I make myself a cup of green tea—just one—and sit down at the small breakfast table.
I owe him an apology, along with an explanation.
Going to The Junction was supposed to take my mind off things. Instead, I just created another problem for myself.
Uncle Lyle saw me getting all cozy with Rowan. Which means he’s going to come knocking soon enough, demanding to know what happened between Brett and me.
My godfather isn’t a good man, and the last thing I want is to put Rowan on his radar, the same way I’ve already put Rowan on Brett’s.
I still can’t believe Brett sent that cop to harass Rowan. What was he thinking? It’s starting to feel like him wanting me back has little to do with any feelings he might still have for me, and everything to do with his ego. He should know I’ll never take him back after he cheated. Status, looks, attraction—none of it matters if a person isn’t honest with me. I thought Brett knew that, but maybe he didn’t think the rules applied to him.
It’s ironic how the town’s golden boy turned out to be a lying piece of crap, while Rowan—the town’s player—is far more decent than I pegged him to be.
Cocky—sure. Smug—at times. Smart assed—definitely. But it’s starting to seem more and more like armor Rowan wears to hide what’s really inside.
I’ve only scratched the surface with him…and I want to go deeper. Even though the smart thing would be to keep my distance so that I can keep my head on straight when we take our fake relationship act on the road.
I take a sip of the tea.
How is he going to react when I tell him my godfather is a member of a biker gang?
I should have told him earlier. Right after he asked me to be his fake girlfriend, so that he knew what he was getting as part of the deal. Maybe if he knew where I come from, or how most of the town sees me, he’d rethink linking himself up with me.
The fact that that day was pure chaos is a convenient excuse for why I didn’t say a word about it, but deep down I know it wasn’t just that.
A part of me relishes the fact that Rowan doesn’t know my history the way the rest of the town does. That he doesn’t look at me and immediately think “that’s Rhett’s daughter.” I’ve rarely gotten a blank slate like that with anyone in my life.
But now that has to end. I have to tell him everything. Otherwise, I’m not being fair to him.
I eat a light breakfast and then go over to my house with the intention of sorting through the things that were damaged in the fire.
There’s got to be at least a few things in the living room that I might be able to salvage. The fire didn’t quite reach the side of the room across from the bookshelf where the TV is, so I start there.
It’s funny how I spent months telling myself I needed to toss out all the little knickknacks collecting dust on the shelving around the TV, but now they feel precious. I clean the soot off the small animal figurines I used to collect as a kid and carefully wrap them in newspaper before putting them away in a cardboard box.
The DVDs are warped from the heat, so I toss them in a garbage bag.
In the drawer below, I find an old metal cookie tin filled with artwork—mine and Maxton’s—from kindergarten.
God, it would have really sucked if these were destroyed.
I spend a while going through them and get a bit sentimental. I can remember drawing some of these. Neither Maxton nor I had any art skills whatsoever, but Mom always made it seem like we were bringing home Picasso masterpieces.
There’s a family portrait. Stick figures, of course. Mine is just me, Maxton, and Mom, but Maxton’s version from two years earlier has our father in it too. He’s outlined in a harsh black. Maxton even drew a vest on the stick figure.
Dad always wore that vest. He was proud of it. The large center patch on the back meant he was a full member of the Iron Raptors, and his enforcer patch meant he had a high-ranking position in the club.
Anger slithers through my belly. He cared more about that fucking vest than he cared about his own kids.
In the bottom drawer of the TV stand, I find a picture frame with a photo of him. It’s the only one I kept after I threw out the photo album Mom kept by her bedside with photos of them together before Maxton was born.
I didn’t like those pictures. I didn’t like seeing her smiling beside him. It felt like watching her get conned. She must not have known his true nature when she got pregnant with Maxton. And afterward, even though my father never wanted a family—definitely not the obligations that come with it—he refused to let Mom go. He’d come to visit every few weeks, just enough to keep her hooked on the small bits of attention he showed her.
At least Brett wasn’t my dad. Yeah, he’s a cheat and a liar, but he’s not a damn criminal.
I put the photo of my dad back in the box and get back to work. I’m just about to wrap things up when I hear the sound I’ve been anticipating all day.
The deep, throaty roar of a motorbike.
