken approximately half a year to blow out her hair and put on makeup while Layne called a variety of people to check on a variety of things and then they headed to his office.

He’d been unable to outfit her with a panic button the day before and he’d learned from Dave that Ernie was on duty listening to the bugs. He figured he should take his turn even though he wanted to do this about as much as he wanted to endure water torture but he might as well do it with Rocky hanging with him part of the time. She was going grocery shopping and had a few places to target for silent auction items for the charity gig but in between times she was going to hit the office. She’d be able to get him Mimi’s and lunch and he was pretty sure he could make out with her on his couch and still pay enough attention to the bugs to hear if anything was going down.

Though, the last part, he was only pretty sure about.

“Um… I’m not entirely certain how to say this,” she cut into his thoughts, still talking hesitantly. “But, I guess we’d get to this point eventually since you do have two sons and it would seem I’m going to be in your life for awhile.”