Badd Daddy (The Badd Brothers Book 12)

by Jasinda Wilder

  “You want that with her?” Ram asked.

  I nodded, watching an eagle soar in wide, lazy circles. “Yeah, I do. She’s an amazing woman.” I dug deep, grumbled something that took a lot of courage to speak out loud, which I realized I could only have said to Ramsey, my most temperamental but insightful son. “I want to deserve a woman like her.”

  Ramsey was silent a while, and I could feel him thinking; that’s why I could only have said to him—he’d think, and respond with care, when it was something serious like this.

  “I think you’re definitely getting there, Dad.”

  “Not there yet, though?”

  He shook his head, breaking a twig into small pieces; a warm breeze blew, ruffling his thick beard and shaggy blond hair. “You haven’t dealt with things. Not really. Talking about it was a big step, and I recognize what it took for you to do that, especially in such a big setting. But that’s not the same as doing the work to deal with it on a deeper level.”

  I growled. “Before she left, Liv told me I should see a shrink.”

  Ram poked into the soil between his toes with a bit of the twig he’d snapped into pieces. “You should. There ain’t the stigma in seeing a therapist that there used to be.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” I took a deep breath of the wild air, smelling pine needles and earth and sunshine—a commingling of scents that meant Alaska to me. “Ram, I…I know I’ve hinted at this in the recent past, but I don’t think I’ve ever said it outright in so many words.” I met his eyes. “I’m sorry. For all the ways I wronged you and your brothers. Neglected you. Made you take care’o me when it shoulda been the other way ’round. I gotta say this to your brothers, as well. But I’m sayin’ it to you, now. I’m sorry.”

  Ram clapped a burly arm over my shoulders. “Forgiven, Dad. You making the effort you are to turn things around is all I needed to see.”

  My throat closed, and I blinked hard. Ducked my head. “Let’s—uh. Let’s keep hiking.”

  Ram didn’t let go of me, though. “Nuh-uh. Don’t bluff past this moment, Pop. You gotta live in the moment. Something I’ve been learning from Izz—emotions ain’t bad things. Feel ’em. Let ’em breathe inside you. Don’t shove ’em down, or run past ’em, just ’cause you’re feeling something strong.”

  “I been drinkin’ my way past strong emotions for forty years, boy. Don’t rightly know what the fuck it even means to let emotions breathe inside me. Shit sounds like Yoda Buddhist bullshit, if you ask me.”

  “Yoda was wise, for a funny-talking little green puppet, and Buddhism isn’t bullshit. Just ’cause it’s a little mystical or deep doesn’t mean its bullshit.”

  I laughed. “Fine, whatever.”

  My eyes were still stinging, but I tried to just let the mess be there instead of shoving it down. After a while, it all kind of morphed into…something else. Not sadness, or depression, just a sense of…deeply powerful gratitude that I’d been able to have this moment, here, with Ram.

  Ram eyed me sidelong. “All right?”

  I nodded, breathing deeply. “Yeah. Really good, actually.” I shot a grin at him. “Just really glad we had this.”

  He nudged me with his shoulder. “Me too.” He stood up. “Rome and Rem may not be as easy, though. Just fair warning.”

  I nodded and stood up. “I know. Rome still harbors a lot of resentment toward me.”

  “Remington, too, but he hides it better. He may actually be the hardest to win over.” Ram took another sip of water from his canteen, and then clipped it back in place on his pack. “Ready?”

  I did the same, taking a drink and then settling my gear into place. “Let’s go.”

  We circled back down and around toward town again, taking several more hours before we reached the place where Ram had parked, at the end of a little dirt road. He slung his pack onto the backseat of his truck, and I did the same, and then Ram paused, resting his forearms on the lip of the truck bed, eying me speculatively.

  “You know, I’ve been running guided tours and hunts for a while now, just on word of mouth, cash-only. Been putting off the process of creating an actual business out of it.” He kept his gaze on mine.

  “Okay?”

