by Drew Elyse
If I were honest with myself, it was probably a mix of both.
That sadness, no matter how much he tried to bury it, hit me like a knife in the gut. Roadrunner should have known Emmy. He should have been able to see her as a baby, watch her become the sassy little princess she was now. She should already know him, think of him like a grandfather. I kept them apart. I knew that. That was my burden to bear, exactly as it had been for nearly four years.
Roadrunner buried the surprise, the sadness, everything but pure happiness as he smiled at Emmy. “Hi, baby girl. What’s your name?”
“Emmaline,” she answered, turning her face toward my neck, but keeping her eyes up and to the side to see him. She wasn’t shy. My Emmy didn’t have a shy bone in her body. She was my total opposite in that way. No, the shy act was her sinking in her hook. How she learned to do that already, I hadn’t the slightest. Still, she used it to perfection every time.
“Emmaline,” Roadrunner repeated on a whisper, and that sadness crept back in before he buried it. “I’m Roadrunner.”
“That’s a funny name,” she told him.
“I know. I’m a funny guy.”
With that, she pulled out the full-on smile. He was dazzled. It was hard not to be. She shined brighter than the sun when she smiled. She had him, and she knew it.
“You can call me Emmy,” she told him, pointing at him in what I would call a flirty way if she were twenty years older. She said this as if it were a privilege she bestowed upon him. Diva, absolutely.
Knowing she had plenty of time to finish sinking him while I completed my shift, I cut in, “Are you okay with sitting with Roadrunner? He’s a friend of Mommy’s.”
Well, that was a very serious understatement, but it was something we would have to get into later. Emmy knew nothing about the Disciples. I’d only ever told her a bit about her grandpa.
“Yes,” she replied, already squirming to get down. Of course she was fine with it; she could tell he was going to be easy to wrap around her finger. Those were her favorite type of people. The fact that he was massive, wearing all black, had a full beard, and a mess of tattoos meant nothing to her.
I did as she silently requested and set her down. She immediately stepped toward Roadrunner, grabbing his hand and moving right to one of the bench seats of the booth. She shrugged off her backpack and handed it to him like he should be so lucky to hold her things for her. Without a word, she climbed onto the seat and scooted over.
She patted the spot next to her. “You sit here.”
“Emmaline,” I reprimanded, “what have I told you about telling people what to do?”
“Please sit here?” she corrected, adding a flash of doe-eyes at him.
I rolled my eyes as I walked away and got back to work.
Once my shift was over, I clocked out, pocketed my tips, and returned to their table. Roadrunner had flagged me down to get them an order of fries and a chocolate shake. Emmy insisted she wanted her own shake. Yeah, like that was going to happen. She split one with Roadrunner, even though I poured it in two cups. And it wasn’t a 50/50 split, either. More like 75/25. She was three. The last thing she needed was that much sugar.
By the time I got back, the snack was gone and Roadrunner and Emmy were coloring side-by-side on joint pages. To most, the sight of that burly biker leaning over a coloring book with a blue crayon in his massive hand would be shocking. It wasn’t to me. He’d done the same with me when I was little. He was a little less gruff back then, but not by much.
I cleared my throat from beside their table when neither one noticed me. Emmy looked up, smiled, then went right back to her scribbling. Roadrunner gave me his full attention.
“I guess we need to talk,” I said.
He gave a quick glance over his shoulder at Emmy, then came back to me. “Yeah, we do, girlie.”
“Would you like to come back to our apartment? I can make something for dinner,” I offered.
“How about I take you girls out?” he suggested instead.
“Chuck-E-Cheese!” Emmy, who clearly hadn’t checked out of the conversation entirely, put in.
“Chuck-E-Cheese is far away, sweetie,” I told her. “It’s too late to go there.”
Her lips pouted out in her obvious distaste of that answer.
“How about you pick something else?” Roadrunner offered.
“Pizza!” she countered, not deterred.
Roadrunner looked to me. “Anywhere good nearby?”
“Not that’s sit down,” I told him. “We can go back to our place and order delivery.”
“Sounds good.”
I looked to Emmy. “Pack up your stuff, little miss.”
She immediately did as she was told. She might be sassy, but she wasn’t a brat.
Once she was packed, I gave a final wave to the staff, including Rocco, who was peeking out of the kitchen.
“Goodnight, Princess Emmy,” he called. She gave him a little wave in return and Roadrunner chuckled.
Once outside, I turned to him. “Where’s your bike parked?”
“Back in Hoffman. Brought the pickup. Figured we might need the bed to move your stuff.”
Right, because he was confident I would be coming with and would need my things.
“Right.”
“Where’s your car?” he returned.
“At home,” I answered. “It’s…not running great. We’re just a couple blocks away and I wasn’t expecting to have Emmy. I walked in.”
‘Not running great’ might have been an understatement. More like, it’s a battle just to get the engine to turn over, let alone getting the hunk of rust to actually get you anywhere. Still, that wasn’t important. Not right then, anyway. I didn’t like people to see that. I didn’t like people to know I couldn’t provide a safe, reliable car for my daughter, if not myself.
