Always Storm.
The server came with our order, and it gave me a second to appreciate the sound of her laughter. To let the joy of it swirl inside me.
Still, I had to temper this before it got out of hand. "You always get caught when you do bad things. No one stays quiet forever."
"Snitches. So messed up."
"Maybe, but it’s to protect people too. You can’t keep on hurting everyone who gets in your path, Cyan."
It was so difficult, because I wanted her to headbutt the bastards who were intent on hurting her, but hold peace talks with kids in her class.
Whoever said being a mom was easy was a schmuck.
She heaved a sigh as she dug her fork into her pie. "Snitches aren’t people."
My brow furrowed. "Ugh, yeah, they are. Amara was a snitch," I told her. "Aren’t you glad she saved you?"
Cyan’s eyes widened at that as she peered at me, and I knew she’d never thought of it that way.
Slowly, I nodded. "She saved you for us, baby. Without her, you might not be sitting here. So, sometimes, a snitch is needed. Sometimes, they’re not all bad."
"They are in the MC," she countered.
Storm cleared his throat, and he nearly broke my face as I smiled with relief when he said, "Baby, my world ain’t your world."
"It is! I’m a biker princess!"
"I know, I know," he chided softly, "and you’ll always be that, but what I do, baby, ain’t what I want you to do. Maybe never, unless, when you’re older, that’s what you really, really want."
"Why not? You get to rule over all those guys." She peered up at him with so much admiration that I wasn’t surprised when Storm squirmed.
Press a gun to his head, I had the feeling Storm would be fine. He’d talk himself out of the situation.
Have his daughter say something admirable about him? He looked like a turkey that was trying to avoid the butcher come Thanksgiving.
That was sad, wasn’t it?
How did a man like my husband get to that point? Where he couldn’t even accept a compliment from his little girl?
"You have to bear in mind that your school and my MC, they’re not… well, they’re not on the same level, are they, ladybug?"
"No, the MC is much better," was her stubborn retort, and I almost laughed when Storm grunted in the face of her obstinacy. "I wouldn’t have gotten in trouble today if I’d been there. Can’t you homeschool me, Mom?"
The irony here being that I’d never even damn well known she liked the MC. There was wanting to wear a cut while she rocked out a tutu—biker ballerina FTW—but I figured she wanted to mimic her father. Wanting to spend time at the clubhouse was another matter entirely.
Praying to God it was like that Pokémon phase back when she was six and that was all I’d heard for months on end before she never mentioned it again, I retorted, "What? So you can headbutt me if I irritate you? Every time I make you do math?"
She grinned at me. "I wouldn’t do that."
I clicked my tongue in disbelief. "You forget how well I know you, cheeky monkey."
There was a twinkle in her eye that did my heart good to see. "I don’t hate math."
"Since when?" Storm retorted with a laugh.
She blew a raspberry before she shoved a huge bite of pie into her mouth.
"Your mom’s going to have classes of her own soon enough anyway," Storm interrupted softly. I cringed at his words. He noticed, of course. His brow furrowed, but he carried on, "So you’ll just have to make do. That place will be good for you."
"There are no boys there. It’s weird."
"It’s not weird. It’ll keep you focused."
She blinked. "That makes no sense."
Hiding a smile, I asked, "What do you mean, honey?"
"I mean that boys don’t make me lose my focus."
"Who does?"
"Girls." She grunted. "I hate girls. They’re mean and nasty and—"
"You liked Katina," I pointed out, referring to the foster daughter of Lodestar, the West Orange chapter’s hacker, as well as the younger sister of one of the Old Ladies, Alessa. "She’s a girl."
"She wasn’t a girly girl though." Her nose crinkled. "I listened to them today. They all want to talk about painting their nails and lacrosse." She scoffed. "What kind of sport is lacrosse?"
Storm’s lips twitched. "Canada’s national sport?"
Cyan sniffed. "They can keep it. Why would you want to catch a ball with a portable net? What’s the point?"
"Wasn’t it a traditional indigenous game?" I asked Storm. Track and field sports were more my thing.
"It was," he agreed. "If you get good at it, it can be fun. Be good for your speed, Cyan. Build up some stamina so you can do a thousand backward flips instead of just fifty."
The contemplative look she shot him was deadly serious. "Do you think so?"
He smirked. "Maybe not a thousand."
"How many?"
I laughed. "You’ll have to try it to find out."
She hummed, but she was pensive as she turned back to her pie.
Gymnastics was queen in our house. I was pretty sure she’d start at a competitive level soon enough, and before, I wouldn’t have really pushed her, but now? I felt certain the challenge would not only be good for her, it was what she needed to keep out of trouble.
With Cyan a little quieter as she was lost to her thoughts, Storm asked, "Why did you look so disappointed when I mentioned classes? After our call, I was hoping you’d be more excited."
"It was just a lot more complicated than I’d have liked," I said on a sigh.
"Whatever you need, Keira, to make it happen, I got your back."
He sounded… earnest.
Was this a part of the charade? Or did he really mean it?
"Thank you," I said stiffly, uncertain of how to take his words.
A part of me felt catty for not taking him at face value, but then, hadn’t he proven to me that I couldn’t trust him?
I dug into my pie, all of us stuffing our faces with it as if this were appetizer, entrée, and dessert, like my going quiet was a trigger for us to just enjoy the food in front of us. Not that that was hard. It had to be the best pie I’d ever eaten in my goddamn life, that was how good it was.
When the server refilled our coffees and got Cyan another juice, Storm ordered some more, and we all tucked in even though it was the opposite of healthy. But hell, I figured we needed a break after that family therapy session.
"Can we come here next week after visiting Dr. Janowicz?" Cyan asked around a mouthful of s’mores pie, confirming my belief that this was a good way to end a stressful evening.
Storm looked to me, and I shrugged. "I don’t see why not."
Hell, it might even make the entire ordeal bearable knowing we were going to eat this afterward.
"Sounds like a yes to me," Storm said with a wink at our kid.
"We should ask MaryCat and Digger to come and eat with us," Cyan chirped. "Maybe she’ll let me hold Maddox."
"They’ll be leaving or moving into a new house soon, Cy," Storm told her.