by Nicole Fox
I groaned.
“For fuck’s sake … What?” I looked back to the front of the bar, where Travis was sticking his head out. His one good eye seemed to sparkle mischievously.
“Yo. I thought you were getting your sorry ass out of here. But there’s some good shit in here with your name on it, brother, if you’re still gonna be lollygaggin’ around!”
Misha laughed as Travis disappeared back into the bar.
“Things don’t change, do they?”
“You have,” I said. “So have I.”
She frowned a little at that.
“It’s been five years, Trip—”
“So you keep saying,” I said. I didn’t know where the frustration was coming from, just that it was there. That it was hot and heady. “Misha, I don’t give a fuck—”
“Yeah, well, I do, Trip! I don’t know if you don’t seem to care or give a damn about what happened during those five years, and I’m sorry shit isn’t the same, but that’s not my fault!” She snatched herself away from me. “All I wanted to do was come out an apologize. I did that. I hope you have a good night, Trip.”
She turned on her heel and left.
I groaned. I kicked at the dirt lot outside the bar. What the hell was all that? The woman was still damn frustrating. Stubborn.
Well, that’s why you liked her in the first place, you dipshit. She was hard to get and you wanted to get her.
Getting her this go around seemed like it was going to be harder than before. How the hell was I supposed to do any of this shit? Things were more complicated. I had thought maybe with a little time … Maybe it hadn’t been enough time. It’d only taken me mere moments to want her back in my arms after seeing her again, though! And she was … she was so … Christ!
Ah. Fuck it.
I hopped on my bike, peeled off, and headed home. This sounded like something I would deal with tomorrow.
Chapter Four
Misha
Being back in town was strange. Most people who came through Ace of Pride knew my face— thought I had just run out of town like a wild child. Daddy apparently hadn’t told anyone but the Pride what had happened. Hadn’t wanted the cops involved, it seemed, as he’d trusted them less than he’d trusted his daughter to make good choices with biker boys.
Well. Daddy had always been a smart man who knew what he was talking about.
I spent my days at the bar. Things were a little boring during the day, but I would take boring over anything that the Jackals would have been doing, and I found things for Rose to do. I had packed her coloring book and crayons, as well as a couple little books that Holland had gotten her. I never let her think that man was her daddy, and hadn’t let him pretend like he was, either, but I couldn’t say he hadn’t at least tried to make her as happy as a little girl should be.
She liked the boys. She hadn’t gone a day in her young life not being around men in kuttes, drinking and swearing and doing questionable things to women in broad daylight. Oddly enough, the Pride boys were a little more put together than the Jackals; they kept that wild stuff to a minimum when I brought Rose up front. Travis taught her how to play pool, holding her up so she could reach the table. The DeVos twins tried to teach her darts, but there was something about pointy, flying things in my daughter’s hands that made me hesitant.
“We’ll teach her when she’s older,” they’d laughed in unison.
Trip was the only one that hadn’t made a real effort to get to know her, and after our fight or … whatever that had been, I didn’t know if he was half as interested in her as he should have been. Or as I’d hoped he be. It wouldn’t have been so frustrating, but even Brig, who eyed me suspiciously like he knew I had something to hide, had taken to her.
So, it was the boys, pool, and darts, that watched over my little girl, and the handful of coloring books that were almost all full of color. But pool and darts and coloring books weren’t enough for a five-year-old girl.
I sat in Trip’s room, watching her take her afternoon nap as I dug through the duffle bag that I had brought with us. It had been all that I could think to pack. Clothes for a couple weeks—now running low—the things to entertain Rose, some hygiene products—also running low— and some other things that I had thought would be good to bring at the time.
Down at the bottom, and probable the most important thing in the duffle, was a baggie, almost like the ones used for banks. It had a few hundreds in it, about thirty thousand in cash that I had been saving over the last five years between getting it from Holland, skimming the minimal I could get off Jackal profits, selling a few things here and there. It had been a miracle that I had managed to keep such a thing from Holland, and even more of one that I had managed to keep it from Rigger.
Caught up in the thought that I could use some of it to buy Rose some more clothes, maybe a few things to keep her entertained while I worked out the logistics of getting a cheap little car, something I could drive away with her, I didn’t realize the door had opened. I jumped when a hand came down on my shoulder.
“Woah, sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. Packing a lot of cash in there, I see.”
I hastily piled the clothes that had been in our duffle on top of the money, and looked up at Trip.
“It’s security,” I said.
“Mm.”
He didn’t look like he believed me, but that was more his problem than mine. Before he could ask about it, I decided to ask my own question.
