by Grey, Blair
He smiled right back at me. “So how are things going?” he asked. “Work is going well?”
“Yeah, it is,” I said. “It’s been pretty slow lately, not too many out-of-towners coming in. But it’s been good. They’ve had me working with Nicole a lot, so we have fun together.”
“That Nicole,” Dad said, shaking his head. “What’s she up to these days?”
I laughed. “Well, she has a new boyfriend, if you can believe it.”
“Doesn’t surprise me one bit,” Dad said.
I wanted to mention Will. Maybe to hint about my relationship with him. Non-relationship, as it might be, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Maybe if I dropped enough hints, Dad would be okay with it. Maybe he would think it had been his idea all along.
I couldn’t just mention him outright, though. I definitely couldn’t say that he had come by the diner and that I had gone back to his place to bandage his knuckles the other night. But don’t worry, nothing happened because he’s too loyal to you ever to want to mess around with me again.
I decided to try a different tact. “You know, I love cooking from Mom’s recipes,” I said. “She always put her notes in the corners of them, all the times that she made them and what your comments were on them. It’s how I steer clear of the things you don’t like.”
Dad laughed. “That mother of yours, she was always so clever,” he said. “I remember her writing those notes. She always wanted to know everything, the good and the bad.”
“Can you tell me more about her?” I asked, propping my head against my hand. I never got tired of listening to Dad talk about Mom, no matter how many times he repeated the same stories.
“Your mother was the absolute best person that ever walked this earth,” Dad said like he always did. He took a sip of his wine. “She was so graceful, like you could never believe. She’d been a dancer all through her adolescence, and she couldn’t move across the room without you feeling like you were getting a private showing of some performance. She was beautiful. Unearthly.”
Dad cleared his throat. “But it wasn’t just beauty on the outside. She was the kindest person you ever met, too. I don’t know what she ever thought in shacking up with some poor old biker dude like me. Maybe she thought that she could make me into a better person. And in a way, she did. Your mother had a way of touching all the people around them, of letting them see the goodness in the world. And once you saw things the way that she did, you could never forget it.”
“What’s your favorite memory of her?” I asked.
Dad frowned. “It’s hard for me to say,” he said like he always did. “There are so many good ones.” He stroked his chin. “Did I ever tell you about when she brought home our first dog?”
“I don’t think you have,” I said, even though I was pretty sure that I already knew this story. I never admitted it, though. I didn’t want him ever to think I didn’t want to hear them.
“I don’t know if you remember your first dog. Tiger, you called him. But we only had him for about a day.” He paused again, smiling fondly. “Your mom found him on her way home from the school one day. She used to volunteer there, teaching basic dance classes to some of the after-school kids. Anyway, as soon as your mom laid eyes on this dog, she knew she had to bring him home. So she picked him up—he wasn’t a very big dog—and she bundled him in her coat.
“Now, when she got home with him, she decided that he needed a bath. So she rigged up a leash and collar for him with some rope and tied him to the deck while she filled a tub of water. Then, she untied him so that she could bathe him.”
I couldn’t help jumping in. “Only Tiger didn’t like the water much, did he?”
Dad grinned at me. “No, he certainly didn’t. He jumped out of the tub, still dripping wet, and ran around the backyard, barking like mad. So much so that you came running out of the house to figure out what was going on, against your babysitter’s will. But you had always been a headstrong child. Anyway, any time your Mom put that puppy back in the water, he got more and more frenzied.”
“And that was how you came home to find your two favorite girls and a puppy covered in mud and running like mad around the backyard,” I finished.
Dad snorted. “Sounds like you have heard that one before.”
“Maybe once or twice,” I admitted.
“I never could figure out why you named that dog Tiger,” he said suddenly. “I managed to get him all washed off before I took him to the pound, and he definitely had spots.”
I giggled, having not heard that detail before.
Dad sighed. “I miss her, you know.”
“I know,” I said. I paused and then boldly added, “I want a love like that.”
Dad looked away. “No, you don’t,” he said. He shook his head. “At the end of the day, relationships are messy. It’s easy to remember the good things, but no relationship is 100 percent good things.” He grinned crookedly at me. "Besides, no man is good enough for you, anyway.”
I rolled my eyes but let it rest.
After dinner, we carried the dishes inside. Dad sat at the table drinking and watching me as I did the dishes. “Thank you again for cooking tonight, sweetie,” he said. “I feel like I should be doing the dishes this time, though.”
I laughed. “You?” I asked incredulously. “Do you even know how to do the dishes?”
“I’m a quick learner,” Dad quipped, a twinkle in his eye. He shook his head. “What do you think I do when you’re not over for supper?”
“I don’t know—order takeout?” I teased. “Or maybe you just eat cold foods off paper plates.”
“Ha-ha,” Dad said, rolling his eyes. “Believe it or not, your old man isn’t entirely without skills.”
“Oh, I know that,” I said seriously. I had seen his knuckles, and I had to assume he had been out fighting with Will. I wondered what had happened. Dad usually didn’t get involved in things like that. That was what he had enforcers for.
