Dak
"Woah, man, you keep this shit up, and I'm gonna start playing poker with you more often."
“Shut up, Micah.”
“No, for real, though. What happened to the days when you used to shark the older guys out of their money? Do you remember how pissed they used to get? They would tell your dad not to let us in the clubhouse at all, never mind playing them in any games. The thing I never got was why they didn’t just stop accepting the games against you? It would have been the easiest thing in the world, you know? Just tell you to buzz off and keep playing their own crappy games. I never got that, man.”
“I do.”
Micah stopped what he was doing, stopped grinning, too. I almost felt bad for him, the look he was giving me. It was like I'd just taken away all of his presents on Christmas morning. He was trying to make me feel better, and I knew it. I just couldn't stop myself from being an asshole about it, no matter what I knew. Micah was always good for a laugh, always the dude to go to when you needed some distraction, but the situation I was in now was one that required more than just a distraction. The half a bottle of whiskey I'd drunk in the time I'd been in the clubhouse after the shittiest conversation of my life was proof enough of that. I had a pretty good feeling that there wasn't a cure out there for the thing that was ailing me. The only thing that might do me any good was time, and even that wasn't a guarantee. I'd lost enough people in my life to know that first hand. I also knew that being a dick to all of my friends wasn’t going to do me any good either, which meant I needed to get a handle on myself, and fast.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” Micah said grumpily, “Why’d they keep playing if they knew they were going to lose?”
"Because man. It's hard not to play if you think there's any chance you might win. It's like that with a lot of things. It's like that with gambling. It's like that with people, too."
"Shit, man, do you wanna talk about it or something? I don't know what the hell is going on here, and I'm pretty sure none of the rest of us do, either, but I'll do my best to talk you through it if I can. Keeping in mind, we both know I'm not the smartest man there is."
“Ha! Shit, Micah, I guess that’s something we can both agree on.”
Micah grunted, snorted his unusual brand of laughter, and picked up a ball off the table so that he could hurl it in my direction. I caught it, turned it over in my hand and considered what Micah was offering me. After Lillian died I had basically shut down, shut everybody out. I'd done it to make things easier, but maybe it hadn't done that. Maybe it had only made things worse and talking to Micah wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
“Hey! Petie! Petie, you in here?” Dan interrupted whatever kind of conversation Micah and I were trying to have, throwing the door to his office open and shouting out to all of the guys in the room. One of the older guys, a beefy wall I’d known since I was a kid, stood up and nodded at Dan gravely. Grave was the only expression Pete knew how to wear, so there was nothing weird there. That didn’t mean I didn’t have dread flooding all throughout my body, though, because that I most definitely did. I had a pretty good feeling I knew what Dan was calling him for and if I was right that meant there was going to be a whole lot more talk in the clubhouse than there had already been.
“What’s up, boss? What you need?”
“Petie, there’s been a change of plans. I’m looking to mix things up some.”
“Lay it on me.”
"I need a new bodyguard for my daughter. I just talked to Fawn, and she's about ready to leave work. Will you go get her, please? Take her anywhere she needs to go and don't' lose track of her. I swear to God, Pete, if you let her out of your sight, I'll kick your ass so out of shape your old lady won't even recognize you."
“Don’t worry, boss. I’ll make sure she doesn’t do a damn thing without me knowing it.”
“Good. Dax?”
All of the men in the club turned their attention from Pete to me, their faces registering the kind of disembodied interest a person might wear watching a soap opera they came into the middle of. It was one of those things where the fucking hits just kept on coming. First, they all hear that I'm off of Fawn detail, even though everyone knew Dan had always thought I was the best person for the job. Second, I get called into Dan's office like I'm being called into the damn principal's office or something. As far as luck went, I was pretty much out of it. Seemed to me I'd been out of it for a long, long time.
“Yeah, boss.”
“Can I see you in my office for a second?”
"Sure thing. Micah? You give this game away I'll kill you." Micah saluted me, a grim, weirdly sulky look on his face, and I handed him my cue. Walking to the office that had once belonged to my own dad, I felt like a dead man walking. If Dan hadn't kicked the shit out of me for getting Fawn pregnant in the first place, I had a feeling he was going to have something to say about shit now.
“Hey, Dan. What’s up?”
"That's funny, Dax, I was about to ask you that same question. I just had a very interesting conversation with my daughter."
“Did you?”
“Why don’t you cut it out, son? Why don’t you tell me why I just got a pretty fucking upset phone call from Fawn asking me to find somebody else to act as her bodyguard. I tried explaining to her that you were far and away the best guy for the job but she didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want to hear anything I had to say, actually. She just told me over and over again, and loudly, might I add, that she didn’t want you to be the one on her safety detail anymore.”
“Yeah, I’m not surprised.”
“No? So you knew this was going to happen?”
“I had a feeling. I was kind of hoping she wouldn’t go through with it but I can’t say that I’m surprised.”