“I need to go into town and buy a few things for myself and Rose,” I said. “Just a few things, nothing drastic. You think I could call a cab or something?” I didn’t have my own phone to do such a thing, but I didn’t want to assume I could just use whatever was in the bar, either.
“No,” he said. I frowned.
“What—”
“Come on. I’ll drive you. Don’t have anything else to do right now anyway.”
“You don’t drive, you ride.”
“Yeah, but unless you’re buying a whole store full of girly clothes and princess playhouses, I’m pretty sure whatever you get will fit under the seat. Come on.”
Trip left no room to argue as he slipped out of his room. I sighed, casting a look down at Rose. I followed Trip out.
“What about Rose, Trip?” I asked. He looked back at me with a somewhat puzzled look before it seemed to dawn on him.
Oh, the ease of being a new parent and being able to forget just like that.
“Hey, Trav!”
“Huh!?” Travis’ voice came from somewhere in the bar, though I could tell where he was as we passed through.
“Gonna take Misha to the store. Watch Rose for me, okay?”
“You got it, Boss Man.”
Trip held the bar door open for me.
“See? Easy. Travis won’t let anything happen to her.”
I nodded, though it was strange to think of leaving her behind. I never left her behind. I didn’t step through the door even as it was held open for me. My heart beat fast in my chest; it felt like I was abandoning her –
“Hey.”
Trip’s hand came to settle on my lower back, his fingers splaying over my spine in a caress. I sucked in a breath; I hadn’t felt his touch like that in so long, and hadn’t been expecting it, either. He used that hand and maybe my distracted state, too, to nudge me from the door before pulling his hand away.
Part of me was grateful; the other part hated the feeling of him not touching me anymore.
We said nothing to each other as he brought me over to his bike. She was still a looker, shiny black and chrome, and I remembered all the long rides in the night that we had had on her. From under his seat, he pulled his spare helmet; he was still a rebel and didn’t wear one himself.
“You remember how to ride?” he asked, and I pretended like I didn’t hear the double implication in his voice.
“I never stopped.”
That surprisingly drew a smile to his face, the first that had broken over it since I go
t back. He slid onto his bike, and I, after, sliding the helmet onto my head, got on behind him. There was a faint hint of sugary sweet shampoo that lingered on the helmet; reminding me of the waft of it I had gotten from Trixie when she had stormed from his office.
But we were pulling out and peeling off before I could really let it sink in that there was another woman who hadoccupied this space behind Trip that I always used to. I wrapped around him snug and tight. He was still so built, perhaps even more. He was solid beneath my arms and I shuddered at the feeling of him.
“You good back there?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”
I wasn’t.
I was … blissed.
I couldn’t help but snuggle against his back, cheek right between his shoulder blades. I’d ridden with Holland and Rigger a lot. But they never felt as good as Trip, and I was beginning to remember why. He felt like home. Dangerously, wonderfully, like home.
He rode us through town, and I knew he was taking the leisurely route; it didn’t take forty-five minutes to get to the department store from the bar. Maybe he wanted to show me everything that I had missed over the years of being gone. Maybe he felt as good to have me on the back of his baby as much as I was happy to be on it.
When we got to the store, I dismounted with shaky legs that I tried to hide. I was made aware of the fact that that warmth had returned to me. I felt it all the way between my legs. If Trip noticed, he didn’t say anything, but his eyes did linger on me with a raised brow and a knowing smirk.
“What?” I asked. He shook his head.
“Nothing. I was just thinking that with everything that has changed, there’s at least something that hasn’t.”
I raised my brow at him, but all he did was laugh. With a roll of my eyes, I walked forward, toward the store, showing that I was all too willing to leave him behind. He laughed.
Another first since I’d been back.
He caught up to me before I got to the storefront, throwing his arm over me before we got through. I shouldn’t have, but I pressed to his side. Again, he felt like home.
We walked through the store. There was a silence, and I didn’t know if I should fill it or not. More than once I looked up at Trip, and he looked like he was in deep thought. After piling some necessities into my basket, I headed over to the clothing section, wanting to get Rose a few things. Trip stopped shy of it, veering off down a completely different aisle.
“Trip, what—”
“What kinda toys does Rose like?”
He brought us down a toy aisle. It was full and bursting bright with pinks and purples, dolls in pretty dresses, and Barbie cars. Oh. That’s what he wanted to do.
I laughed.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, staring hard at the selection of dolls in front of him. He seemed lost, and I found that adorable.