  “Issue is, I can’t really run things the way I’d want to without at least one other person. I need someone to do shorter local hikes, hunts, and fishing trips, hold down the office and shit like that.” He arched an eyebrow. “It’d have to be someone who knows this area like the back of their hand, someone comfortable out in the woods, hunting and fishing and hiking. Someone I trust.”

  “You gettin’ at somethin’ specific, or you just yammerin’ to hear yourself talk?”

  He rolled his eyes, laughing, and shook his head. “You, you big dumb lummox. These hikes we’ve been going on together…it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a few weeks now.”

  I let out a shocked breath. “You serious?”

  He nodded. “As a heart—” he cut himself off with a bark of laughter. “Bad choice of words, sorry. Yeah, Dad, I’m serious. You and me. Badd Outdoors, or something like that.”

  “A Badd Day in the Woods,” I suggested.

  He cackled. “Funny. Too many words, though. Gotta be quick and catchy.” He glanced at me. “That mean you’re in?”

  “I’d probably need to spend some time brushing up on my skills. Haven’t hunted or fished in years, and while I’m getting back to knowing where I am in these woods, I’d need to get my dead reckoning skills back up to par before I’d feel comfortable leading folks.” I stared at him across the bed of the truck. “You really want to go into business with me?”

  He nodded again. “Yeah, Dad. I do. I need a business partner, and I know you’re a damn good woodsman. You know this area better’n I do, and you haven’t lived here in decades.”

  “Used to be you could blindfold me, drop me in the woods anywhere between Clover Pass and Beaver Falls and I’d know in a few steps where I was and how to get where I wanted to be.” I laughed. “Even now, I could get us to the old homestead up by Ward Creek from here.”

  “Been up there since you been back?” Ram asked.

  I shook my head. “Nope. Probably nothin’ there but rotting logs and broken glass, now.”

  “Should think about it. Might help you get past the old shit.”

  I nodded. “Fair point.” I let out a long sigh. “Let’s do it, Ram. I’m in.”

  Ram grinned, slapping the lip of the truck bed with both hands, and let out a loud whoop. “All right! Badd Outdoors, here we come!” He climbed behind the wheel and glanced at me as I slid in as well. “You’re wasting your time at that hardware store. You belong out here, Dad.”

  I nodded. “It’s served me well, that job. Got me on my feet, introduced me to Liv, kept me busy…I needed time to get to this point, Ram. Nothing’s wasted.”

  He nodded. “Good point.”

  We chatted easily as Ram drove us back downtown, and when he was about to drop me off at my condo, he tapped the steering wheel with one hand. “You know, you’ll need to start driving again. You still have a license, yeah?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. I dealt with all that already. Despite my history of alcoholism and overall terrible decisions, I rarely drove drunk and never got popped for it the few times I did, living in the boonies where we did. Wasn’t anyone on patrol to see me swervin’, and the bar I drank at was only a few miles down the road. Not excusin’ nothin’, just…anyway, the point is, that was my first offense, anywhere, ever. So I paid some fines, took some safe driving classes and mandatory AA, shit like that. I’m legally allowed to drive, I just…” I shrugged. “Haven’t wanted to.”

  “The wreck shook you up more than you’re willing to admit, I think.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, probably true.” I sighed. “So I gotta get a set of wheels.”

  “And probably a cell phone made in the last, oh I don’t know, twenty years?” Ram said with a laugh.

  I pulled out the
flip phone I’d had since the mid-90s. “What’s wrong with this?”

  “It’s a dinosaur, Dad. Belongs in a museum. I need to be able to reliably contact you, preferably by text.”

  I faked a cranky growl. “Whatever. A phone and a truck?”

  “I’ll help you pick ’em out, if you want.”

  I answered with an uncertain noise. “I’ll think about it.” Then I turned to Ram and said, “I may need a ride somewhere.”

  The next major event was the conversation with Rome, a few days after my hike with Ram. I’d bought a phone, and was still on the hunt for a decent used pickup, and decided to call Rome for a ride to go check out a truck I’d seen an ad for on a corkboard in my little supermarket.

  He picked me up within a few minutes of my call, and I gave him the address. Once we were on the way, he eyed me. “Got a phone, gettin’ a truck…movin’ on up, huh?”

