Chapter 15

Nicole

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24

Despite worrying about my mom’s news, the week flew by. Everything clicked at work—my nemesis Doug avoided me, my new idea for a slot machine based on an old board game got approved, and I left every day with a smile on my face.

Mostly because I was looking forward to my late-night text conversations with Tank.

Every night since that Monday, Tank would text me when he was on break at his shift working the door at the nightclub, Lux. He was at times sweet, sexy, and frustrating as hell. By the end of our conversations I wanted to both hug him and hump him like crazy.

On Tuesday I learned that his German shepherd, Stella, was a service dog. He’d had PTSD, and a local organization had hooked him up with her. Stella had helped him through some tough times, and now it was his job to help her through her cataracts and diabetes. Although he never came right out and said it, I could read between the lines and see his love for his dog despite her age and handicaps. How could I not fall a little more for him?

On Wednesday he texted me a series of naughty, intriguing, and frustrating fantasies that he had about us. By the end of the night I was this close to driving over to that club and screwing him in the back room.

I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know where I stood. Was this still casual? Were we dating? I was afraid to ask the question because I didn’t know what I wanted.

He was a biker. Everything I knew in the past about bikers told me that this budding relationship was dangerous. That this was just the courting stage. Tank couldn’t be this sweet, sane, and sexy person. Soon enough he’d show me his true colors and cheat on me or something worse. Either way he’d leave and I’d be in tears, wishing I’d never met him.

I needed to talk to someone.

But Jessica wasn’t due back from her honeymoon for a few more hours, Emily was still blinded by the honeymoon stage of her relationship with a biker, and Brittany was so deeply entrenched in the biker world, she was currently busy setting up something for Street Vibrations, our yearly local biker rally, this weekend.

Fortunately for me, it was finally Thursday, which meant dinner at my mom’s. I’d be able to find out about her mysterious news and maybe get an unbiased opinion on my thing with Tank.

So after work, I drove over to her house in the south end of Reno. I parked on the street and looked at the house I’d spent my teen years in. It still looked the same. The towering cottonwood trees in the front yard—their leaves starting to turn yellow. My mom’s Camry parked in front of the garage and not inside, since the garage was always an epic mess. Hell, I could practically see me, Jessica, and Emily playing tag in the front yard like we did in the summers. Jessica’s parents lived only three streets over. It was home.

Eager to see my mom, I sprang out of my car and ran up the driveway. And since it was home, I didn’t bother to knock.

“Hey, Ma, I’m here.”

“Hi, honey, I’m in the kitchen.”

I knew it before she said it. The aromas coming out of the kitchen were to die for. Garlic, tomato, basil. My mom could cook. Meanwhile I still hadn’t figured out the mystery of mashed potatoes. Mine either came out a soupy mess or were impossible to mash. Apparently I’d only inherited my sass from my mom.

“It smells amazing. What are you making?” I crossed the kitchen and gave my mom a hug. Despite living in the same town, we never saw each other enough.

“Chicken parm.”

“Mmmmm, need any help?” I stepped back and smiled.

“Uh.” My mom looked around the kitchen, obviously searching for something I couldn’t mess up. “How about the salad?”

“Please tell me you got the precut bag kind.”

She gestured to the fridge with a laugh. “When I knew you were coming? What else would I buy?”

I busied myself pulling ingredients from the fridge while my mom stood at the stove. “So what’s the news?”

“Huh?” Mom faced me with a dripping spoon in one hand.

“The all-important announcement that you couldn’t deliver over the phone? The whole reason I’m here on a Thursday night?” Instead of at Lux humping Tank in the back room, I finished in my mind.

Mom looked guiltily past me to the doorway. I swung around but found no one there.

“How about we have dinner first. You can tell me about what’s going on with you, Jessica’s wedding, and your job. Then after we’ll talk about my news.”

“M-ah-uuumm.” I sighed and slumped my shoulders like the truculent teen I’d been. “Really? Why are you drawing this out already? Just tell me!”

“It’s my news. Dinner first.”

