by April Lust
“So I finally broke you down, huh?”
“Something like that.” She squeezed my hand with a wink, then went back to the sofa to cuddle with George. I should have gone to my room to call Daniel, but first, I watched them. I imagined what it would have been like if she hadn’t left. What sort of family would we be? I tried to imagine it being nothing out of the ordinary to watch cartoons together all morning and cuddle on the couch. With them there, I realized my apartment had felt very empty without them. I hadn’t noticed it before.
Daniel didn’t sound happy to hear my voice. “What’s wrong?”
“Uh, nothing.” I checked the time—past ten-thirty. “What the hell’s wrong with you? Did I wake you up?”
“Yeah, you woke me up. It’s not even noon yet. Have a fucking heart, man.”
I bit my tongue to keep from laughing. “Sorry, I forgot you’d be partying last night.”
“Well, I’m up now. Even though I wish I wasn’t. Christ, my head is killing me.”
“You need to drink more water before you pass out,” I grinned. “Keep yourself hydrated.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He groaned. “What is it? Why are you calling me at this ungodly hour?”
“I need to know if you found out anything else about the loan shark. Joe Green, especially.”
“Not much. I asked around last night. I would have called you when I was, ya know, more alive.”
“Sorry to force your hand, but it’s kinda important.” I looked down the hall, to where my ex-wife and our son laughed over whatever Spongebob was up to.
“How important? Is Tori okay?”
“Can you come over? To my place, I mean?”
“Sure. I’ll be there in a half hour.” He sounded a lot more sober when he hung up the phone. I knew I could count on him. While I waited, I took a shower, shaved and dressed. By the time I padded out to the living room, Spongebob had given way to some show I’d never seen before.
“Well, I’m lost now,” I admitted. “These shows get weirder and weirder.”
“It’s not weird,” George insisted. “They’re good cartoons.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” I grinned at Tori, who grinned back.
George managed to pry his eyes from the TV to look up at me. “When can we go out to see your bike?” He didn’t miss a thing, did he?
“Soon. I have a friend stopping by, and I have to talk to him for a while. I might have to go out, too. When I get back, I’ll show you the bike.”
“You’ll have to go out?” Tori sounded worried. I wanted to warn her against doing that, scaring the kid that way, but I reminded myself that she’d already been as strong as she knew how to be. I had to take over for her.
“Only for a little while, and I’m not even sure I will. There will be somebody here with you. I promise.” I looked down at George. “Okay? When you see him, you’ll see why I want him to stay with you. He’s a big, strong man. Bigger than me.”
“Bigger than you?” George looked like he didn’t believe me.
Tori’s eyes went round. “There’s only one person bigger than you.” She grinned knowingly, just as the doorbell rang. I felt George jump, and I noticed the way he leaned against me a little when he did. He trusted me. I wanted more than anything to earn that trust.
“Don’t worry, big guy. It’s just my friend, who I told you about. You wait here.” I patted him on the back before getting up to answer the door.
Immediately, I regretted asking Daniel to come over without telling him I had company. He looked like he’d died, been buried, then been dug up. He reeked of booze, too, and the smell of smoke hung all over his clothes. He hadn’t even changed out of what he had worn the night before.
“Oh, shit,” I muttered, shaking my head. “You’re a fucking mess.”
“Well, you made it sound so fucking important.” He pushed past me, staggering a little. Then he stopped when he saw who sat on my couch. “Oh, hell.”
Tori only laughed. “Daniel.” She got up from the couch, hugging him gingerly. “Oh, God, Tone, you stink.”
“Hi to you, too, beautiful. It’s been a long time.” He looked like he wanted to die. I didn’t blame him.
“It has been, hasn’t it? I’m happy to see you.”
“Same here.” He smiled, then winced and put a hand to his head. Tori grinned knowingly.
“Hair of the dog?” she asked.
“Please. Whiskey.” She nodded, going to the bar in the kitchen. That left Daniel standing in front of George, who looked up at him with eyes as big as saucers.
“Who’s this?” Daniel asked, looking down at my son.
“Daniel, this is George. George is Tori’s son.” Daniel’s head swung around so fast, I thought it might fall off his neck. I shook my head quickly, giving him a look. I hoped he would keep his mouth shut.
“Oh, Tori’s son. Hi, George.” His voice sounded different than it had when he first came in. Gone was the big, gruff, hung-over biker. For once, he put two and two together without making a big deal about it. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Tori looked relieved, too, when she handed Daniel his drink. He took it, swung it back with a single tilt of his wrist, and sighed deeply once he’d emptied the glass. “Well. It’s been a big day, I see.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” I took him to my room, letting him stretch out on the bed while I told him what had happened.
