When I was again cuddling my son, I felt Joker’s hand on my hip and I lifted my eyes to his.

“You okay?” he asked quietly.

“He intends to be more annoying,” I replied.

“Got that,” Joker stated. “So, you okay?”

I sighed.

Then I said, “I got through the other ways he’s been annoying. I’ll get through this.”

Joker squeezed my hip. “Yeah, Carrie. You will.”

I grinned at him as I leaned up and kissed his stubbly jaw.

Travis conked me in the head with his toy.

This made me laugh and give my attention back to my son. Which started me putting that scene with Aaron out of my head and doing what I should have been able to do ten minutes ago.

Welcome my son home. Give him a full tour of the house. And ended the tour with spending time with both my boys—my baby one and my biker one—in my new safe, clean, pretty house.

* * *

“He’s gonna try to win you back.”

It was that night. Travis was asleep. It was late. It was after the news. After making love with Joker in my bed. The baby monitor I had in storage but hadn’t had to use in months since Travis had slept in the same room in the apartment with me was on, its red light lit, and it was on the nightstand on Joker’s side, where my biker put it.

“Sweetie,” I whispered but said no more.

When it happened with Aaron, I didn’t want to think of it.

But I knew it immediately.

Aaron was intensely competitive. I’d noticed it all the way back in high school. I’d always disliked it, and that was the only thing I didn’t bury but let show. We’d even fought about it more than once.

I first started noticing it when the team lost a football game and Aaron would react to it in a way that was a little scary.

And not only me but his mother, who pretty much let her husband do whatever he wanted, would get agitated when father or son would challenge each other to anything. It could be a board game or a tennis match. They’d go at it, and each other, with a viciousness that was frightening.

Aaron’s father would taunt him anytime Aaron made a mistake, and I hated that.

But not as much as Aaron’s behavior. Aaron would rub it in whenever he got one over on his dad. I hated that too. It was relentless, he kept at it to the point it was cruel, and I always thought it said ugly things about him.

Heck, about the both of them.

I had no idea if Aaron’s behavior changed a few weeks ago because he knew I had a good attorney or because he saw me walking to my apartment with Joker.