Was it my imagination or did her hand tremble while she dished up our meals? I searched her face for some sign, but she only smiled benignly back at me. A wave of goosebumps broke out on my arms. That expression was so close to the one I remembered from my childhood while she tried to reassure me and Austin that everything was all right.

“Mom? Are you okay? It’s not a health thing, right?”

“No, honey. I promise. I’m fine.” She forced a smile as she sat down.

I mirrored her. We both went through the motions of eating her amazing dinner, but despite the aroma and my earlier hunger, it tasted like sawdust. Heck, she could’ve actually put sawdust on my plate, and I wouldn’t have noticed. I was so worried about her. What was going on?

She hummed in all the right places as I described Jessica and Zag’s wedding, how cute Harley looked in her little dress, how Emily got smacked in the face with the bouquet. Finally we got around to the other thing I wanted to talk about. Tank.

Of course I didn’t phrase it in terms that would’ve told my mom everything. I was taking my one-night stand crown to my grave.

“So there’s this guy…”

“I knew it! I could tell the minute I saw your face.” My mom smiled a mile wide. “My little girl is in love.”

My face burning with my blush, I scowled and shook my head. “Mom. Stop. We’re not there yet. It’s complicated.”

“Honey, it’s always complicated. Answer me this: Does he treat you right?”

I thought about Tank comforting me the night of Jessica’s wedding, the tender way he touched me that last time, and his concern the past few days with my mom’s mysterious news. “He’s a bit bossy, but yes.”

“Does he make you smile even when you’re not with him?”

I bit my lip, fighting the smile that wanted to curve my lips. “Yes.”

“What more do you need? He doesn’t beat you or anything, right?”

“Of course not. I wouldn’t stay with him if he did.”

An awkward silence descended. We both knew my dad had sometimes taken his anger out on my mom. She could never hide the arguments or the bruises that would follow.

After a moment she cleared her throat and gave me weak smile. “So what about your new guy is so complicated?”

I looked my mom in the eyes and answered, “He’s a biker.”

Then a voice I hadn’t heard in almost fifteen years thundered over my head. “What? My daughter wouldn’t be caught dead on the back of some asshole’s bike.”

Dad.

I swung around in my chair and sure enough, standing in the archway of the kitchen, was my father’s hulking frame. His dead eyes stared right into mine as he lit a cigarette, took a long drag, then blew the smoke over the table.

“Is that the way you greet your dear ol’ dad? Come on over here and give me a hug, darlin’.”

“I, uh, I—” I looked at my mom with wide eyes. She gave me a weak smile and shrugged her shoulders. An acrid taste gathered in my mouth. “This is why you wanted me to come over for dinner? You guys are back together?”

My mom opened and closed her lips, seemingly speechless, and my heart sunk. She wouldn’t meet my eyes as she nodded.

Oh God.

Oh God.

My scalp burned as a buzzing sound filled my ears. I thought he was out of our lives forever. I thought my mom knew better. All that bullshit when he went to prison and how hard it’d been starting over in a new town. Hell, a new state. It’d been the happiest and saddest year of my life. But we did it. We’d started over. Without him.

After all the shit we’d gone through, why would she ever take him back?

“Bear, I thought you were busy with club stuff tonight.” My mom lifted a shaky hand and brushed her bangs out of her eyes before looking up at my dad. “I kinda wanted to have a heart-to-heart with Nicole and let her know what was going on all on my own. Then we’d talk to her together.”

My dad stood from his slouch and fully entered the kitchen. The harsh fluorescent lights made the patches on the front of his worn leather biker vest glow—1% and FTW badges on his right side, Bear and Enforcer on his left. I stared at the Enforcer badge. Last I knew Dad was just a regular old member. Apparently going to prison for fifteen plus years for something “club business”–related let you jump a few rungs on the ladder.

“I don’t answer to you, woman. This is my house, ain’t it?” My dad glared down at my mom while I tried to figure out what he’d just said.

“Wait, what? You guys have been divorced for ten years. More than. How is anything that Mom built here, without you, yours?”

