“Why’d you let her get you to her place? Was that smart?”
“I assessed the situation and decided---”
“You assessed wrong.”
“She had a baby and---”
“Still that didn’t stop her from stealing your car and your bag.”
I gave my head a shake and was about to reply but he cut me off again. Seemed like he’d been waiting to grill me about this since he found out.
“Not real smart. I don’t give a shit if she had a kid with her. You shouldn’t have gone. What if she’d had someone at her place waiting to hurt you?”
“She didn’t.”
“What if she did?”
I shook my head. “She---”
“WHAT IF SHE DID?”
“Let me fucking finish,” I demanded.
He clenched his jaw and gave me a hard stare. Or harder.
“She’s claiming this baby is either my brother’s or Luke’s. Luke is someone who was close to my family and…”
“Someone you loved?” he asked, his voice gentler.
My heart stuttered. I said nothing for a second as I processed not only what that word meant, but how it sounded coming from a man who usually spoke so rough on the rare occasion he deigned to speak to me at all.
I shrugged. “Someone who isn’t here to look out for a little baby that might be his. But whether that baby is Luke’s, Ride’s, or that building superintendent’s, he’s a little person who can’t fend for himself and him getting stuck with me when his fuckup for a mom took off means last night and tonight he’s in a warm, clean bed with medicine he needs and food in his little belly and with someone making sure he’s okay. I’d do it again in a heartbeat if I knew it’d mean that baby would be safe.”
His expression wasn’t hard right now. He was looking at me a little bit like he’d looked at me at The Roadhouse the other night.
The sound of motorcycle pipes grabbed the both of our attention and just like that, the spell was broken.
I recognized those bikers. Deacon and Jesse. They’d been gone for a few days and I had no idea why. They stopped at the pumps and were both gassing up.
I stared out the window at my oldest brother. He was going to have a conniption over what’d happened the day before. Not just the Melanie situation, but also the fire.
But still, it was probably better to get it over with and deal with him flipping out so I could get on with things. And seeing his face? It made me wanna cry. It made me want to let my family baby me over what’d almost happened the night before. And I only rarely let them baby me.
I stared out the window and bit my lip.
“Gonna go say hello or what?” Christian asked.
I made a snap decision and shook my head. “If they see us. If not, it might be best to wait until we’re back home. Unless you need to talk to them?”
“Nope. I’ll see ‘em later in church.”
I shrugged.
The waitress brought over our breakfast sandwiches.
Deacon and Jesse didn’t come into the restaurant. They headed the way we’d come so were most likely heading to the Sioux Falls clubhouse.
I stared out the window, lost in thought while I ate.
“Ready to roll?” he asked the instant my last bite of my sandwich was in my mouth. I hadn’t even had a chance to chew it.
I shook off my daze and straightened up. He was dropping money on the table, gathering his phone and his keys. I had nothing to gather.
I washed down my last bite with my last mouthful of coffee.
“Thanks for breakfast. And the ride,” I said.
He didn’t answer me.
“Christian?”
He pinned me with a hard stare for just a second and then looked away.
“Thanks for last night. For, you know---”
“Yep. I know. Let’s go.” He was on the move.
I wiped my mouth with my napkin and then rushed to catch up to him.
When I got on the back of his bike behind him, again he took my hand to help me on, I caught a whiff of his leather, and of his scent and it made me ache inside. I bit my lip, put a helmet on, and then held on as he took us the rest of the way home.
As we rode, I floated on a fantasy of pretend. I pretended this was my man taking us home. I held onto him like he was my man. And I let my mind wander to a future where we’d get there and he’d take me into his arms and kiss me, then carry me to bed and hold me. He’d hold me while I cried because I could’ve been hurt or even killed last night, and I hated crying in public. But I was alive and in his arms because he’d saved me and we were safe in our home so I could cry in his arms, in our bed, because he made it his job to ensure our bed, under our roof, was the safest place in the world to be.
In no time, I had to get off my cloud because we were pulling up in front of Deke’s Roadhouse and the reality was that I wasn’t his, he wasn’t mine. Not yet. And I wouldn’t let myself entertain the thought of ‘maybe not ever’ because that was too painful to consider.
My car, a purple Charger, was parked in my usual spot at the side of the building and I was glad to see it appeared to be unharmed.
A bunch of the guys were outside in some sort of a discussion and the looks on their faces at the sight of us left me feeling weird.
Immediately, Brady was there, hugging me. “You okay?” he asked, lifting me off my feet.
I nodded and fought back the tears.
My brother Rider then had me. He took my face into both hands and glared into my eyes. My lower lip shook.
“Fuck,” he grunted and then my face was crushed against his chest.
“Brother,” I heard Rider say. I looked up and he was shaking hands with Fork.
“Brother,” Christian replied to Rider and then I was in my dad’s arms. And then Spencer’s.
All of them were shaking Christian’s hand. They didn’t say anything other than grunts of ‘brother’ but that word held a lot of meaning. It held meaning always, but right now it was loaded with ‘thank you’. They were all giving their thanks for him getting me back safely.
“Two hours we roll out,” my father said. “You good to do what you need to, Fork?”
“Yep. Got it,” Fork answered and then he was back on his bike. He left without saying anything to me.
I watched him drive away, still being hugged by Spency.
“Right. Office, now. Ride, garage locked?”
“No. Customer waitin’ even though I told him it’d take me another hour.”
“Fine: Spence, Joelle, Garage office.”
We followed into the office in the garage and dad shot the customer, standing by his vehicle instead of sitting in the waiting area, an irritated look. “It’ll be an hour, man. Go grab a coffee or a beer in The Roadhouse. Tell ‘em Deke said it’s on the house.”
The guy looked at his watch. “I’m in a hurry.”
“Then hurry your ass outta here so we can have a conversation and then Rider can get back to…” Dad looked to Ride.
“Puttin’ a new alternator in,” Ride finished.
Dad jerked his chin at the customer. The guy sighed. Dad’s eyebrows went up. The guy looked like he might piss his pants. He hurried out.
“What the fuck?” I asked when we were finally alone. “Who set Rudy and Delia’s house on fire?”