“Sounds like he said a lot,” I grumbled.
“Now you’re going to go for a while. I’ll tell you where to turn,” they replied. “Curtis said that we can trust anyone in the club. That if we need anything, go to them first. Or if there’s, like, an emergency or something.”
“Or you could call nine-one-one,” I said, widening my eyes at them.
“Obviously,” they replied.
“What kind of club is it?” Finn piped up from the back seat. “I wanna be in the club.”
“It’s a motorcycle club,” Jesse replied. “Didn’t you see the vest he was wearing today?”
“No,” Finn grumbled.
“That’s like…his team shirt,” they explained, still turned toward Finn. “It says whose team he’s on.”
“Cool!”
“And you can’t be in his motorcycle club because you don’t have a motorcycle and it’s only for grown-ups.”
“I could when I’m a grownup!”
“Fuck me,” I murmured under my breath.
“Yeah, maybe,” Jess said with a grin, turning back around. They shot me a look, their eyes dancing.
“Let’s just focus on the things we need to get done today,” I said, trying to end the conversation about my sensitive, sweet Finn joining an MC.
“I wonder why he wasn’t wearing his cut when he came to get us,” Jesse said, almost to themselves. They looked at me. “Did you know that’s what it’s called?”
“Don’t know and yes,” I replied. “I’ve met plenty of Aces. So have you, for that matter. Where am I going?”
“I have?” Jesse asked in surprise.
I nodded. “When you were a baby, and you were hanging with Papa a bunch. He had lots of friends in the club.”
“No way. What happened? Why did he stop hanging with them? Did he know Curtis?”
“Jess,where am I going?” I asked again, ignoring the questions I didn’t know how to answer.
Jesse huffed and gave me the directions, but thankfully stopped telling me about all the information Curtis had imparted while they were gone for twenty minutes getting coffee. I was glad that they got along because that was going to make the next few months a lot easier, but I didn’t want them getting attached. I had no idea what the future would bring, but I did know that this relationship I was faking with Curtis wouldn’t last forever. At some point, we were going to part ways, and I knew that once we did, leaning on the club wouldn’t be an option for me or my kids anymore.
Finn started talking when we reached the first thrift store and basically didn’t stop. Normally, I would’ve been worn out by the second store, but I was actually thankful for his running commentary because it kept my mind from wandering to the kiss Curtis had given me that morning, wondering about what was happening back at the rental, and how the hell we were supposed to maintain our little farce for more than a few days.
Jesse and Curtis’s conversation made me nervous. By the way they’d been talking, Jess was already starting to settle into the situation. That should’ve comforted me—I wanted them to settle—but instead it made anxiety pool in my gut.
My kids were going to get used to this. They were going to get used to Curtis and Dylan and their massive support system. Hell, they’d already started acting like the whole situation was normal, and it hadn’t even been twenty-four hours. Where would they be when that was gone, and it was just us again?
I’d lived through that. My pop had so many friends when I was a kid—people checking in all the time, stopping by, old ladies bringing us food—but somewhere along the way those visits had grown fewer and farther between until they’d stopped altogether. I’d never understood why, and my pop never explained.
I didn’t want Jesse and Finn to go through that disconnect, but now we were too far in for second thoughts. Curtis’s brother was stopping by to help us unload our truck, and his sister-in-law was offering to furnish our house. It was all too much, too fast, and I had no idea how to slow things down.
After a few hours of thrifting, all we had to show for it was an old T-shirt that Finn had begged for and a funky little nightstand for Jesse’s room. It was pretty much a bust, and I wasn’t sure if we were checking the right stores. We didn’t need antique furniture. We just needed secondhand furniture, but we’d barely found any. Grocery shopping took another hour and a half because I had to stock up on nearly everything, especially now that the kids would be home for the summer and not eating breakfast and lunch at school. I wasn’t sure what Dylan liked, but I figured he couldn’t be that different from Jesse. Teenagers were like raccoons in my experience—they ate anything.
I didn’t touch the cash in my back pocket, and it was still there when I parked in the driveway next to a Harley Fat Boythat was older than I was and still in pristine condition. Dylan’s truck was gone, and so was the truck that had been parked at the curb when we’d left. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“Finn, grab a couple of bags,” I ordered as I swung open my door. “Don’t go in empty-handed.”
“There’s a motorcycle!” he said excitedly.
