“Why? You miss your mom?”
Charlotte and I both turn away, laughing even harder.
“Not cool, bro.” Rav grins. “But now that you mention it…”
Charlotte
Laughter really is the best medicine. I could kiss my brother for making Marcel smile.
“So, Carter, when are you going to tattoo your own sister?” I tap his arm and run my finger over his colorful sleeve of inked skin. “You’ve done work for Rock, Heidi, Grinder, Lilly—I’m getting jealous.”
He narrows his gaze. “What exactly are you looking for?”
I peer up at Marcel and he winks at me.
“Nope. All the nopes that ever noped in Nopeland.” Carter backs away from us, shaking his head vigorously in case all the nopes didn’t make his answer clear enough.
“But you’ve gotten so good,” I insist.
“I’m not branding you with your boyfriend’s MC symbol, ‘property of’ or anything else. Hell to the no.” He shoots a glare at Marcel, who chuckles.
“My husband,” I correct.
“Not yet,” Carter mutters. “Ask me to tattoo anything else on you, Char. Anything but that.”
“Char, it’s fine.” Marcel finally joins the conversation. “I’ll ask Bronze if he’ll do it.”
“Just make sure it’s on my day off,” Carter says.
While Ravage and Wrath follow Carter to his loft, I look up at Marcel. “You still want to go, right?”
“Do you?”
I’m not sure how to answer. Every time we’ve been there lately, it’s felt like an emotional crotch-punch. Either someone’s announcing they’re pregnant, talking about being pregnant, or joking about doubling-up on their birth control. If it’s not that, it’s tension between Rock and Marcel thick enough to slice with an ax.
“Charlotte?” He seems to sense my inner conflict. “I’ll do it. Soon. This week. I’ll tell them.”
This time he sounds determined and has actually given it a time frame. “I thought you wanted to go get tested again?”
He bites the inside of his cheek and flicks his gaze away. “Come on. We both know I was using that to delay the pain. From everything I’ve read, there’s no other option.”
It wasn’t unreasonable to want a retest, but I’m not about to hand him an excuse to postpone this again. “Good. Just tell me when. You won’t have to do it alone.”
“Thanks.”
Dread settles in my chest. It won’t take long for Heidi and Murphy to realize that I’ve also kept this secret. Suddenly my fear of losing them is bigger than my desire to have Marcel tell the truth.