Not that I would ever ask.
I wondered if it all went back to the same thing that had Marcus and Will so worried before, that time that they had come into the diner together. It seemed plausible. Maybe there was something big happening.
If so, it bothered me that Dad wouldn’t tell me about it. I deserved to know if there was something shaking up our world. Then again, he probably refused to believe anything could shake up our world. I just wished he could trust me with that information. I told him everything, but he kept so many secrets.
I supposed I finally had a secret of my own, though. I hadn’t told him everything for a while now. I definitely wasn’t about to tell him about Will, not yet.
Speaking of Will, I remembered our talk from the previous evening. “Hey, Dad? Did you ever think of doing anything other than being president of the Red Eyes?” I asked suddenly, curiosity getting the better of me.
For a long time, Dad was silent. I actually thought he was so pissed that he wasn’t going to answer me. But when I looked back over my shoulder, he looked contemplative. Finally, he shrugged. “Being president of the MC paid for our lives,” he reminded me. “And the MC is my family. Just like you’re my family.”
I wondered what he would think if I told him about Will. I didn’t want to admit that I had had sex with him. But what would he do if he knew that Will was considering leaving the MC? That he had a chance to inherit a fortune if only he could find some way to get married within the month?
But even as the thought crossed my mind, I knew that I couldn’t tell Dad about any of that stuff. Those weren’t my secrets to tell. If Will wanted Dad to know, he would tell him. For now, I had to respect that Will had come to me.
Of all people, Will had come to me. I still couldn’t think of any way to help him, but I couldn’t help feeling flattered that he had at least let me in on his secret.
“What’s with all these questions tonight, anyway?” Dad asked, coming over behind me and kissing my hair. “First you ask about your mother,
and then you start asking about my career choices. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to keep my tone light. “Everything’s great. You know I always love hearing about Mom.” I glanced over at Dad with a quick smile on my face, hoping I could convince him.
To my relief, he didn’t press me. “I think your old man is going to head to his office to do a little work,” he said. “Are you okay out here by yourself?”
“Yup,” I said. That would take away any opportunity I might have had to ask any more stupid questions that would get him wondering. I gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll make sure to turn out the lights out here when I’m done.”
“Thanks, sweetheart,” Dad said, retreating toward his office.
I leaned against the sink with both hands, knowing that I either had to come clean about everything or else stop acting so suspicious. It was only a matter of time before Dad saw through my act. I’d never been good at hiding things from him, especially since I’d never really had anything worth hiding.
But as with Will’s plans to potentially leave the MC and go back to school, I realized that it wasn’t all my choice. I wasn’t the only person involved in that secret, and I couldn’t just decide to come clean. Otherwise, it wasn’t just my relationship with my father I would hurt—Will would suffer, too.
Why the hell had I made things so complicated for myself?
But deep down, I knew the answer to that. I hadn’t really had any choice. I just couldn’t seem to keep away from Will, no matter how much I knew that I should.
19
Will
I didn’t call Belle back after she called me during my meeting with Ray and Marcus, so I was surprised when she called me again on Friday. I debated not answering. I knew that would be the smart thing to do. Just because I’d been able to keep my hands off her once, on a night when I was pretty distracted, anyway, it didn’t mean that I would definitely be able to do so again.
But then, was that such a bad thing? When I really thought about it, no matter how guilty I felt about having taken Belle’s virginity, the damage was already done. What did it matter if I slept with her again?
I was feeling reckless, and I knew that. It was part of what had driven me on that spontaneous cross-country adventure of mine. I started to feel like the walls were closing in, like there was no way that I would ever manage to change my life for the better, no matter how much I wanted to, and that made me want to say “fuck it” to everything I’d ever cared about.
I picked up the phone just before it went to voicemail. “Hey,” I said, a bit breathlessly.
“What did you do, run for the phone?” Belle laughed on the other end of the line. But she continued before I could respond. “I want to see you,” she said. “And I know we agreed that it’s a bad idea, but I can’t stop thinking about you. I’ll be careful. I promise.”
“Come over,” I told her, without thinking about it. “Tonight. I’ll cook dinner.”
“That sounds really nice,” Belle sighed.
“So you’ll be here around seven?” I asked.
“A little later than that, probably. I have to close tonight.”
“No problem,” I said, already thinking about what to make. I decided to go with something simple: fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans. Some comfort food, to put us both at ease.
I didn’t feel very at ease when I answered the door, though. It didn’t help that Belle was in another of her dresses, this one a dark blue that made her hair look even more golden and luscious. I wanted to kiss her right there in the doorway, but I forced myself to take a step back, to just let her inside.
“You look great,” I couldn’t resist saying, though. It made me glad I was still in jeans and a button-down; I’d debated changing into sweats since we were just staying in, but even though we were at my place, it felt like a date. And cooking dinner for a chick was a big deal, wasn’t it?
Belle tugged at my shoulder until I bent down enough that she could kiss my cheek. “It’s good to see you,” she said shyly.