"Right. Well, at least only one of us was in the dark, right? So here's what I'm going to need you to do. I'm going to need you to explain to me what the hell is going on here. I like you, Dax, more than that. I love you like you were my own kid. But at the end of the day, you're not. I've only got one of those, and she was on the phone crying to me about you. So you wanna tell me what's going on here or are the two of us going to have a problem?"
“No, Dan. No problem. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“Good. That’s a good start. Why don’t you tell me why she was crying?”
“I don’t know.”
“And why does she want another bodyguard? Yesterday the two of you are telling me you’re going to have a baby together and tonight she doesn’t want you anywhere near her?”
"Yeah, that one I might be able to shed a little light on. And when I say little, that's what I mean. I can tell you what kind of conversation we had, but I don't pretend to understand the reasons behind it."
“Fine. Just start with the details.”
“She was pissed at me. She was pissed because she didn’t think I was taking things seriously enough, I guess about the whole marriage thing.”
“Shit. So then some of this is my fault.”
"Nah, I don't mean it like that. It was just where things started going sour. She wouldn't really talk to me in the car, and when she did, she only wanted to pick a fight. It wasn't until we got to her place that she started talking to me about what was eating her, and that's when the marriage stuff got brought up."
“Let me guess. She freaked.”
“How’d you know?”
"Because that's what girls tend to do in that kind of a scenario."
"Right, but I wouldn't say I did any better. I bailed on the conversation, and after that little showdown earlier today, she ended it."
“Ended you being the bodyguard?”
“No, Dan. She ended everything. Shortest lived relationship ever, right?”
“I see.”
"But Dan, I don't want you to worry, okay? Honest to God, I don't. Whether Fawn and I are together or not doesn't make a difference when it comes to the kid. I couldn't make Fawn believe me. Hopefully, I can do better with you."
“Then give it a shot.”
"The baby wasn't something I planned, you know? The baby wasn't something I ever wanted to have. But now? Now he's in the world, or she, and that changes everything. Whatever that kid needs, I'm going to be there with it. I'll die for it if I have to. I'll die for it gladly. I would have done that for Fawn, too, if she'd wanted me to. Since she doesn't? It's the baby. That baby is the most important thing in this world."
"You mean that, don't you?" I sat without moving, sat and looked directly into Dan's face the way I knew he needed me to. I was desperate for him to believe me. I was desperate for this whole thing not to have been complete bullshit, a complete waste of everyone's fucking time. After a tense couple of seconds, his face relaxed. When he did that he looked just as tired as I felt and it crossed my mind for the first time how stressful having a daughter as strong willed as Fawn might actually be for a dad.
“You do. I can see you do. And you don’t think there’s any way you can work this shit out with her? You know how Fawn is, Dax. She’s a lot like her mother was. You don’t think there’s any way you can get her to come around? It might be better, you know. Better for her if she was with somebody.”
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to be me. She made it pretty clear, Dan. She doesn’t want to mess with me anymore. I can’t even say I blame her. What I can say is that I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what, kid? Women are hard. Her being my daughter doesn’t mean I don’t know that anymore.”
"Still. I fucked it up. I should have been smarter, should have found a way to make it work out. I fucked things up with her, but I swear to you, I won't do that with our baby."
“I believe you. Now, go finish your game of pool. And do me a favor, will you?”
"Depends on what it is," I answered with a grin. He laughed heartily at that, and I felt the smallest amount better for the first time since shit had hit the fan with Fawn. That was what he'd always taught me to say, back when I had still been a punk ass kid. Never agree to a favor without knowing what it is. That was something that could and usually did come back to bite you in the ass.
“Stop beating yourself up over this. Maybe I’m just getting soft in my old age, but these things have a way of working themselves out.”
“I don’t see that happening with Fawn and me.”
"Doesn't mean they won't. Just have a drink or five, finish your game, and stop worrying so much. It's not good for your health, and I need the father of my baby's kid to be healthy."
He gave me a hug that made me miss my own dad fiercely and then sent me back out to play. It was weird, the way a conversation like that could work on your mind. I wasn't worried anymore that Dan was going to beat the living hell out of me for my thing with Fawn, but in a way that was worse. Now there was nothing else crowding my head other than the way shit had gone down with Fawn and no matter how I played things out; I kept coming back to the same conclusion. I loved her. I loved her in a way I didn't think I would ever love another person the way I loved her, with years and years of history cementing us together so completely. But those movies that told you love conquered all were complete shit. Sometimes loving somebody wasn't enough to cut it. Sometimes loving somebody the way I loved Fawn was a reason to cut things off, not a reason to hold on. It wasn't just that she wanted me to be a different version of myself than I thought I could be, either. It was that loving her that way put her into danger she didn't need to be in. As long as she was nothing to me, or looked like nothing to me to an outsider, the Wild Kids were far less likely to make her one of their targets. There wasn't a whole hell of a lot I could offer her if the two of us were together but if we were apart, I could help keep her safe. For me, that was going to have to be enough.