Page 27 of Mile High With the Bikers (Screaming Eagles MC #10)

DIESEL

“How were your parents?” Rory asks. She glances back at Alessa’s house with a wistful expression on her face.

Such a simple question, with such a messy, complicated answer. “Why?” I try not to sound too defensive.

“I don't know. I don’t feel like I had a horrible childhood. My mother signed me up for all the right things. I went to a very highly rated school with excellent teachers. My father paid child support on time and then made sure that my education and career were taken care of, but… I don’t think either of them really wanted me.

I’ve never even really thought seriously about if I want kids or not.

All I know is that I don’t want to bring a kid into the same situation I had. ”

“You'd be a great fucking mom.” It just slips out of me, not even questioning it. But I believe it, too.

“Would I? I got to hold Kaylee’s new baby, and she was so small!

Alessa was excited to hold her, and Kaylee seemed tired but like this little pink blob was the love of her life.

Just seeing them with their kids and the way they talk about their families, it made me wonder if anyone ever smelled the top of my head and smiled. ”

“That’s a really fucking specific thing to wonder about.”

Rory laughs. “It is, isn’t it? But do you know what I mean? Was my relationship with my mother always broken? Or was I just a difficult baby?”

“Uh, I’m not sure I’m the one to judge, but I think your mom’s just a shitty mom.”

She snorts skeptically.

“She fucking sold you out to your father. Maybe she’s an okay human being, but that doesn’t mean she did right by you.”

“Yeah, I guess.” She kicks a big chunk of gravel that's gotten onto the courtyard. It rolls into the grass.

“Fuck that shit. You have a bitch for a mom and a fucking cartoon super villain for a father, and somehow you're still fucking amazing.

So none of this bullshit about what kind of mom you'll be. If you decide you want kids, you'll be fucking great because you’ll go full nerd attack on it, and newsflash, giving a shit about your kids is part of raising them, not just picking a good school.” I slide my hand around her waist and tug her into me.

She grunts when we bump together, but she doesn't pull away.

“You didn't answer my question.” She snakes her arm around my waist, too.

“Doesn't matter.”

“Of course it does.” She sounds hurt. Fuck, of course she is, but my story ain't easy listening. Hard enough to think about it on my own, never mind telling someone else.

“Leave it.”

She stops, forcing me to turn to her if I don't let go. She wets her lips, picking her words carefully. “Don’t run away screaming, but I think we’re good together.”

“You and me?” I do too. That's why I don't wanna make her the one that runs away.

“You and me. Shrapnel and me. Bull and me. All three of you together.”

I try to laugh it off. “The old ladies got to you? Thinking we can give you what they've got?”

“You think it’s dumb?” Her voice is light, but there’s a current of hurt there that makes me feel guilty.

“Maybe you’re right and I’m just thinking too hard about things that don’t matter.

I’ll probably be gone in a week, right? So what’s the point in asking each other questions? ” She starts to walk away.

Fuck. I hold her in place. “No, that’s not what I fucking mean. I like what we’ve got going on. It feels good, and not just the sex. But that doesn't give you the right to my?—”

“Right?” She huffs, sounding annoyed. “Nobody has the right to anyone else’s story, but it's not about right. It's about trust. How much do you trust me?”

I'm an idiot sometimes, but even I see the danger signs if I choose the wrong answer. If I want this to go any further, I'm going to have to trust that she'll still be here when I'm done telling her. And if I don't, she’s got no fucking reason to stick around. “You might hate me afterwards.”

“Because of your parents? I find that hard to believe.”

“Because of what I did to my parents.”

She goes still, waiting.

Fuck, I said too much already. Whatever she’s thinking is gonna be just as bad as the truth, if not worse. So now what? I tell her just so she won't draw her own conclusions? That's not trust, that's just fear of being caught out. “Why do you need to know?

“Being here, being around you guys, it’s the first time I’ve ever really considered if I want anything more in my life.

I was happy with my work, or maybe not happy, but content.

Now I’m wondering if I’m just screwed up, and since you’re one of the people that are making me feel this way, I… You’re right. It’s dumb.”

I look up with a sigh. “It’s not. I’m not good at this.”

Suddenly, her little hand is clasped around my wrist. I can tear myself away anytime I want, but I don’t.

“Please?” Her ash gray eyes are pleading for me to let her in.

Something tears in me. Something that might take a lot of fixing to patch back up again. I pull her with me over to the shade of one of the trees near the clubhouse. “Here. Sit with me.”