  I nodded. “That’s the idea.”

  “What prompted it?”

  I wasn’t sure if Ram was ready for everyone to know our plan to go into business together, and I wasn’t sure Roman was ready to hear it, so I just shrugged. “Time to deal with it, you know? The accident shook me up, shook my confidence as a driver. I dunno. I guess the way everything happened, being immobile and the bum leg and moving up here after all these years, it was a lot of change all at once.”

  Rome didn’t respond right away. “Which you brought on yourself.”

  I sighed, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice when I responded. “I know, Roman. I know. I’m working on fixing all of that.”

  He had his window open, trailing his hand out in the breeze. “I do see you making an effort. Don’t think I don’t see that, Dad.”

  I had to dig deep again, summoning the wherewithal to say what was needed. “Rome, I…part of fixing myself and my life is addressing my mistakes.”

  Rome’s fist gripped the steering wheel tighter. “I’m listening.”

  “So, uh…I just wanna say I’m sorry, and ask you to forgive me for bein’ such a bad father to you and your brothers.” I swallowed hard, cleared my throat, and continued. “For all the horrible shit I’ve done, all the ways I neglected you boys, and made you fend for yourselves growin’ up, seein’ as I was too drunk most of the time to…to be a real father to you. I didn’t do right by you boys, and I’m sorry.”

  I wanted to duck my head and close my eyes and swallow the pain and the embarrassment, but I didn’t. I kept my eyes open and on my son. Rome glanced at me, at the road, back to me again, his brow furrowed, his expression hard to read. He turned his gaze back to the road, and was silent for a long time.

  Abruptly, he yanked the wheel over and pulled off the road onto the shoulder, shoved his door open and lurched out, rounding the hood to pace up the road a ways. I gave him a minute or so, and then got out of the truck as well, following him down the road.

  He braced his hands on his hips, staring at the sky. “You know how long I’ve waited to hear that?”

  “You shouldn’t have to hear this. But, to answer your question, thirty-some years, I imagine.”

  He nodded. “I used to sit outside the trailer at night, waiting for you to pass out, trying to imagine what it would be like to have a dad who wasn’t a drunk.”

  My eyes blurred with hot salty tears. “Fuck, Rome.”

  He whirled on me. “What? You think I’d make it easy on you, old man? One apology and all’s forgiven?”

  “I guess I was hoping for…” I shrugged, holding my arms out wide, palms up. “I dunno.”

  “We learned to fight, defending you—defending ourselves because of you. I was cleaning up your vomit and keeping you from choking on it by the time I was six years old. Keeping you from burning the fuckin’ house down.” He closed his eyes, shaking his head. “I dreamed of running away, but I never did because you’d’ve fuckin’ died if we had. Truth is, I used to have these awful fuckin’…nightmares, fantasies maybe, I don’t know what the hell to call ’em —that we would come home one day and you would be dead, and we would only have ourselves to worry about. You know, we’d steal money from your wallet just to go buy groceries because all there was in the house was booze.”

  I choked. “I know.”

  “So…you getting sober, getting healthy, apologizing…all that is great. It’s progress. But I can’t just snap my fingers and get over all of it.”

  “I’m not expecting you to just get over it. Or even for you to forgive me. I just…I needed to say it.”

  He nodded. “I appreciate that. I really do.” He swallowed hard. “And I forgive you. It’ll take time to stop being bitter and angry about some of it, but I can see you trying.”

  “Thank you, Rome. That’s all I need to hear.”

  We got back in the truck, finished our trip to look at the used truck—it was an ’11 F-150 with a hundred thousand miles on it, but it had recently replaced belts, spark plugs, alternator, brakes, and shocks. It was ten grand, so I bought it and drove it home. And on the way I tried to figure out how to have the last hard talk…with Remington.

