“She eats like a horse,” I mused as I watched her down the entire bowl.
“And doesn’t look like it at all.” She snickered. “She’s in the tenth percentile on height and weight.”
I noticed that myself.
“Was her dad big?” I asked.
“Huge.” She shook her head. “Not that you would know it looking at her. He was six-foot-seven.”
I whistled. “Damn.”
I wanted to ask how the hell someone so big had been taken down by Errol, who was just a little over five-foot-ten, but thought better of it.
“You’re wondering how he got hurt,” she guessed.
I winced. “I was, but I have enough impulse control not to ask.”
She laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant one.
“I was there,” she explained. “We were eating out, talking about what this meant for us. What was the next step, you know? So we’re talking about where we’re going to live, because seriously we don’t want to raise this baby apart, even if we weren’t together, if that makes sense. We’re best friends. We can kind of make it work? Same house. Separate rooms. We have it all planned out. Then Errol walks into this bar and he’s with his friend. He sees us and he just snaps.
“Later on, that friend Errol was with would tell me that Errol had admitted that he’d warned Mackey to stay away from me or else. Mackey didn’t take him seriously. I didn’t take him seriously either when he came in there pissed as hell when he saw us together. I made a comment about him losing it, and Errol snapped. He picked up a chair and hit Mackey with it in the back of his knees. He kept hitting him until he wasn’t moving anymore.”
“And where was everyone else while this was happening?” I asked. “You said you were in a bar.”
“I was,” she admitted. “In a bar that was loyal to bikers. And Errol was a biker. They just assumed that Mackey had done something to warrant the ass beating.”
“Fuck,” I said. “Were any other club members there?”
“The friend was one,” she said softly. “The one that’d come in with Errol. He watched it all happen.”
“He doesn’t deserve to wear that patch,” I said. “No wonder you hate me.”
“Hated,” she corrected. “I don’t hate you anymore.”
“That’s what she told Grandma today, too, when she pointed out that you were a biker,” Wendy said as she brought her dish to the sink and rinsed it.
I’d never seen a kid so damn capable before. And so damn smart and understanding.
She left the room before I could comment.
Silence followed her exit, and I turned to Constance and asked, “You don’t have to be nice to me if what I am bothers you. I’m a big boy. Unlike the other bikers you knew, we’re not all like that. We can participate in the life and still know right from wrong.”
She shot me a smile. “I fed Peanut.”
I winced. “Where is he?”
“I walked with him to my parents’ place. He got really excited about all the smells, and Mom needed to take her dogs on a walk anyway, so she has him.”
“Oh,” I said. “I guess I need to go fetch him then. I need to be at work.”
I looked at my watch and winced. An hour ago, I needed to be at work.
I was officially late.
“But you didn’t eat any biscuits.”
No. No, I hadn’t. But…
