AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It is so out of character for Dad that I am curious how the Laidens had even got him to come round to the idea. He was hesitant about putting Crow with me at the beginning, simply because Crow was a man; and now here he is, willing and even encouraging the idea of me marrying someone I have never even met.
Dad has always done his best to keep me out of the areas of the Cobra life that he deems too much for me. He doesn’t involve me in it too much and I don’t ask. Any time I ever dare to question it, he tells me I’m being silly, that nothing illegal goes on, but I highly suspect that’s a lie.
I’ve become more and more inquisitive since Gray’s disappearance. I know he was involved with the Cobras and although he didn’t tell me much, he told me enough for me to know that there is a lot more going on than what Dad would have me know.
I notice Tin and Dove walking towards the house.
“What are you two old fuckers doing up this early?” I shout down at them as they begin to climb the stairs to our front door.
They both chuckle at me, and Tin, one of the Club’s counsellors and a close friend of my dad’s, lands next to me in a sitting position, with his legs outstretched onto the steps before him. Dove scoots round him, putting a hand on my hair and ruffling it up as he always does when he sees me.
“We’re here for breakfast, you little sod.” Dove laughs as he talks to me, shaking his head as he opens the front door of the house to go and start breakfast. They come around most mornings. Neither of them have partners or kids so they spend a lot of their time here.
When I look next to me and see Tin sitting there, I notice that he’s now smoking alongside me.
“Couldn’t sleep or just missed this beautiful face?” I ask as he blows out the smoke inhibiting its space in his lungs.
Tin smirks and knocks my shoulder with his.
“Well, hell, little lady, you can’t be beating on me this early in the morning.” Tins voice is gruff, though his words are anything but.
As well as Liam, both Tin and Dove have been around since before I was born. Tin, Liam, and Dove aren’t the longest standing men in the club by any means, but they are the ones that are closest to my dad and I.
* * *
“Where are we going then? Or am I just driving aimlessly for a while?” Crow asks me.
He’s driving, as always. I have my driving license but I can daydream when someone else is driving and the last time I started daydreaming when I drove, I nearly crashed, not as though I told anyone that. I don’t even seem to notice when my mind takes off to a different dimension. Trying to pay attention and drive alongside it does not go well.
“Okay, we need to go to B&M first, we’ll see what we can find in there,” I declare as I close the book in my lap before tucking it neatly into my backpack.
“I think we’re going to go with neutral colours for him, you think that’ll be ok?” I ask eagerly, not wanting to mess up, but needing a man's view, because no matter how much I know about men, which isn’t much at all really, I’m not sure I’m quite on par with what a nearly forty-year-old bloke is going to want in his bedroom.
“You do remember that I haven’t met him, right? I haven’t got a clue what he’d want, Char,” he tells me as his eyes scan every mirror the car has for signs of danger behind us.
I notice that Crow does this constantly. The reason I notice is because I do it too. We’ve both been taught, although through very different means admittedly, to constantly keep an eye out for danger and being the daughter of the man in charge of a motorcycle club invites danger, meaning that both Crow and I are constantly on the lookout.
There have been so many times I’ve been followed, it's only natural to be paranoid. Paranoia’s horrible but it keeps you safe most of the time, so I don’t mind it.
“Grey’s a safe colour though. Can’t go wrong with grey.” Crow interrupts my thoughts, and as I look at him, I find that he’s got his coffee in his left hand whilst he uses his right to steer.
Grey’s safe.
“We gonna get some lunch after this shit show of a shopping trip, Char? I’m hungry already,” Crow whines. He’s like some crazed dog, he doesn’t stop eating and acts like it’s both the first time he’s ever seen the food and the last time he ever will each time he has a meal.
“You’re such a pig. You ate an hour ago, for God’s sake, and what do you mean shit show of a shopping trip? We haven’t even got inside yet!” I tell him as he parks up in a bay space and opens his door.
I follow his lead and head out of his white Golf, slamming the door shut behind me. I walk round the front of the car towards Crow and start off towards the front doors of B&M.
“I might have ate an hour ago, but if you fed me bigger meals, then I wouldn’t be hungry all the time and no, but I hate shopping, so it’s bound to be bad.” I can't help but scoff at this, he had the biggest breakfast out of everyone and made a mess of the table in my kitchen in the process. I do admittedly know that he hates shopping though so I give him credit for not giving me too much of a hard time about dragging him along.
“Oh, stop moaning and follow me, you big baby.”
I collect a trolley from outside of the shop and head in, going straight for the home aisle.
I pick up a grey and white patterned double duvet cover and throw it in the trolley straight away, paying little attention to the phone-obsessed Crow behind me. He’s staring down at the little screen as if it holds his whole life that he just can’t help but look at.
There are two dark grey lamps, a floor lamp that’s as tall as me and a small one you touch to activate. I stare at them both, figuring out which would go best before deciding to pick them both up and moving along. I collect matching bathroom accessories, pillows for atop of the bed, some floating shelves, a couple of photo frames, and a rug before turning down the next aisle in search of the perfect shade of paint.
