Page 88 of The Loves We Lost

There are many things the club does well, but a full-scale cookout is one of the very best. We’ve got smokers and grills and a shit ton of brothers who like to barbecue.

The new old ladies are finding their stride with this shit too. Rae and Briar spent an age getting the lot to look a whole heap nicer than it usually did. Rae asked King for some labor and cash to pretty it up. He gave her three prospects and five grand of his own money. So now we have plants in containers that climb and wrap around the wire fencing. And some better seating than the old, beaten-up chairs, in the form of picnic tables with umbrellas.

There are little lights and bunting and shade.

King muttered some comment about it looking like a hipster beer garden.

Catalina did the shopping but drew a line regarding her responsibilities as an old lady after that. Said she wasn’t cut out for pulling together a buffet. I heard Niro tell her he was proud of her and heard Catalina tell him that next time, she’d work the grill and he could shop. He’ll probably let her.

Iris, Gwen, and now Vi are pulling everything else together. Tubs of potato salad, corn on the cob drenched in butter, and salad that’ll barely get touched.

And I’m watching my daughter hang upside down on the new tire swing someone installed, her legs in the air, her hair sweeping the ground.

“Beer?” Halo asks, handing me another bottle.

I take it from him and cheers the top of the one he got for himself.

“She’s so like you, it’s fucking frightening,” he says as he sits down next to me.

As if she knows we’re speaking about her, Avery rights herself on the swing, and as she does so, the scrunchie falls out of her hair. She picks it up off the ground, looks around and finds me, and skips over.

“Can you put my hair back in my scrunchie, Daddy?” She gives me the scrunchie, then turns around between my knees.

Wavy thick blond hair slides through my fingers as I do my best at what she asks, trying not to reveal to anyone just how much these moments mean.

I didn’t get to bathe her when she was little or change a diaper or walk around with her in my arms at two in the morning when she wouldn’t settle. And I’m sure there are plenty of exhausted parents who’d tell me that I’m not missing anything, but the truth is, I feel every single thing and minute I missed.

It’s time I can never get back.

Even as I think it, I realize I’ve still got work to do to forgive Vi.

I’m definitely here for the future, but I’ve somehow got to get over this wave of anger I feel when I think of every milestone I wasn’t there for. And there’s a half-baked story Avery has accepted where I’m the bad guy. Where I’m the daddy who didn’t stick around. When she’s older, she’s gonna need to learn the truth.

While the lie saved Vi for now, I don’t know that I can live with it forever.

“There you go, pumpkin.”

As if sensing my mood, she turns and plants her sweaty, dirty palms on my thighs and kisses my cheek. “You’re the best hair putter-upper, Daddy.”

She skips off and takes my heart with her.

“Your kid’s full of shit,” Halo mutters. “That’s the weakest ponytail I’ve seen in a long time.”

“Fuck you,” I say, my heart so fucking full, I can’t breathe.

“Kids can punch you in the gut, can’t they?” He looks over to where his dad, Wrinkle, is hanging out with his daughter, Halo’s baby half-sister. There’s a frown on Wrinkle’s face as he rocks a stroller with a crying Lola in it. Looking around the lot, I see Lola’s mom, Mercy, a former club girl who used to fuck any brother in the hope of becoming an old lady.

You can almost feel the disdain she holds for Wrinkle, thathe’sthe one who managed to knock her up.

“They most definitely can. Is everything okay between your dad and Mercy?”

Halo shrugs. “You and I both know they aren’t gonna last. She doesn’t want to be with Dad. Doesn’t even want the kid, I don’t think. Best guess is she’s just gonna wait it out until Dad dies, get his cash, then try and hook up with another brother.”

“Gold digger.”

Halo nods but grins. “She doesn’t know Dad updated his will to put half his estate in some legal thing for Lola until she turnseighteen, and the other half for me. And it explicitly states he doesn’t want Mercy to have anything.”

Mercy winks at Noah, who raises his wedding ring finger at her in response as he makes his way towards us.