Page 33 of Trusting the Team

“She’s staying with me,” Hammer immediately answered. Brooke wanted to but he did not understand the danger. He did not understand what her now ex-boyfriend would do to him when he got out.

“I can’t,” Brooke said. Hammer turned toward her his shock barely noticeable. “You don’t understand what he’s going to do,” Brooke tried.

“You think you’re safe?” Hammer replied.

“Ma’am, I would not recommend you be alone until this is 100% resolved. You need to think about what is best for your boy, too.”

“She’ll stay with me,” Hammer reiterated. He took the sleeping Asher in his right arm, his left behind Brooke to lead her toward his Telluride. Chaos had already pulled the car seat from the now parked 300 and was nearly done putting it into Hammer’s vehicle. The team watched Hammer get Brooke and Asher into the vehicle. Cowboy approached cautiously. “What?” Hammer reached out before Cowboy started. He knew what the team was thinking.

“Are you sure this is what you want? This could be a lot of trouble,” Cowboy answered. Hammer glanced back at his vehicle, turned back to Cowboy nodding. “It will be a mess, but like a ton of bricks I know those two are mine.” The team had closed in around Hammer, collectively they nodded.

“Ok,” Cowboy conceded. The team split up, each going home.

Hammer had to take Brooke to her apartment to get clothes for her and Asher before they could go to his place. She wished she could avoid this, afford to just leave everything so he did not have to see how they were living. When they got inside, she moved quickly, grabbing a bag of things for Asher and a bag for herself. Hammer looked around the meager apartment, reminded her to grab toiletries for familiar smells, and because he would not have some of the things they needed right away. She added some paperwork she clearly had hidden in a drawer in the kitchen. He took the bags from her, she took the key off her key ring, locked the door, and did not look back.

30

ARIANNA

“It’s so hard to see that kind of thing,” Arianna said as she opened the door to her cottage style home.

“Why, babe?” Working through his last mission, Trey pushed Arianna against the door as it shut. With her heels she was close to Trey’s height, making it easy to wrap her arms around his neck, her hands tugging on his hair. She started stripping Trey’s shirt off, he pulled her blouse apart. His hands reaching for and kneading her breasts through her lacy bra. Her hips rubbed against his. She pulled open his jeans, her hands running down his ass, dropping the jeans to his ankles. Dropping to the floor he settled her over his hips. He yanked her skirt only high enough to get her knees up so she could ride his cock.

“You know I’m first generation American, right?” She settled over him confidently. “My parents moved here to provide me and my siblings a better life.”

Trey stiffened, “What?”

Arianna sat back, confused.

“Are your parents illegally here?” He sat up, wrapping his arms around her waist.

“What,” Arianna struggled out of his grasp, closing her shirt as she stood, “would that have to do with anything?”

“Baby, I have a security clearance. It could cause some problems.”

“Get out of my house,” Arianna bit out.

Trey stood and started to pull his clothes back on. “I love you, I’m sure that your family is amazing...”

“You have no idea what we’ve been through. How hard we’ve worked to get where we are,” tears coming down her cheeks.

“Tell me.”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Why? Because I’m white, because I’m a male? Maybe you didn’t hear me, I love you. Whatever you tell me I’ll figure it out. We’ll figure it out.”

31

HAMMER

He watched Brooke take in his two-room apartment. It was hardly bigger than what she was living in but better taken care of. He was holding Asher in one arm and carrying the two bags in his free hand.

“You two can take the main bedroom,” he motioned toward the first door. It had a king bed and a private bathroom. He put both bags down, laid Asher in the bed, and turned to get some stuff out of his closet. She was right behind him, and he stepped back away from her and his closet, in surprise. “Um, I’m just,” he pointed toward the closet behind her, trying to move around her. He grabbed what he needed and fled the room.

Brooke started pulling things out of the bags and putting them on the counter in the bathroom. Maybe she had misunderstood, and he only felt protective in a plutonic way, like a brother. But then her usual doubt crept in, why would he care about her. She looked in the bathroom mirror, she was used. A mother of one and pregnant with another, their father a complete dead beat. She was just a bartender. The women he hung out with were smarter than she was. She settled into bed, snuggling with Asher, unsteady about the night but too tired to keep dwelling on it.

Hammer carefully looked into the room in the morning. He had left all his toiletries in the bathroom in his haste to get out of the room the night before. Asher had rolled over and looked like he was hugging his mom, his small frame pushed a little out due to her pregnant belly. She had kicked most of the covers off herself. His eyes pulled to the white cheekies she had on. He wanted to trace the line of that underwear across her skin. She started to roll over, he snapped to disappearing into the bathroom to grab his shower bag. When he stepped back out, she had turned over, his eyes went to her white camisole, stretched tight across her growing breasts, transparent because of her skin color. He shifted his hard on and walked out, yelling at himself in his head.