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I texted Cass to let her know I was going to the club and that she didn’t have to come over. I also told her I was sorry for waking her up in the middle of the night and that I’d call her as soon as a decent hour rolled around.
When I got to the club, Axle, with his huge bushy beard and long, lank hair, showed me in and led me away from the rec room and bar area, which were filled with brothers lounging and relaxing because apparently very few people ever use the night for sleeping, to my dad’s room down the hall.
It’s a nice room, a small one because my dad has his own house and doesn’t need a big room at the club, with a narrow twin bed, a desk with a chair, a bookcase full of books, and the regular number of leather jackets hung up in the small closet with the white bifold door. Yeah, it’s not exactly the kind of room you’d expect a biker prez to have. For one, it’s perfectly clean. Two, it’s all white, from the industrial tiled floor to the painted walls. There’s even a nice picture of sunflowers hanging over my dad’s bed that I painted for him when I was in high school.
It looks like the kind of room an old lady would have, and by old lady, I mean a real old lady, not a club old lady, because those are not really old at all.
Dad is sitting on the bed with his back against the headboard, reading a murder mystery. This one happens to be about a little old man who has four pet raccoons who are instrumental in helping him solve his cases. Yes, I shit you not. Raccoons. Whatever. Dad loves the series, and if he wants to read about lovable raccoons being mischievous scamps in order to take himself out of the problems of the real world, I’m not going to judge.
When I walk in, he sets the book down, moves his massive six-foot-four form to make room for me on the bed, and pats the spot beside him.
I don’t want to be one of those people who immediately sobs on her dad’s shoulder, but, well, I am. I plop down, put my face in my hands, and let him fold me up in his massive fatherly arms. I love the scent of leather, oil, and spearmint gum on him because Dad’s always chewing gum.
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” he says softly as he smooths a hand down my hair. “I couldn’t wait. The vote won out because as soon as Hacker Beast-Mother Computer-Destroyer figured out who Smoke really was, the guys wanted to get you out of there.”
I curl my hand into my dad’s soft cotton T-shirt that he’s wearing underneath the leather jacket he basically lives in and let my tears flow. It feels so good to be able to cry in a safe, warm place. To be here within the solid concrete block walls, behind steel doors, and in this fortress of rough and tumble men who would do anything to keep me safe. I’ve always resented my loss of freedom and how I couldn’t live my life like other people, but now I can also appreciate how much love is behind that from men the rest of the world passes off as not being capable of emotions like care, love, and loyalty.
“I…Dad…” I can’t finish because I hiccup loudly with another sob. God, is that snot on Dad’s shirt? Ugh. I know he won’t care, but I also know I’m a grown woman, which is why I have to pick myself up and tell him the truth.
I lean back, separating myself from him by a few inches. I wipe furiously at my eyes, which feel hot and grainy, like one hell of a sand tornado just took my day at the beach by surprise.
“It’s okay, baby. We know everything.”
“But…but that’s the thing. I don’t. I only know what Bunny Man said to get me to leave. And I…I just…I just can’t believe that….”
“I know. I know, honey.” Dad tries to wrap me up in his arms again, but I pull back. I notice the gleam of hurt flicker in his eyes—eyes just a shade darker than mine but with the same yellow flecks swimming in the dark brown shot through with spokes of green.
I watch as he pushes his massive hand, peppered with scars here and there from years of working hard on bikes and other vehicles—he’s a mechanic by trade—through his long burnished mahogany hair. Hair shot through with gray now. It makes me feel weird noticing that. I see my dad just about every single day, so it’s pretty hard to notice how someone is aging, and as he ruffles his hair, those strands of silver peeking out between the dark ones take me by surprise.
