The daughter they loved conditionally.
I swallowed, pulling my cell phone from my pocket as the door shut, and I was thrown into the darkness of the night. It took two rings before Holly answered, “Hey. beautiful, you change your mind about us celebrating tonight?”
I knew she was teasing, but as I choked back the tears and took a seat on my parents’ front step, I answered, “Yeah. Can you pick me up outside Mom and Dad’s place? I need to get out.”
Silence.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Cool,” Holly answered, the sound of her car already starting in the background easing my racing thoughts. “I’ll be there in ten.”
She was there in seven.
My backpack bounced with me down the cobbled path to the street, the heels of my knee-high black boots clacking against the concrete as I skipped up beside Holly’s little hatchback. I’d dressed up at least, thinking maybe my parents would want to go out to celebrate. I should have known better, given I’d barely had a phone call once a month since I moved out just after Micah’s death.
Wishful thinking.
That little girl inside of me hoping maybe this time would be different.
Maybe they would stick around.
Wrong.
“Well, hello, beautiful,” Holly crowed, turning to admire me with wide eyes as I folded myself into the tiny car. She was wearing a simple black mini dress and a fierce red lip that was seductive and sexy—everything I’d learned to quickly love about my attention-seeking friend. “How are you feeling?”
The air changed instantly, and I shook my head, feeling a prickle of goosebumps begin to rise across my skin. “Feeling like I want to have a few drinks with my friend and pretend like getting through today isn’t always going to be this hard.”
It’ll get better.
It’ll get easier.
Things will go back to normal in no time.
I’d heard every fucking ridiculous platitude.
That wasn’t Holly, though.
“All righty then. Let’s go numb our feelings,” she cheered enthusiastically and threw the car into drive, taking off down the road like she was in a damn Formula 1. “You ready to hit this party?”
I reached into my backpack, gripping the neck of the bottle of tequila I had stashed away for a while. I’d never been a big drinker. “What kind of party?” I questioned, already twisting at the bottle cap, not particularly caring where we were actually headed, merely eager for the opportunity to escape for the next few hours.
Physically, mentally, or other.
The sparkle in her eye and the way she pulled her bottom lip in between her teeth let me know exactly the kind of party she had lined up.
“Holly…”
“How do you feel about bikers?”
“No way,” Kid choked, shaking his head while I let out an emotionless laugh. “Your parents… on your birthday…” He pressed his fingers to his temple and squeezed his eyes shut. A few seconds later, they popped open again. Still looking confused.
“You wanna hear the funny part?” I continued, scuffing at the sandy dirt, the sun going down around us. “They aren’t even my real parents. My so-called real parents also said no thanks, and I spent the first five years of my life in an orphanage in China. Micah, and my adoptive parents went over on holiday and came in to donate toys to the children. Micah fell in love with me, forced them to keep coming back to visit while they were there, and six months later, they were picking me up for good.”
Kid cringed, his mouth falling open just slightly in shock. His pain told me something—he had a good family. One that loved him. One that would never put him through this kind of crap, and that was why he was so surprised to hear that sometimes the people who love you could so easily hurt you.
And within that all, there was still something about him that led him to the club, still an understanding of fear and pain, something that pulled him in. I wondered what it was. What kind of magnet had enough force to drag him from that life to this one?
“I lost my real parents. My fake parents. My sister…” My eyes focused on the tiny cross, and my voice lowered to a whisper, “And honestly, I feel like I lost me. And maybe that’s what scares me the most.”
“But what if you’re wrong?” Kid appealed, taking a seat back on the rock, looking past me to where the sun was quickly disappearing behind the city skyline. The hot air around us that had made my sweat stick to my skin was now beginning to cool, a chill settling over me. “What if showing up at the clubhouse that first night was you finding yourself? What if you’d spent so long before trying to be someone they expected you to be? Letting them define you. Letting them tell you who they thought you should be.”
I frowned, taking a step closer to Kid, his words playing over in my head, but at the same time, I was watching them play over and over in his. Like maybe they hadn’t just been for me.
But what if he was right?
Losing Micah wasn’t something I was ever just going to get over. My heart ached for her every single day. For the person who fought for me. Who protected me. Who loved me unconditionally, when everyone else made me feel like I wasn’t good enough.
But losing her had led to the club.
To Shotgun.
To these people I now called my family.
People who were so determined to protect and love me. Who seemed to be there when the universe knew I needed them the most. And yet, who I kept pushing away.
Scared.
Scared that their love meant more pain.
When maybe, it meant healing.
“How’d you get so smart, Kid?”
His eyes jerked up, and for a second, it felt like he was looking straight through me. Then he blinked, and the boyish grin I’d grown to love grew, pinching his cheeks. “I spent a lot of time listening,” he teased, walking over and hooking his arm around my neck. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
AVERY
Holding my breath, I slowly pushed the door open, cringing at the creak I knew so damn well.
The lights were dim, turned low, though I caught the shape of Shotgun’s body instantly. He didn’t look up, and I followed his gaze, finding it focused on the tiny sleeping bundle that lay on his bed. The dark blue onesie he had on was the same color as the comforter slung across the bed, almost making him camouflaged.
But it was the round pale cheeks that made my heart skip for just a second. “He’s beautiful.” Meyah said he was around four months old, but he just seemed so tiny.
“He is,” Shotgun whispered, his voice catching and his face twisting in pain as if the words were like razor blades in his throat.
There were men who were made to be fathers.
And there were men who weren’t.
I knew in my gut that Shotgun was the former. He was a born leader and protector. These men looked up to him. They looked at him as not simply the guy in charge, but as the man who they could trust to follow, who they could trust to lead because he was willing to do whatever the fuck necessary to protect his family.
Blood or not.
“He’s perfect,” I whispered softly, making my way around the side of the bed and gently climbing up onto it. I smiled as I smoothed my fingers across the baby boy’s soft hair, the pure blond strands sticking up all over. They felt like feathers, so light and silky smooth.