“Your kid?” he asked. “Holy shit, man.”
“I know. Believe me. It’s been a helluva twenty-four hours. Less than that, even.” I paced the room, the door shut between us and my would-be family. “I can’t fucking believe it. But there’s no way to deny it—I mean, look at the kid.”
“He looks exactly like you,” Daniel muttered.
“Yeah. That’s my point. He’s my son.”
“Of course he is, if Tori says he is. I mean, she’s not like that. Not the type who would fuck another guy and tell you his kid was yours—hell, she’s not even the type to ever fuck another guy.” He was right about that, but I didn’t wanna tell him how right. She hadn’t been with anybody but me in her entire life.
“So I have a son. Fucking crazy. I don’t know the first thing about being a father. I never had one myself.”
“Nobody knows how to be a father until they’re a father. You can’t prepare for it. I mean, I guess you could read books or whatever, but it wouldn’t be the same as actually getting your hands dirty.”
“I guess. It’s all so much. Between that, and this loan shark bullshit…”
That jogged Daniel’s memory. “Oh, yeah. So I was gonna tell you about what I heard. I talked to a couple of people last night at the bar—Schmidt’s, you know. I asked them if they ever heard of a loan shark named Joe Green. A bunch of ‘em said no, and one of ‘em said they thought they might have heard of him. He’s a bad guy, they said.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t need anybody to tell me that.”
“The guy I talked to, he’s one of the Blood Riders. He told me a friend of his borrowed money from a guy he thinks was named Joe Green around three years ago. The guy was one day late with his payment—one day—and somebody tracked him down and hit him with a car.”
“What?” I gaped at Daniel. “You can’t be serious. You must have heard it wrong.”
“I know what I heard, buddy. That’s what he said. His friend got hit by a car. And he knows it was one of Green’s guys that did it, since the guy in the car actually stopped, got out, and told him he needed to pay up. Or he would back up and run him over next time.”
“Holy shit.” I sat on the bed, pushing Daniel’s legs out of the way. “I can’t believe she got herself mixed up in some shit like this. I can’t believe she would be so fucking stupid.”
“Don’t call her that.” Daniel had always been protective of Tori, maybe even more protective than me. “She was desperate, man. She wanted to provide for your kid. You know?”
“Yeah, well, she could have come to m
e at any time. There was no reason she had to hide herself the way she did. She knew I was with the club, goddamn it. She should’ve found me.”
“She’s too proud.” Daniel put an arm over his eyes. “She always was. So were you. That’s why you guys fought the way you did—because you were always too much alike. You could never admit when you needed each other, or when you needed help. Stubborn to the end.”
“Shut up,” I muttered. I hated that he was right. She was proud, I was proud. I might have been able to find her after a while, if I hadn’t given up. I never thought to look for her under her maiden name, because I was too proud to think she’d go back to it after she married me. What a fucking idiot I was. Too proud, too stubborn. Just like Daniel said.
“What’s the plan, boss?” he asked.
“I have to find this guy. I need to know who he is and what other names he goes by.”
Daniel started to sit up. “Okay. Let’s roll.”
“Not so fast, brother.” I grinned. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“With you. You just said, we have to find this guy.”
“Correction. I said I have to find this guy, not we. I need you to stay here and keep an eye on the two of them.”
“What?” He looked less than thrilled. “Oh, come on. I’m not a babysitter. I’m your VP. I should be with you when you’re working on something like this.”
“Yeah, well, I feel like you’d be more use to me here. Besides, you’re a fucking mess. I can’t take you out with me right now. Take a shower or something, try to find something in the closet that fits you. A t-shirt, at least. Don’t scare my kid, okay?” I got up, going to the bedroom door. Daniel followed me with a grumble. I pretended not to hear him muttering under his breath about how pissed he was at me.
I sat down with Tori and George. “Hey, you guys. I’m gonna go out, but Daniel’s gonna stay here with you while I’m gone.” I looked at George. “Didn’t I tell you he’s a big guy? Nothing’s gonna get to you while he’s here. He’s an old friend of your mom, too. We all grew up together.”
“You did?” He looked a Daniel, over my shoulder. The look on his face told me he couldn’t imagine Daniel being a little kid. I held back a smile.
“When will you be back?” Tori asked. I heard the nervousness in her voice.
“As soon as possible. I promise. I’ll check in with you, too. Okay?”
“Okay.” She didn’t look convinced—in fact, she looked terrified. I reached out to stroke her cheek, and I tried to give her a little strength. She smiled, taking my hand and kissing the palm. We had so much to catch up on—I only hoped she wanted to catch up on it as much as I did. It would be hell to find out she didn’t want anything to do with me after finding each other again.
