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In contrast, Urick does love his daughter. He’s just an asshole. It’s likely he didn’t mean to push her away. In his mind, he was so obviously right, she couldn’t possibly be telling the truth. His ego came first.
I suspect if Urick understood the choice was stroking his ego or keeping his daughter, he’d have reacted differently. Powerful people tend to assume they can finesse a situation enough to allow them to have their cake and eat it, too. Instead, he lost a dozen years with his only daughter.
I don’t pity Urick really, but I understand regret. As much as I tell Austen how we weren’t ready for each other years ago, I still wish she had been in my life over the last decade.
None of the women I dated or fucked were half as interesting as Austen. I can almost see the life we would have shared. Our kids would be in school like Nomad’s oldest. Our house would be long-ago built. I’d completely own Austen’s heart by now.
I choose to keep my regrets to myself, knowing Austen will only absorb the blame. I might not have protected her from Mack today, but I can protect her from herself.
Austen and Coco leave the room with me. We make sandwiches in the main kitchen. Austen puts together an extra one for Dice whose headache has him hiding under a blanket on the couch. He smiles at her kindness.
“I’m stronger,” Austen tells Coco and me as we sit outside to eat. “Facing my sex fear helped me. Maybe it’ll be the same with Urick.”
Coco obviously doesn’t want Austen to visit Urick. She’s seen the damage the man did to her friend. I think she’s also more realistic about what Austen can handle.
Though I want to lock Austen away, she seems to have jumped on to a moving train rushing toward a visit to her father’s place. There’s no discussion over whether she ought to avoid a confrontation or what might be waiting for her in Canary Basin. Having already set her course, she only wants our help with the aftermath.
“Coco,” Goose says, startling us since she literally snuck around the house like Xenia’s cat. “When you’re done eating, do you want to go for a ride?”
Austen now wears the same worried expression Coco had for her a few minutes ago. Neither one wants the other to take any chances. Like her friend, Coco decides to test a person she doesn’t fully trust.
“I’ll be here when you get back,” Austen says when Coco leaves her sandwich and stands up to go.
Coco smiles at how Austen has her back. I glance at Goose to get a sense of where her head is at currently. My club sister just stares right back at me, revealing nothing.
Once we’re alone, Austen asks me, “Do you need to leave for those errands you were running?”
“No. I was already on my way back here.”
“After lunch, do you think we could go to your room and do some under the clothes fun?”
I smile at her question. For years, I gave chicks pleasure. Fucking was fun but empty. Meanwhile, love was what I really desired. I saw how different my club brothers were when they found the right women.
Though I wanted the same thing, I’d gotten myself hooked on a fantasy about a redheaded rich girl. I began to figure I’d end up alone rather than give up on my dream.
Now, my redheaded rich girl watches me with the affection I craved all my life. No one could heal the wounds left behind by my parents. Not my club family or the carefree lifestyle of easy women.
Only this woman right here with her big brain and bigger heart has the power to fix what I never fully realized was broken.
AUSTEN
I wake up feeling unbreakably confident. A sleeping Walla Walla rests on his side next to me. I admire his thickly muscled and tattooed back.
His life is now mine. I’m part of something bigger than my long-held fears. I can see the future. Only a few barriers stand in my way before I can claim my dreams.
Coco is waiting for me downstairs when Walla Walla and I arrive fully awake, sexually satisfied, and showered.
“Goose is really interesting,” she tells me, clearly editing herself as Walla Walla lingers nearby. “We have stuff in common. I think we might be dating.”
Hugging Coco, I whisper in her ear, “I want you to have everything.”
“I don’t know if it’s a thing that’ll last. Romance never sticks for me. But I feel better about staying in town and seeing what I can do with myself here.”
Sharing her smile, I haven’t seen Coco so relaxed in a long time.
“Today, Goose and I are going to the gym in town,” Coco explains while Walla Walla talks with Hobo near the back doors. “She wants us to get dinner out with her brother and his wife. Is that okay or should I stay around in case the stuff with Urick goes bad?”
The old me would want an army of people around to help after I invariable came crashing down. I imagine returning to the Pigsty later today, heartbroken and riddled with guilt. I’ll need my people to distract me.