He gave me a long, steady look that suggested he saw through my understatement. He’d known me since birth, the last few years aside, I’m sure he could tell when I was lying.
“Well, good thing I’m here then. I’ll drive us.”
Off the hook, for now. And I knew it would only be for now.
Crap.
Roadrunner let me be for a little while…that while being exactly as long as it took to get to my apartment, call in a pizza order, wait for it to arrive, and eat. While we waited, Emmy made a production of showing our guest her room. She had him by the arm, dragging him along as soon as his shoes were off.
She’d kept him busy there, introducing him to her stuffed animals and showing him her various books and art supplies.
“You like art?” Roadrunner asked, and my stomach lurched at the question—at why he would be asking that.
“Yes,” she answered with her typical excitement. “Mommy got me the biggest box of crayons they got so I have all the colors.”
I was glad to be out in the living room where I could avoid his knowing look, and I knew there would be one. A lot of kids liked to draw. It didn’t mean anything, despite what he probably thought.
I tuned out the rest of their conversation as I pulled out plates and set them on the tiny four-seater table. Retreating into my own mind, I thought about what I was going to say. Roadrunner was going to have questions. How could he not? I even knew what they were going to be, but that didn’t mean I had answers. There were no answers, not for this. There was no way to explain any of it. If there were, I might have had him in her life all along.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t thought about it. From the moment I found out I was pregnant, I considered contacting him. He was like a second father to me. I knew I couldn’t go back home, but I thought about asking him to come to me. I never did, though, because I had no idea how to deal with this.
When the knock came at the door, I was still deep in my own head. Roadrunner made it there before me, tossing me a confused look at why someone was knocking. I knew it would be the delivery driver. There was a locked door with an intercom system at the front of our build
ing, but there was a code to unlock the outer door. Everyone knew it, and no one in the building seemed to hesitate sharing it with friends, family…the pizza guy. Why bother answering the buzzer first or going down to the lobby when you could tell the driver how to get in and bring it right to you?
Roadrunner wouldn’t like that explanation, not with me and Emmy living alone. The Disciples weren’t sexist or anything, but most of the brothers were old fashioned in certain ways. A female and her young daughter living alone without a man to protect them—and worse, without decent security—was one of those somewhat-outdated notions.
He wouldn’t be wrong there. For years, I’d wished I could live somewhere more secure for Emmy, but buildings with doormen and top of the line security systems were out of my budget. We were lucky an apartment with an outer door that was supposed to be locked to keep non-residents out was in budget.
Roadrunner paid for the pizza, something he’d told me was non-negotiable before I placed the order. It wasn’t like I was going to argue. Our household had a strict food budget and delivery had not been a part of it this week.
We ate with Emmy dominating the conversation, telling Roadrunner all about everything in her life. She talked about her favorite movies and shows, how Jasmine watched her because she worked from home, how she wanted to do dance classes so she could be a “balleriner”. He tried to correct the way she said “ballerina”, to no avail. I’d been trying for a while. She’d get there on her own eventually.
Her ever-running mouth actually slowed by the time we were done eating. Granted, this was because she was getting tired. It was past her bedtime, so I got right to settling her in for the night.
Once she was down, I knew my time for evading was over.
I entered the living room to see Roadrunner’s eyes on me, his stare pointed.
“Come sit down, Ash.”
Well, here went nothing.
I just finished inking a fuchsia butterfly onto a blonde’s ankle when my phone went off in my pocket. I knew the buzz. I had a specific one for club brothers, that way I’d know if the call was worth ignoring. I pulled it out and saw Stone’s name on the display.
“Yeah?” I answered.
“You at work?” he asked.
“Just finishing up.”
“Need to discuss something, face to face,” he said. “At the clubhouse.”
“Be there in twenty.” I hung up.
The blonde in my chair ducked her chin toward her over-inflated tits and jutted out a lip at what she heard. She’d been aching for it since she walked in and saw me. Probably would’ve done it, despite the fact that those balloons she had in her shirt looked like they might burst given too much activity, but that was off the table now.
“Jess at the desk can get you checked out,” I told her, then reiterated the instructions on how to care for her new ink. By the look of her tan, she’d be ignoring the suggestion about avoiding the sun. Her body, her call. Not like that tattoo was a real work of art.
I’d done art. I’d done loads of tattoos that were nothing but. I inked art into people’s skin every day. The butterfly she asked for wasn’t art. It was stupid, particularly when she explained that she just thought it “would be cute”. There was no reason for it, not even one she wasn’t up for sharing. Again, it was her body. Not every tattoo on mine was dripping with meaning, but I hadn’t gotten anything “cute” either.
Still, not my place to tell someone not to get inked.
“You have to go?” she asked, still pouting.
Why the fuck did women do that pouting shit? Did that actually work on some guys? Shit. I might not be super fucking choosey, but I can say I’ve never gone for a woman because she pouted at me. No pout in the world would sway me.
“Shift’s over,” I answered, already cleaning up my station.
“You’re sure you can’t—”
“Yeah. I’m sure,” I said, cutting her off.
