Nitro has the patches in his hands, already laid out. He sets them on the table and steps back, because this part isn’t his.
Sin looks at Dad and tips his head once toward me.
Dad stands up slowly. He moves around the table the same way he always does, carrying that solid presence that makes people pay attention without him needing to demand it. Then he stops in front of me with the patches in both hands.
Before anything else, his hand comes up and settles on my shoulder.
I look up.
It’s only a second—maybe less.
But it’s enough.
No speech or big ceremony, just that look. The kind that says everything without him having to spell it out.
You did it, son.
It lands harder than I expect.
Something in my chest tightens, then steadies. Like all the noise, all the doubt, all the miles it took to get here… settle under the weight of it.
I hold his gaze for a fraction longer, then nod once. My hands move, reaching for the front of my cut, my fingers finding the worn leather, the weight of it familiar, earned. I shrug it off my shoulders and hold it for a second, just long enough to feel it in my hands.
Then… I pass it to him.
He takes it without hesitation.
He doesn’t make a speech.
Dad has never been a man who needs speeches.
The room feels smaller with him this close, the air heavier with everything that has led to this exact point. I can hear the faint scrape of someone shifting in their chair behind me, the low hum of the ceiling fan, my own pulse steady but louder than it has any right to be.
He holds up the top rocker first.
DEFIANCE.
Simple. Absolute. Final.
My eyes lock on it.
Two years of standing at the back of rooms. Of listening instead of speaking, of earning every inch of ground I was allowed to stand on, of proving, over and over again, that I belonged here.
His hands are steady, practiced, fingers moving with the care of someone who understands the permanence of what he is doing. The first stitch bites into leather. The sound of it lands in the room like punctuation.
Something in my chest answers it.
No one speaks.
He finishes, then steps back just long enough to meet my eyes before lifting the bottom rocker.
LAS VEGAS.
Home.
Not where I started.
Where I stayed.