“It’s good to see you, too,” I said. “Sorry about the other night. What I said.”
Belle’s eyes twinkled. “Does that mean you’re reconsidering and that we can have sex again?” she asked slyly.
“I didn’t say that,” I laughed, holding up both hands. But if she kept going like that, I was going to have no choice. That cheeky tone of hers really did something to me.
“So what’s changed?” Belle asked as we sat at the dining table.
I shrugged. “Nothing has, I guess,” I said, even though that wasn’t exactly true.
The real truth was, the more I’d thought about it, the more I realized I had to get out of the MC. And if I was no longer part of Red Eyes, and especially if I could prove that I was going to do something good with my life, that I had some solid way to provide for Belle, then I had to think that maybe Ray would decide that I was an okay choice for his daughter. Maybe I wasn’t perfect, but no man was. What was important was that I wanted to try.
Ray was a reasonable man; he would have to understand that. I could only hope so, anyway, because—“To be honest, I don’t think I can keep my hands off you,” I admitted suddenly. “I almost came by the diner this afternoon to see you. But I can’t make a habit of that. It’s too soon for everyone to find out what we’re doing together.”
“Are we doing something together?” Belle asked teasingly.
“Right now, we’re eating dinner together,” I pointed out. “Or we would be, anyway, if you’d stop asking so many questions.”
Belle grinned knowingly and turned her attention to the food. “You’re pretty good at this cooking thing,” she said in surprise. “Have you thought about doing that with your life?”
I laughed. “It’s just fried chicken, Belle,” I reminded her. “Anyone could make that.”
“Well, it tastes great,” she said. She paused. “What about school? Have you looked into what that’ll cost you?”
I made a face. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“I know you said that it’s probably impossible for you to get your inheritance, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible for you to go back to school,” Belle insisted. “You could save up some money. Apply for scholarships. There’s a lot out there.”
I put my fork down, glaring at her. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, trying not to sound too harsh. I didn’t want her to leave, but I also wasn’t prepared for this. My gaze softened as she looked down at her plate, biting her lower lip. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just don’t really have time to look into all of that stuff, not with everything going on with the MC. And especially not when the likelihood is that nothing is ever going to happen with it. By the time I have enough money to go to school, the prices will have changed.”
Belle looked up sharply. “What is going on with Red Eyes?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said immediately, cursing her inquisitiveness.
Belle snorted. “Bullshit,” she said succinctly. “You and Marcus came to the diner together telling me that nothing was wrong, that there was just some business you had to talk to Dad about when you got back from Texas. Things have been weird ever since. And I know he went with you to rough up whoever it was that you roughed up on Tuesday. He’s got the same bruises as you do. But he wouldn’t let me help him with them.”
I laughed and shook my head. “I can’t imagine that he would.”
“Seriously, Will, if something’s going on with the MC, I deserve to know.”
I stared at her for a long moment. She was right, to be honest. She did deserve to know. If things went south with the Unknowns, it would affect her life as well. Maybe telling her would keep her from going quite so wild. Keep her from going out drinking with Nicole.
But on the other hand, I wasn’t the one to tell her. Ray had made it very clear that he didn’t want her involved in any of the Red Eyes’ business, and I had to respect that. He didn’
t want her to worry. He didn’t want her to think of him as scary. She was his little girl, and he still wanted to be the world to her. To tell her would be to share yet another secret with her.
Only this secret I was afraid was even more likely to get out than the one about us sleeping together. If she knew about the Unknowns, I had no doubt that she would want to throw in her own two cents, just like Marcus had. I grinned a little to myself. Only Belle would want to start it by reaming her father out for being a stubborn old idiot when she heard about the fight that we’d walked into the other day and how unprepared we’d been.
I couldn’t tell her about any of it.
“Believe me when I say it’s nothing,” I said quietly. “But you know I can’t give you the specifics.”
“It’s not nothing,” Belle insisted. “I can’t remember the last time he fought anything other than a punching bag in the garage. Don’t try to tell me that it’s nothing.”
She was getting upset, and I couldn’t help but want to comfort her. I put my hand over hers, where it rested on the table. I was surprised when she didn’t yank away, to be honest.
“I wish I could tell you more,” I told her. “But you know the only person who could tell you is your father.” I paused. “But I wouldn’t be worried. You’re right, it’s not nothing. But we’re all going to be fine.”
“You really believe that?” Belle asked softly.
“Yes,” I said, lightly stroking her knuckles with my thumb and wishing that I believed myself.
The truth was, I was still worried. Marcus and Ray were still bickering about what to do. But ultimately Ray was the one calling the shots, and we would do what he wanted. No matter how much Marcus might disagree with him, he wouldn’t outright disagree with him. He wouldn’t attack on his own, and there was no way he was going to get the rest of us to attack without Ray’s say-so, after all.
I shook my head and turned my attention back to dinner.
Fortunately, Belle changed the subject. “So what do you do when you’re not gooning for the MC?” she asked. “You must have some free time.”