“Well, one, the assumption that Rose likes to play with dolls. She’s actually a Hot Wheels girl herself.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
Trip continued to stare at the dolls, before heading to the adjacent aisle, the one with all the cars and trucks and Nerf guns.
“Don’t know shit about dolls, anyway. This is a hell of a lot easier.”
I pushed the cart behind him and stood back, watching as he perused the selection of toys before him. He plucked various items from the shelving, popping them into the basket. He was about five toys in before I pulled the cart away, preventing him from putting in a sixth. He looked at me with a raised brow.
“What are you doing?”
“You know you don’t have to get her all of this, right?”
“I have five years to make up for, and she doesn’t have any toys.”
Insistently, he pulled the cart back toward him, placing the toy into the basket. My brow was raised, but I allowed him this one thing. I supposed that I couldn’t blame him; he had just found out that he had a daughter.
“She talks about you, you know,” I said. We moved from the toy aisle back to the clothes. I started picking things out for her that I knew she would like, within the limited of the money that I brought with me. “She thinks that you look cool in your jacket, but she thinks you don’t like her.”
He rounded on me.
“What?”
“Well, it’s not like you talk to her,” I said simply. “Not a lot. I could probably tell her Travis is her daughter and she’d probably believe me—”
I stopped when I felt his hand on my arm.
I looked back. He didn’t hurt me; he didn’t even look angry. He was frowning.
“I don’t know what to say to her.”
Ah.
I smiled at him, though I pried his fingers from my arm. Oh, I knew what those strong, deft fingers could do and I wasn’t afraid of them holding me—that’s why I needed them off me.
“She’s five,” I pointed out. “You don’t have to give her a dissertation on your life or a huge spiel on the birds and the bees. She likes you. She just thinks you don’t like her.” I frowned a little. “You do like her, don’t you?”
“She’s fucking amazing; I don’t know how I couldn’t. Travis says she was working in a little workbook the other day; she can already do small multiples!”
I chuckled. I turned my attention back to the little girls’ clothes, plucking a shirt I knew she would like.
“Holland didn’t think letting her go to school was a smart idea. So I taught her how to read when she got old enough and started buying those little schoolbooks for her, too, once she got good at writing. She’s very good at math. And reading. She’s a smart little thing. I wanted to make sure that she didn’t fall behind or anything, even with the circumstances.”
“That’s amazing.”
I caught his eyes, and he was looking at me, almost mesmerized. I couldn’t help but flush at the intensity of the gaze, couldn’t help but feel like I used to when I came to him.
“I was just trying to be a good mother.”
“Rose is lucky for that.”
My heart skipped, and it took everything in me to not cry. Instead, I finished with the clothes.
“I think this is all we need for now.”
“You’re not gonna get yourself anything?”
“I got some hygiene stuff that we were both needing, but all I need to do is wash clothes and I’ll be fine.” I didn’t want to blow too much of the money too soon.
“If you say so.”
Seemed that that was the only thing that Trip was willing to compromise on. When we got to the counter, he got in front of me, pulling out his wallet.
“I’m going to pay, Trip,” I said. I’d brought money for that!
“You’re staying under my roof, and while you’re under my roof, you’re under my responsibility. Besides, most of that in there is for Rose, anyway. Isn’t a father supposed to provide for his child?”
He had me there.
Begrudgingly, I let him pay for everything, figuring that I could pocket the money I would have spent and put it towards something else. We grabbed the bags, just a few, and headed out.
“Hey,” he said. “You want to grab a bite to eat? We could hop over to Flagler—”
“That’s an entire county over, Trip.”
“We used to go all the time.”
“Rose is still at the bar, though …”
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go. It was that this was starting to feel too familiar and good. I was supposed to be getting on my feet so I could take Rose and leave properly, for good. That meant the Jackals and the Pride.
And Trip.
We got to Trip’s bike, and he started loading up the under seat. He took my hand when I went to set the last bag into it. I tried to avoid his gaze, but I couldn’t. I looked up at him with a nervous, bitten lip.
“I don’t know what more there is to you and the Jackals,” he said. “You’ve changed. I get that. I have too. I’m not like I was back then. But just let’s do this for old time’
s sake while we’re out.”
And just like that, I couldn’t possibly tell him no.
# # #
It was an hour’s ride from the department store into Flagler. I knew exactly where he was taking me without him even having to say what he was doing. It was this little family diner, one of those old-time kind of places. They still had a jukebox, and they made all their home-style Italian from scratch to order. It was where we had had our first date. He’d snuck me out when I was just fifteen and he was seventeen, for a spin on the brand-new bike Bobby’d bought him.