“Bitch, you better learn some respect before I have to beat it into you.” My dad towered over me, his hands fisted at his sides, but I didn’t flinch. “What kinda limp-dicked biker are you with if you think you can talk to me like that?”

I turned wide eyes at my mom, but she didn’t look up from the kitchen table. “Mom?”

She swallowed hard but still wouldn’t look up. “Listen to your father.”

My mind reeled. I must’ve been ten, eleven years old the last time I’d heard my mom say that. I could still see her with blood dripping from her nose, her left eye swollen while my dad yelled at me to go back to my room. All I’d wanted to do was grab my mom and brother and run as far from my dad as possible. I’d dreamed of what our life would’ve been without him so long that when it finally happened it didn’t feel real.

And neither did this.

Why? Why would she go back to him? There were so many questions I wanted answered, but as long as my dad stood there, I wouldn’t get one straight answer from her.

“I gotta go.” My chair made a harsh scraping sound when I stood. I looked down at my mom and refused to acknowledge the sperm donor next to me. “I just—I can’t…I’ll talk to you later, Ma.”

My mom didn’t look at me. I wondered if she felt ashamed. The tension in the room felt like my childhood all over again. Memories weighed me down. My dad yelling. The sound of fists hitting flesh. My mom crying. Him yelling at her for crying. And then the silence.

But at least now I had the power to leave it behind.

I kept my dad in my peripheral vision as I walked around him. When I reached the living room, I finally started breathing again. I bent down to grab my purse off the couch when I felt someone grab my arm. I flinched. I recognized my dad’s vise grip fingers anywhere. My heart rate sped up again as I looked up at him.

“Get your fucking hand off me.”

My dad glared at me, then released my arm like he was doing me a huge favor. “Your mom has forgiven me. Why can’t you?”

I shook my head and took a giant step away from him.

“Maybe because you’ve never once apologized to me or Austin for all the horrible shit you did to us as kids. Or how about the fact that not even five minutes ago you threatened to beat some manners into me. I’m not the scared little girl I was when you ruled our house with your fists. You don’t speak to me that way, and you sure as hell better treat Mom better than you did, or this time I’ll be the one to make you regret it.”

My dad’s mustache curled with his sneer. “Your punk-ass biker bitch boyfriend gonna take care of me?”

With my purse clutched in one hand, I shook my head as I walked toward the door. Stopping with my hand on the knob, I turned and faced him. “No, Bear. I will.”

Instead of giving in to all the impotent anger surging inside me, I let the door gently close behind me.

I don’t even remember getting into my car or driving home. I blinked blankly at the familiar surroundings of my apartment complex. All I could think was that I needed to talk to someone. But who? I wasn’t ready to call my brother in California. Austin would have just as many questions as I did. Questions that I had no answers to.

I couldn’t really turn to Jessica or Emily since I’d never told them about my dad. But if I were really honest with myself I had to admit that I couldn’t turn to Jessica or Emily because I was too ashamed. I’d been such a bitch when they both started dating bikers. I’d lived in such a tangled mess of lies for so long, I didn’t know how to unravel it all. After the news coverage in California over Bear’s trial and how our friends ostracized us, Austin and I agreed that we wanted to start over in Reno. That meant no talking about him. As far as we were concerned, he was just a deadbeat dad like all the rest. And surprisingly, it worked. No one really dug deep into our backgrounds or were curious when we were dismissive about our sperm donor.

But Jessica and Emily should’ve been different. I should’ve told them—I just didn’t know how.

And when they’d started dating bikers, I wasn’t a good friend. I’d been dismissive, cracking inappropriate jokes, and actively trying to get them to break up with their bikers. I was so deep in my nest of lies, I didn’t know how to break free.

And if I were honest with myself, I was ashamed, too. Ashamed that that asshole was my father. Ashamed of all the abusive shit he’d rained down on us. Ashamed that my mother stayed with him for so long. Ashamed that he’d gone to prison for killing someone.

It was moments like this that I really wanted my mom.

Too bad she was the one who’d betrayed me.