“Okay.”

My chest grows tight, a feeling I haven't felt in many, many years. “When I was real little, things were good. At least as far as I could tell, but… something happened to Dad. I think he lost his job, but I was too young for them to bother explaining, so they didn't tell me shit. All I knew for a while was that he was an asshole, but after a while he stopped bothering to hide the bottles, and he went from mostly never home, to there all the fucking time. Looking back, I don’t know if life turned him into an alcoholic, or if the alcohol ruined his life, but it didn’t much matter when he started hitting.”

“Oh no.” She wraps herself around me, but I can’t bring myself to do the same, not until I get it out.

“Age old story, right? It lasted for fucking years. Most of the time it was Mom that took the heat, but when I got bigger, I’d piss him off on purpose to distract him.

Sometimes it worked. That bastard made our lives hell.

Fuck, I hated her for not leaving. I fucking know in my head she was a victim, but I don’t know if I can ever forgive her for not just picking me up from school and driving to anywhere but home.

” I draw a racking breath, hating to go back to the place these memories live.

But damn it, she wanted the whole fucking truth, right?

“That was my life from when I was probably eight years old until a week after my fourteenth birthday. New Year’s Day. ”

She blinks. “Wait, your birthday is Christmas Eve?”

I nod. “Every damn year. He'd blown way more than we could afford on cheap champagne and started popping bottles when—you know how they stream countdowns from around the world?

He started as soon as the first fucking tiny island most of the way around the world celebrated.

By the time it was dark here, he was fucking smashed.

I don't even know what Mom did to provoke him, but he just—shit, he broke and I thought he was really going to kill her.” My heart's racing, I can feel the adrenaline like I'm there again, the images of Dad flashing like a slow motion movie across my eyes.

“I broke, too. Grabbed the cast iron pan off the stove.”

Rory’s hand on my side trembles. I can hear her breathing change, but I can’t look at her or I won’t finish.

“I don't think he ever believed that I'd do it.

He fucking laughed at me when I closed on him.

It was the first time I fought back and the last thing he ever did.

I hit him over the head as hard as I fucking could, and he dropped like a popped balloon.

Mom screamed for me to stop, but I couldn't. I just kept hitting him and hitting him and hitting him until I could barely recognize his face. There was so much fucking blood. I thought they were gonna lock me away for sure.”

“I don't—” she starts.

“Shh. Let me finish. The whole thing was a blur. My brain fucking checked out, but Mom took over. After taking his shit for years, she cleaned me up, told me to follow her lead and then wiped down the handle to get my prints off and I’m pretty sure got in a hit of her own before she called 911.

When they came, she confessed to the whole thing. And I sat there and let her.”

“You were fourteen! Of course you let her. She was protecting you. Just like you're protecting me. If it was your child, wouldn't you have done the same?”

“Yeah. Probably. No, fuck, of course I would've. I lived with some relatives who I’d never seen before in my life while she was in prison. He messed her up pretty bad before I got him, and his reputation was well known. The courts believed it was self-defense but ran her in for excessive force. Probably because his face was mulch. But that was my damn fault too.” My fists are so tightly clenched they hurt.

Now I'm just waiting for the moment where she realizes how fucking trash I am.

“Is she out now?”

“Yeah. She only served a couple years and she’s got a little place out in the sticks now.

We don't talk much. I think we remind each other too much of what happened.

Not just the end, but the whole fucking time.

Like your Mom, cards for birthdays and Christmas.

Mine's lucky, she can do both with one.”

She squeezes me even harder. “I can't imagine. It must hurt so much to carry around those memories.”

“What do you mean? I don't think you get it. I fucking killed my own father and let my mother go to prison for it.”

“You were a kid! It was self-defense. He was hurting your mother. That's not your fault. You did what you could, but there was no winning solution there. She knew she would get more sympathy and didn’t want you to have to live with that on your record. She wanted to give you a future.” Getting up on her knees and leaning in, she places a kiss on my lips. “Diesel, I don't hate you.”

Fuck. “I?—”

“Diesel!” I look up past Rory to see Hawk waving at me from by the gate. “There's a guy here called Mason, asking about your girl.”

Rory stiffens, then pushes herself to her feet. “Mason? It's got to be about Dad.”

Dad? Fuck. I chase after her. “Not without me.”

She stops just long enough to smile back at me, even if it's a little sad. “I'm counting on it.”