She pierces me with stern eyes. “Maybe that didn’t come out right. Physically, you’ve been there. Helping me with Alexa on the days I have to work and so we could go out on the road. But lately when we’re all hanging out, you’ve been…I don’t know…distant?”
“I didn’t mean to be.”
“Then I thought it was maybe something else. In one of my psychology classes we talked about how it’s normal for siblings to sort of separate and go their own ways in young adulthood while they each go out and create their own families—”
“Nothing about our family psychology is normal.”
“Jeez,” she snorts. “You’re not kidding. Club life isn’t normal, either.”
I’m not sure what to make of her earlier statement. “I’m sorry if I’ve been distant. This has been a lot to absorb.”
“I can’t imagine.” The corners of Heidi’s mouth turn down. “It had to be a weird thing to discover at your age.”
“At my age… Are you calling me old?”
She blinks as if she’s not sure if I’m teasing her. Then playfulness replaces the confusion in her brown eyes. “Well, now that you mention it...”
I slide my hand over hers and squeeze. “You’ll always be my sister.”
“Yeah, you can’t get rid of me that easy.”
I release her. “Be honest. Is Blake all right?”
Her eyes turn wary, shrewd. Her immediate instinct is to protect her husband, not satisfy my curiosity. As it should be. “He’s fine. It was a…shock. But once we talked through it…” she shrugs. “I think now he’s more mad at you for forcing Charlotte and Hope to keep this a secret for so long.” Her gaze drops as if that’s something still bothering her. How much damage have I done to their sisterhood?
“I didn’t know what else to do,” I explain as honestly as I can. “I hated asking them not to say anything, but I needed time. Then it was just this thing hanging over me that I didn’t want to deal with.”
“Me?”
“No, not you. Never you, Heidi.” I tap the table, so she’ll look at me again. “So, where’d you guys go?”
“It’s a secret.” She runs her fingers over her lips like she’s zipping them shut.
“Okay.” I can’t exactly argue she’s not entitled to her own secrets.
We sit in silence for a few seconds. Heidi stares at her lemonade and traces her thumb over a bead of condensation sliding down the glass. “Rock must’ve been…young. Mom…was his babysitter, right? That’s kind of fucked up.”
Unease crawls over my skin. “Now it makes me wonder if that’s why our…your dad left. Maybe he realized I wasn’t his, got pissed, and ditched us.” I can’t believe I just admitted that to my little sister.
“Yeah,” she scoffs. “The or something being he was a shitty person.”
“That too.”
“I don’t have any memories of him.”
Guilt slips under my skin. One more thing I took away from her. “I do.” I shrug and glance away. “They’re not bad ones. Not all of them, anyway. But now…”
“Have you thought about finding Mom and asking her about it?”
I had considered finding her, then immediately discarded the idea. “What’s the point? What can she possibly say? ‘Oops, sorry I never mentioned when I was a teenager, one of the kids I babysat knocked me up?’” I pull a disgusted face. “Not a conversation I want to have with her.”
Heidi shudders and wraps her hands around her lemonade glass. “I never, ever want her around my kids.”
“Damn right.”
“What the heck happened?” She wrinkles her nose. “Did they date?”
“He remembers her but not a whole lot more than a few bits and pieces.” I gag. “I don’t think it was what you’d consider dating.”
“What’s this mean for you…and for the club?”
“Don’t know, yet.”
“It shouldn’t matter. Lots of clubs are legacy clubs,” Heidi says as if she’s ready to go to battle for me. “That one we met in Texas, Savage Dragons? Remember Blaise? He took over the club for his father.”
“Didn’t think you were paying that much attention.” My lips curve. My sister may pretend to be a carefree ol’ lady when we’re around other clubs, but she’s always observing and taking in information. “The Demons too. Chaser took over for his dad. I have no intention of running the club, though.”
She grins at me. “That’s because Alexa and Grace are going to run it one day.”
Thinking about the sheer volume of dirtbags in club life brings an immediate no to my lips. “Then I’d have to kill a whole lot of bikers. And I sure as shit don’t want them hooking up with one.”
Her smile slips. “Easy on the overprotective vibes.”
“You’re dreaming if you think I and every single one of my brothers won’t look out for the girls.”
“Looking out is great.” She drops her gaze to her feet, studying her boots. “It’s the whole no-dating-until-she’s-thirty vibe that’s tired.”
“Heidi—”
“No,” she says firmly. “All that overprotective talk teaches girls that it’s okay to be controlled by the men in their lives. As long as it’s done out of ‘concern’ or ‘for their own good.’”
Without thinking through what she’s saying, I blurt, “That’s bullshit—”
“Can you really not see the difference?” she interrupts in a firm but calm voice. Obviously, she’s thought about this a lot. “Can you close your mouth and actually listen to what I’m saying?”
It rubs my ass but she has a point. I snap my mouth shut.
“It’s not ‘cute.’ I don’t want to teach my daughter to not think for herself.”
While it rubs against thirty or so years of personal beliefs, feelings, and experience, what she’s saying starts to sink in. “It’s not because I think you can’t take care of yourself or that the girls won’t be able to when they’re older. It’s because I love you and them. I worry all the time. I know what it’s like out there. A lot of men are fucking scum, and I want to protect all of you from the bad ones.”
“Then teach them about the good ones,” she insists. “Help them develop and listen to their gut instincts.” She presses her hand to her stomach. “Not to rely on a big strong uncle all the time.”
“I can do that.” I rest my hand on her shoulder and draw her closer. The corner of my mouth twitches. “But I’m still gonna fucking murder anyone who hurts my family.”
Finally, she laughs. “Fair enough, big brother. Just give us a chance to do it first.”
My sister has cracked a few skulls on her own. Saved our asses more than once. “Alexa already has a pretty badass mom.”
“It took a while to get there,” she says with the limited scope of youth.
ROCK