Page 18 of Nave (Henchmen MC: Next Generation #14)

Nave

“As much as I appreciate not having to mow the lawn myself,” my father said, coming out on the front path with two glasses of iced coffee in his hands, “I have to wonder what has you up and over here at ten in the morning to do it for me.”

I pushed the ancient mower—the same one I’d been pushing through the yard since I was a teenager, thanks to Uncle Seth fixing the damn thing up anytime it broke—toward the garage and then met my father on the path.

I took my coffee and followed him to the front porch, both of us sitting down in the shade.

We’d had a momentary reprieve from the unrelenting August heat and humidity. But it was back at full blast. I was soaked through with sweat after just an hour.

“So, is it club shit or personal shit?”

“Why would it be club shit?”

“Eh, anytime a group of men gets together there can be issues. Especially when there are new prospects.”

“Nah. I like Spike and Cain. They’re polar opposites of each other, but it’s a good balance.”

“So it’s personal. You know I’ve never been one to tell you how to live your life, but I’m gonna lay the guilt on thick here. Your mother is not gonna take it well if you take off on the road again, doing God-knows-what with God-knows-who.”

“I’m not going anywhere. It was time to come home, and I plan to stay here.”

My father looked out at the distance, our profiles so similar that I had a glimpse into exactly what I would look like at his age.

Not too shabby .

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain woman staying at the homestead. And the fact that you have been there every day since she moved in. Would it?”

It wasn’t every day. Not since the woods. I’d been trying to give her space. The last thing she needed was to try to put up with my advances while she was trying to stitch her life back together. And, you know, come to terms with being a single mom.

I still dropped in. Brought groceries that seemed less and less necessary, offered to take her to appointments, to do tasks around her little yard.

As time went on, I was finding fewer and fewer reasons to show up.

I didn’t talk about it to anyone. Not even my closer friends in the club, who kept giving me curious glances when I would take off in the middle of the day, knowing where I was heading.

But this was my old man.

The calmest, least judgmental person I’d ever met. And he was pretty solid with the advice-giving. As much as my teenage self would hate to know the adult version of me thought so.

“Yeah.”

“I heard it through the grapevine that you knew her from the road.”

“The grapevine stretches all the way out here?” I asked, shaking my head.

“Don’t believe the shit about women being gossipy. These men like to talk too.”

“Yeah, I met her when I was on the road. I was doing a job for a crew in the south who were robbing armored cars. For the record, I didn’t do any robbing.”

“For the record, I wasn’t doing any judging.”

And he wasn’t.

There were a lot of reasons to love my dad. That was pretty top of the list.

“I was in charge of going to make sure the CCTV footage was removed in real time. Which led me to the middle of fucking nowhere. There was this creepy-ass glass house with something like a hundred cameras inside and outside. Only one exit. A door that locked when it closed and only opened with a fingerprint scan.”

“Paranoid.”

“Yeah, well, he had reason to be. He was keeping his girlfriend trapped inside.”

“There are some sick fucks in the world.”

“Yeah. He watched her every move. Her diet. Everything. I only met her a few times, but she left an impact.”

“Of course she did. Poor girl.”

“I made it clear, in a way that Ben couldn’t look back on and see anything remiss, that I was from Navesink Bank. Then, once, when Dezi was making a racket, told her that I would help her if she ever needed it.”

“And she finally needed it.”

“I should have gone back sooner. Gotten her out. Burned the fucking place down with Ben inside it.”

“That’s an option,” my father said, his smile a little wry. “So, she got away from him.”

“She finally had enough motivation to.”

My father glanced over at me, his dark eyes working.

“She’s pregnant.”

“Yeah.”

It wasn’t my business to tell. But within a few weeks, months at the most, it would be obvious to everyone. Besides, this was my father. He was a vault when you needed him to be.

“The ex’s?”

“I would tell you if I got someone pregnant, Dad.”

“I’d hope so. Alright. So she’s pregnant with the ex’s baby and came to you for help.”

“Yes.”

“And you… don’t want to help? Fair warning, if the answer to that one is yes, you’re grown enough now for me to kick your ass.”

“That’s not it at all. If anything, I wish she’d let me do more. But she’s been putting her foot down when she thinks I’m helping too much.”

“Okay. You’re safe. So, what’s the issue?”

“I like her.”

There.

It was out.

I felt like I could breathe properly again.

“And that’s an issue because you’re a deadbeat who has nothing to offer a… wait…”

The laugh barked out of me.