With that, she hopped to and went to the counter to pay. I was even more sure after she threw attitude like that. Thank fuck Stone called and I dodged that bullet.
I left five minutes later, going around back to where I parked my Fat Boy and swinging on. My girl purred for me. She was the only woman I needed in my life. Easy pussy was fine, but I wasn’t up for any bullshit. Whether that was attitude or clinging, didn’t matter. Complicated was complicated.
I had something complicated once. Actually, that shit wasn’t complicated at all. It was the simplest thing I’d ever done until the day it was all so fucked there was no going back. Since then, I’ve stuck with fucking and leaving that other shit at the door.
I rolled into the Disciples’ clubhouse right on time. I strolled right through to Stone’s office, lifting my chin to a couple brothers hanging around on the way. Whatever Pres needed, it was priority. It also clearly didn’t involve the rest of the guys.
I knocked twice, then swung the door open at Stone’s reply. Shutting it behind me, I sat my ass on one of the chairs in front of him.
Stone was our President. A former Marine, he still looked like he could charge into a hostile country and have shit under control in a day. He wasn’t one to fuck around, which we all appreciated. He didn’t disappoint then.
“You know Roadrunner’s in Portland meetin’ with Mayhem?” I nodded, but didn’t speak. “Not the only reason he’s there.”
I waited. Stone would say what he had to say. The pause didn’t seem good, though.
“He’s there seeing Ash,” Stone went on.
Fuck.
I hadn’t expected that. Had nothing to say to that.
He read me and kept going. “This shit we’ve got on with Barton, we can’t have her there unprotected. Got a message from that fucker a bit back, few days before Gauge and Cami tied the knot. Pictures of her. Recent. We know what that fuck’s capable of. Talked to Mayhem about protection, but they’re stretched thin dealing with the Italians trying to edge into their territory. Haven’t got the man power.”
I still said nothing. What the fuck was there to say to this shit?
“Gotta know you’re straight, brother,” he said. “Best place we got for her is at the farmhouse, but you’re settled there already. You aren’t okay with that, we’ll figure something out, set her up elsewhere.”
“I’m cool,” I told him. I was. I was fucking ice. I’d been ice for five years.
He didn’t push. I said I was good, I was good. No fucking discussion needed.
“Okay.”
“When’s she getting here?”
“Roadrunner messaged me early, told me he made contact. Haven’t heard if he’s headed back yet. Can’t imagine she’ll come easy,” he answered.
No, Ash wasn’t going to come easy. She didn’t want to be here. If she did, she wouldn’t have taken off in the first fucking place.
I nodded. “Anything else?”
Stone waited a second. “There’s something you should know about her—”
I stood, cutting him off. “I’ve got a few days off from the shop. Going to ride out unless you need me on something.”
“Man,” he started, but the look I gave him shut that down. I didn’t need to hear about what Ash had been doing since she took off on me. “No. You’re fine.”
Right. We both knew what that meant. He wasn’t getting in my way. I needed to take off, he would give me that.
“See you in a few days,” I said, then walked out.
Hours later, I was in my room at home. Well, something like home anyway.
The farmhouse used to be the center of everything Disciples. It belonged to a former president of the club and during his time, it was where everything went down. Eventually, the club invested in the warehouse we’d converted into the current hub. The clubhouse was closer to town and the repair shop the club owned. It also had more space for the brothers and whoever else might be around.
Now, the farmhouse was fair game for brothers who wanted to live there. Everyone had rooms at the c
lubhouse, but they were usually for late nights when you needed to sleep it off. For the moment, there were four of us living in the farmhouse. Though, if Ash was coming, it would soon be five.
Fuck.
I tossed back the rest of my beer, unable to stop myself from going there. It didn’t matter what I said to Stone, Ash coming back was going to be a goddamn mess. There was no fucking way to avoid it.
Well, there was one fucking way. She’d done it just fine for the last five years, after all.
She’d probably just act like nothing fucking happened. Like she didn’t just up and disappear. Like nothing before that even mattered. Fuck, maybe it didn’t. Not to her. It had fucking well mattered to me, though. Once.
Hell, maybe it was time to make it not matter to me. She took off. Done. The fucking end. Anything that happened now didn’t matter.
She didn’t matter.
I told myself this like thinking it would make it true.
Still, when I stood in the bathroom after grabbing a shower, my hand moved over the uninked skin of my chest. The blank space—the tattoo I never got—felt more like a scar than anything else.
Ash was coming back.
Fuck.
“You gonna explain this shit, Firefly?” Roadrunner asked after several moments with nothing but the local news playing on the TV to break the silence between us.
I’d already agreed to go back to the club with him. It hadn’t taken much. Roadrunner had told me Stone, the club’s president, wanted to sit down and discuss the details once I was back there. In the meantime, he’d given me all I needed to know. Whatever threat the club was dealing with, it had been made clear they knew who I was and I was a target. I didn’t bother asking if I was the only person threatened, since I was sure I wasn’t. All that mattered was me being a target put Emmy at risk. The idea of going back terrified me, but nowhere near enough for me to consider endangering my daughter.