  A bell was attached to the doorframe over the door of the tattoo parlor Remington and Juneau ran together in the touristy area near the cruise ship docks in Ketchikan. Rock music was blaring from speakers in the corners of the ceiling, the walls were decorated with native Alaskan tribal art, abstract tattoo designs—totems, stylized wolf heads and bears and beavers and crows—along with a series of floor-to-ceiling mirrors that ran the length of one wall, in front of which were a row of tattoo chairs—six of them. Three of them were occupied, Remington at one, Juneau at another, and a thin, lean young man was at the third, his hair cut long on top and shaved on both sides, tattoos covered his arms, and he had three rows of earrings in each earlobe. He was wearing black jeans and a black Opeth T-shirt. There was an island counter in front of the door, with an iPad on a mount in the center and several books of tattoo designs stacked haphazardly—on the front of the counter. Facing the door was the business logo: Badd Ink, in lettering designed to resemble abstract native Alaskan tattoos.

  Remington didn’t glance up immediately when the bell dinged—he remained focused on his client’s arm. “Be right with you.”

  “I can wait,” I said.

  Remington pulled the tattoo gun away from his client’s skin and glanced up at me, then, upon hearing my voice. “Dad—you’re…here.”

  I chuckled. “Yep.”

  “What’s up?”

  I was standing at the counter, and I tapped a tattoo design book. “I want you to ink me.”

  He laughed, rubbing his forehead with the back of his black rubber-gloved wrist. “I’m booked for a month, Pop. Make an appointment now, and I could get you in…three weeks at best.”

  I frowned at him. “I’m your father.”

  He went back to work. “If you don’t need anything big or elaborate, I have about forty-five minutes after this client and before my next one. I was gonna take my lunch then, but I can skip it, if this tat is important to you.”

  “Sounds good,” I said. “This is something that is important to me, or I wouldn’t have showed up here like this. I know you’re busy.”

  It was a week after my talk with Roman, and I’d gotten another postcard from Liv, saying she was heading back here the following week, with Cassie. I was looking forward to seeing her—I’d missed her more than I was quite ready to admit, but I was glad to have had this time to get my shit in order.

  One thing I hadn’t told any of my boys, or her, was that I’d been seeing a therapist twice a week since my conversation with Ramsey, and I finally understood why Liv had pushed me to do it. My therapist had gotten me to talk about things from my childhood that I had honestly forgotten, things that had clearly left more of a mark on me than I could have ever imagined. He’d delved into my relationship with my father, with Gramps, with Liam, with Lena…I had gone balls to the wall, telling him everything, all the dirty, ugly, sordid details of my life, and in turn h
e’d recommended various ways of moving past the roadblocks to emotional health—number one was apologizing to Roman, Remington, and Ramsey. I’d started that on my own, as part of my AA process, but I recognized the need for it beyond just sobriety.

  I was down at least ten percent body fat since my first session with Baxter, and my endurance was way up, my overall energy levels were through the roof, and for the first time since leaving Alaska all those years ago, I could see some muscle definition. Baxter had told me the gut would start vanishing pretty quickly, but I’d see the most immediate results in my face, shoulders, arms, and chest, but that the visceral fat around my belly would take a while to get rid of entirely.

  I was excited for Liv to come back, to see my progress. I wanted to talk about all that had happened in my life since she’d left. I wanted to simply breathe in her presence, in a way I hadn’t known was possible.

  Lost in my ruminations, I jumped when Rem clapped me on the shoulder. “So. You want a tattoo, huh?”

  I stood up and rubbed the back of my neck. “Yeah. Something to commemorate this new phase of my life.”

  He kept his expression neutral. “Got an idea what you want?”

  I shook my head. “Not really. Something that works in three R’s, for you and Ram and Rome. Doesn’t have to big or elaborate. Just three R’s with a cool design or whatever. You’re the artist. Surprise me.”

  He had a pad of paper and a mechanical pencil and he leaned over the counter and began sketching. “Sure. I think I can work up something. Give me a minute or two.”

  I nodded, and went over to a long narrow table up against one wall, with folders full of photos of previous works done by each of the tattoo artists—work by Remington, Juneau, and the young man who was here, Tomás, and two more, whose names were Rip and Anya. I spent a few minutes perusing the folders, and then Rem called me over.