“She doesn’t need to deal with things like this right now.”

“You know what I think?”

“What’s that?”

“That you should trust a woman to know what she wants and needs. So you shouldn’t be making those decisions for her.”

There was a clapping noise behind me, making me turn to find my mother standing there.

“Hey, Ma.”

“I have no clue what the larger context of the conversation is, but I agree wholeheartedly with your father on that last bit. Did you figure out what’s wrong with him?”

“ He’s sitting right here,” I grumbled.

“Yeah, just sorted it out.”

“Should I be making soup, prepping the spare room, or calling the local treatment center?”

None of that said with judgment.

If I needed a hot meal, a place to sleep, or to head into detox, they were there and they weren’t going to make me feel like shit about it.

And since they’d been very open with their own addiction struggles, and we’d all been aware of how that could run in families, they kept an eye on that kind of thing.

But so did I. And I never had any issues on that front.

“I wouldn’t mind a home-cooked meal,” I admitted. “But I think I’d rather Dad made it.”

“I’ll go ahead and not be offended by that since I prefer his cooking as well.”

“Your son finally caught feelings for a woman.”

“Have you?” she asked, eyes bright. My mom was far from a nag, but I saw the way she looked at everyone else’s grandbabies. And I was her only shot at having any.

“She’s pregnant,” he went on. Yes, my dad was a vault. But my mom had full access. As she should.

“Not with my baby,” I was quick to clarify.

“Okay. I see what I walked in on now. But I agree with your father. You don’t get to decide for her if she’s in a place for a relationship or not. That’s her choice. Don’t be a jerk. I raised you better.”

A laugh burst out of me, taking me out of my chair and walking over to plant a kiss on her cheek.

“Yes, you did,” I agreed. “Now, about that food…”

“I’ll whip something up,” my father said, draining his coffee, then getting up.

“But you’re not sitting at my table all covered in grass and sweat,” my mother warned. “Go shower. Steal some of your father’s clothes.”

I did just that.

I was overcome with how good it felt to go home sometimes, to get that hit of comfort and nostalgia that only your parents could provide.

“What’s this?” I asked when I was about to leave, and my father came out with a large storage container.

“An excuse to go see your girl,” he said, handing it over with one hand, and clamping me on the shoulder with the other. “Trust yourself, kid. You will know if you are wanted or not. Don’t overcomplicate shit. Life is difficult enough. Thanks for mowing the lawn.”

With that, he went back inside with my mom.

I walked away feeling fifty pounds lighter.

And excited for the first time in days.

“Oh, good,” Ariah greeted me about twenty seconds after her dogs came up to say hi. “Kit was just texting you.”

“What’s up?”

“You need to talk Lolly into coming to stay at the clubhouse with you.”

“What? Why? What happened?” My spine stiffened, worried they’d said or done something to upset her.

“The wiring on her solar panels is screwed up. I have a call out to someone for it, but she can’t stay there without electricity. Without air. And she won’t listen to us about staying with one of us.”

“How long has it been out?”

“Since last night. She didn’t wake us to tell us. Just suffered all night. She put her rechargeable fan on Edith and just sweltered herself. Wouldn’t even turn the truck over to use that air conditioning.”

“Jesus. Okay. Yeah. I’ll get her out of here.”

I marched right over to the motorhome. The door was already open, but it felt like getting smacked in the face with the closed-up heat inside.

Edith was asleep in front of her little fan.

Lolly was sitting on the bed, fanning herself with one of her library books.

“Lolly, what the fuck, babe?”

Her eyes snapped open as I took in her red face, the way her tank and shorts were stuck to her body with sweat. Even her hair looked wet.

“Did they call you? I told them not to call you.”

“They didn’t. But they should have. As soon as they found out.”

“To be fair, I just told them an hour or so ago, and they spent the last hour trying to figure out the solar panels.”

“Loll, you can’t stay in here like this. Why didn’t you at least go sit in Kit or Ria’s houses?”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine.” I put down the plate and started toward the bed, dropping down to pull out the plastic containers under the bed.

“What are you doing?”

“Grabbing you a few changes of clothes.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re coming to stay with me until the panels are fixed. I’m not having you stay somewhere as hot as this.”

I expected her to argue, since she’d dug in her heels with the girls.

But her gaze slipped to mine. And I hated that I couldn’t read whatever emotion I saw flicker there.

“Okay,” she agreed.

“Okay,” I said, nodding.