Not tonight, however. “Fuck off, you little alien freak.”
She tried to look like the insult had bounced off her, but Duncan saw where it had hit.
“Hey,” she threw back. “Don’t come for me because you’re too poisoned with testosterone to respect the woman you’re supposed to love.”
Love? Not yet. They were still getting to know each other; it was far too early to think of love. But when Duncan tried to say that aloud, the words wouldn’t come.
“I respect her,” he managed instead. “I’m in awe of her.”
Duncan’s head had become a jumble of obscure thoughts and half-formed ideas, like a mud-wrestling pit, with notions he only hoped he understood popping up randomly from the morass.
He hated all the attention on him now. He felt guilty, and also defensive, about bringing the ranch up at dinner. He felt guilty and anxious that he was just sitting here while Phoebe fled back to Checotah, their trouble unresolved.
Fuck, what if her leaving him tonight meant that she was leaving him period?
That thought set loose another volley of worries and thoughts he couldn’t quite get control of.
Of course he respected her. He was in awe of her. Phoebe had survived a whole lifetime of shit already, and despite it all she was strong and warm-hearted and really knew who she was and what she wanted. He couldn’t say the same about himself. For all his cocksure sense of his own toughness, for all the badassery that came with the Bull on his back, he’d never really been tested. California was the closest he’d come, but it didn’t feel nearly the same as what she’d overcome. Phoebe made him want to be more than he was.
Maybe he did love her. If not, maybe he could. If given the chance.
He looked to his mom. “How do I fix it?”
~oOo~
I was way out of line and I’m sorry. Can we talk?
More than an hour later, dinner was cleaned up, Kelsey and Dex had taken their kids home, Hannah was up in her room, and Mom and Dad were somewhere in the house together. Duncan sat on a sofa in the living room, Rowdy stretched out on his back beside him, snoring.
He stared at his phone, waiting for something to happen. Mom had advised him, with Kelsey’s agreement, that all he should do was send a short, clear text. No defense, no rationale, nothing but an apology. He’d followed their counsel, adding only the request to talk.
So far, more than an hour after she’d fled the house, his text remained the last in their thread.
“You okay, son?”
Duncan looked over his shoulder at his father. “I really fucked up, didn’t I?”
Dad came into the room and had a seat on the sofa facing the one Duncan and Rowdy were hogging. The dog lifted his head and wagged his tail, then dropped back into his hedonistic stupor.
“Seems like it. Also seems like Phoebe really means something to you.”
“I think she does.” He set his phone screen-down on the cushion beside him. “It’s kind of hit me like a truck. I didn’t see her coming at all, and now ... I don’t know. I feel ... scared right now.”
“Scared of loving her, or scared of losing her?”
Duncan took a few beats to understand the question and try to find the true answer. “Both, I think.” When Dad stayed quiet, Duncan focused on the dying fire and tried to explain himself. “I liked my life. I knew what I wanted it to be. I had a plan, and I liked where I thought I was headed. I thought I knew myself, but now that’s all turned upside down.”
“Knowing Phoebe did all that?”
As if the question were a password to something locked in his head, Duncan suddenly saw the full truth. “Not just her. I think ... I’ve felt out of sync since Eureka. That whole deal fucked with me, Dad. We killed so many men who barely even knew us. I know they were bad men, the wrong kind of outlaws, but we didn’t kill them because they were rapists or wife-beaters or child molesters or whatever the fuck they were. We killed them because we wanted their house. It doesn’t feel right. I guess I’m trying to figure out who the Bulls are, and who that means I am.”
Duncan fell quiet because he’d spoken his thoughts, and also because those thoughts had shocked him. Dad didn’t reply right away; he let the silence go on so long, Duncan worried that he’d said something very wrong.
When he did speak, Dad said, “I’m so damn proud of you, Dunc.” He tapped his chest with a loose fist. “So proud.”
It felt good to hear, and was a great relief, but Duncan didn’t really understand what it had to do with what he’d confessed.
Dad didn’t make him wait to clear that up. “There are a lot of things the club has done, and will do, that don’t feel right to me. That’s been true almost as long as I’ve sat at that table. I struggled most of my years as a Bull with how far over the line we’ve gone. I fucking hate some of the things we’ve done as a club, and some of the things I’ve done in the name of the club.”
He sat forward and stared hard across the coffee table. The softening glow of the fire drew the scars on his face in shadows. “I once killed an innocent kid, about your age, whose only crime was being related to a man we needed to hurt. I did that because D told me it had be done. He told me he wanted me to do it because the man we needed to hurt had hurt me. And that was true. I would have enjoyed killing that motherfucker. But I hated killing the kid, it still fucks with me all these years later, and I’m pretty sure the real reason D had me do it was to pull me back in line and make sure I stayed there.”
Dad had told Duncan a lot about his years as a Bull. When he was trying to talk him out of prospecting, he’d pretty much dumped every bad thing he could think of on Duncan’s head, trying to dissuade him from wanting a patch. But these were new details, never shared before. And he was talking about Grampa D, the sweet (and also crabby) old man whom Duncan had only ever known as a grandfather who would listen to any kid’s story, no matter how long and rambling it was, like it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever heard, and who loved to let kids ‘work’ with him, building goofy toys out of random parts.
Duncan loved Grampa and couldn’t imagine him manipulating a situation like that. Eight, on the other hand, he could totally see.
He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.
Dad wasn’t done, anyway. “I’m still wearing the Bull. After that, after the shit that went down that got Dane killed, after we started muling drugs, I hated all of it, and I fought to stop it. Sometimes it felt like I fought the whole table. There were times when I wanted out. But even with all that, I’m still wearing the Bull. When it comes down to it, leaving the Bull behind would mean leaving myself behind. So I will die in this kutte. Remember the talk we had in California about this? Do you remember what I said?”
Duncan did remember, though it hadn’t factored into his feelings since they’d returned home. Now he let himself relive that talk.
“This life isn’t honorable. But it’s the life we have, so we have to do the best we can and be the best we can be while we live it.”
He wasn’t sure if he was quoting his father’s wisdom, or if he was speaking his own interpretation of it, but Dad was nodding.
“Before anything else, the Bulls are a family. Our family. The way to see through the grime and blood is to remember that this is our family, and hold that knowledge tight. We take care of our family, whatever that means. But within that, be the best version of yourself. Take care of the people you love,” Dad said. “Treat all people with respect, unless they’ve shown you they don’t deserve it. Be loyal to the people who are loyal to you, and fight to keep your world strong and whole. That’s all anybody can do, Dunc. We just do it over here on the dark side.”