“Is that how you got the piercings and the tattoos?” I loved her tattoos: the snake that wrapped around her right leg starting at her ankle and ended about half way up her thigh; the Celtic knots on each wrist; the little humming bird on her left shoulder blade; the crossed lightning bolts on the back of her neck. But I really liked the little she devil on her right pubic bone, all red and sexy.

“Zeke had an apprentice. No one would let him work on them until they could see what he could do. I was his masterpiece.” She gave me a little smirk that lit up her chocolate eyes. “I made him pay me, of course.”

I grinned. “Of course.”

“Zeke kept me out of trouble. Helped me get my GED so that I could get a better job. But I was busting my ass at two different jobs and still not able to keep my head above water.” Her eyes turned stormy, troubled. “Zeke fell in love with some guy from Miami and moved away…and I found myself stripping.”

That surprised me. I hadn’t expected that at all, but it didn’t matter to me. So what if she had been a stripper? It wasn’t like she was whoring herself out. “How did that go?” I asked.

She shrugged. “It went really well. I was able to pay my bills and keep food in my fridge. I saved up enough and bought my Corolla. Life wasn’t easy, but it was getting better.”

I nodded, understanding what she meant. “When did Lana and Lucy come onto the scene?”

“Two years ago. Social services called me out of the blue and asked me if I was willing to take in my two sisters, since our mother had been killed in a car accident. At first I thought she had the wrong number. When I left, it was only Lana…I tried to keep in touch with her, but our mother wouldn’t let me, so Lucy came as a complete surprise to me.”

“It must have been hard, working and taking on the girls like that.”

“Not really. As soon as I knew they needed me, I told the social worker that I wanted them. But I couldn’t keep them if I was stripping. One of my regulars at the club told me if I ever needed a job he would hire me…so I took him up on the offer. Stan, he owns Perfectly Clean, helped me out. I got a respectable job, and the girls.”

I think I might have fallen a little more in love with her as she told me about her life. Not just how she came to be the surrogate mother of her two younger sisters, but how she had come to be the person she was today. Layla had spirit. Tenacity. She was full of life, even though life had tried to beat her down more than a few times. Her courage, diligence, and determination were all in her eyes, and I liked seeing them there.

She reminded me of Emmie.

It wasn’t a bad thing. In fact I think I had secretly been looking for someone like her my whole life. Someone who could deal with me without giving up on me. Someone who would love me even when I was a completely unlovable bastard. I could be a real asshole at times, especially when I thought about life before we had hit it big, or the years before we had gotten Emmie back.

We talked until the sun came up and she fell asleep in my arms. When I finally gave into sleep, I did so with a content smile on my face…

The buzzing of a phone woke me. Groaning I untangled myself from around Layla and searched for my jeans. By the time I found them, the phone had stopped ringing, but I knew that if it was Emmie it would start ringing again soon. I pulled my phone from my pocket and saw that it was after two in the afternoon. Muttering a curse I saw that I had six missed calls, all of them from Emmie in the last hour.

Worry for her made my fingers shake as I hit redial on the last number and waited for her to pick up. “Are you okay?” she demanded as soon as she answered.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” I told her, running a hand over the small stubble on my head.

She sighed. “I’m fine. I was just worried about you. Lana came over asking if I had heard from you or Layla. She’s worried about her sister and can’t get her to answer her phone. Where are you, Jesse?”

“We crashed at Tom’s,” I told her and heard her sigh again. “It isn’t like that.”

“Sure it isn’t. Shane never takes his one-nighters there.” She sounded disappointed in me and I hated that. “Tell Layla to call her sister.”

“Em!” I pressed the phone closer to my ear. “I swear to you that this isn’t like that. Layla means more to me than that.”

She was quiet for a full minute before she spoke again. “Okay. We can talk later. Love you.” Before I could tell her I loved her too, she hung up.

Muttering under my breath, I tossed the phone aside and started gathering the rest of my clothes. Layla was still out cold on the bed. I didn’t want to disturb her, so I moved as quietly as I could to the connecting bathroom and shut the door. I needed a shower. I smelled of sweat and sex. Not that those were terrible smells, but I didn’t want to go home with Layla’s juices all over me. I didn’t want the guys to know what she smelled like. It was a crazy thing to worry about, but true nonetheless.

Layla

The smell of strong brewed coffee woke me. I moaned, turning over onto my back. Slowly, I cracked open first one eye and then the other. Jesse, sexy as hell in only a pair of boxers stood over me with two mugs in hand. One brow was raised, and he was grinning down at me. My heart melted even more, and I heard the words that he had forced me to say last night echo in my mind.

“What time is it?” I muttered as I sat up, not caring that I was naked and the covers had slipped to my waist. I liked the way his eyes rapidly switched from a soft brown to onyx in a split second.

“Three.”

I muttered a curse and jumped out of bed. Three in the afternoon! I hadn’t even called Lana to let her know I wasn’t coming home. Fuck, talk about irresponsible. How was I to expect my seventeen year old sister to act responsibly if I wasn’t doing the same thing? I found my jeans and dug my phone out of the back hip pocket.

Sure enough I had six missed calls and my text box was overflowing.

“Calm down.” Jesse told me. “I already talked to Emmie. The girls are fine, just worried about you. Give Lana a text to tell her you will be home in a little while.”

I grimaced. “I haven’t been much of a good influence.”

“No one is perfect. And it’s not like you left them all alone. Lana is old enough to take care of Lucy for one night. And if they needed anything Em and the guys were right next door.” He offered me a mug of coffee, and I took it with a grateful smile.