Chapter Eighteen
Tori
To say it was hilarious watching Daniel interact with George would be an understatement. He was the bumbling fool I’d assumed Eli would be, tripping over his tongue, struggling to watch his language.
The first thing he did was take a shower, which was a relief seeing as how he stank like he’d died at some point during the night. Once he finished, he walked slowly into the living room, wearing a t-shirt from Eli’s closet. It was a bit too snug, and the hems of the short sleeves looked as though they might cut off his circulation.
“Are you a giant?” George asked, plainly. I laughed out loud, waiting for Daniel’s response.
“What do you think?” he asked. He shot me a panicked look. I did nothing to help him.
“I didn’t think there was any such thing as giants. But you sure do look like one.”
“He does sort of look like one, doesn’t he?” I grinned up at Daniel. “Hey, can you say fee-fi-fo-fum?”
“Really funny, Tori.” He plopped down on the sofa, taking up half of it. George crawled into my lap, a little intimidated.
“How old are you?” he asked, staring at Daniel.
“Sweetheart, it’s not nice to ask questions like that,” I said. “It’s a little impolite. I think you should apologize.”
“I’m sorry,” George said, looking contrite.
“But to answer your question, he’s twenty-nine. He doesn’t look twenty-nine, does he?” I grinned at Daniel, who gave me a withering look.
“How old are you, Mama?”
“She’s twenty-seven,” Daniel answered. I stuck my tongue out at him. All that time, and we’d fallen right back into our old roles. He was the big brother I’d never had.
“Twenty-seven?” George looked up at me in shock.
“Jeez Louise, buddy. How old did you think I was, anyway?”
“Eighteen!”
“From the mouths of babes,” Daniel snorted.
“Shut up.” I turned back to George. “That’s very nice of you, honey, but twenty-seven isn’t that old. I mean, remember the librarian at school? I bet she’s at least sixty years old.”
“That’s almost dead, isn’t it?” I bit my lip to keep from laughing, and only shook my head. Daniel guffawed.
“You knew my Mama when she was little?” George asked. I was glad he had stopped asking Daniel personal questions, though I shuddered to think where the current line of questioning would go. Daniel didn’t seem to mind—in fact, he seemed to relish the chance to tease me.
“Yeah, I knew her when she was little. She was a real pain in the—butt,” he said, glancing at me. I grinned.
“How was she a pain in the butt?”
“George…” I warned.
“No, no, he’s curious. I wanna answer his questions,” Daniel joked.
“I bet you do.”
He looked at George. “Your mama was a pain in the butt like little girls can sometimes be. Like, once, your—Eli and me, we broke the mirror on a car parked on our street.” I winced a little at his near-slip, but George didn’t seem to notice.
“Did you get in trouble?” George asked, eyes wide.
“Yeah, but we wouldn’t have if your mama didn’t tell on us.” He glared at me. “We had to do chores to pay for it for a whole month.”
“And do you know why I told on Eli and Daniel, baby? Because telling the truth is always the right thing to do. Daniel didn’t like it because he had to do chores, but if he had gotten away with it, the poor man whose mirror he broke would have had to pay for it all on his own. That wouldn’t have been fair, would it? Because he wasn’t the one who broke it.”
“So Mama did the right thing,” George declared, looking at Daniel.
“It all depends on your point of view,” he grumbled. “She was a tattle-tale. And whenever we would tease her, she would get upset and tell the teacher.”
“Oh, I know girls who do that. You pull their pigtail or push them, and they cry.”
I looked down at my son, who sounded so wise and worldly. “Oh, you know little girls who do that? Like who, for instance?”
George looked at his hands. “Nobody.”
“Are you teasing little girls and making them cry?” I asked.
Daniel chuckled. “Aww, come on, Mom. Have a heart. He’s only doing what all little boys do when they like a girl.”
“Yeah, Mama, have a heart.” I gasped, then laughed. I turned to Daniel.
“You’re not a good influence on my son,” I said, swatting playfully at Daniel, who ducked.
“Hey, kid, you wanna hear the story of how your mama knocked my tooth loose this one time?”
I gave up, sighing in exasperation.
# # #
A few hours later, George went down for a nap in the guest room. When I returned to the living room, Daniel looked eager to ask questions. I groaned inwardly, steeling myself for what I was sure would be something akin to the Spanish Inquisition.
“Where’ve you been all this time?” he asked. He didn’t sound angry or accusatory, only curious.
“Home. In my apartment.” I grinned when I saw how frustrated I made him.
“Come on. Be serious. Where’d you go?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I figured you did that when Eli couldn’t find you. I didn’t clue him in, though.”
“Why not?” His confession surprised me. He’d always been fully faithful to his best friend, as I knew Eli was to him. They’d been like brothers since they were George’s age.