CHAPTER ONE
Tank
“The fuck you doin’ here?” I jokingly asked Axe as I entered my mom’s house. Seeing him there wasn’t uncommon but I still liked to give him shit.
“What the fuck you think I’m doin’?!” he shot back with a wiggle of his brows. And clearly, he loved to give me shit right back. “Needed a trim, man.” He ran his hand frantically back and forth through his freshly cut hair.
While my mom didn’t have a salon or even a certification, she cut most of the brothers’ hair, mine included. She also offered her services to the elderly that had a harder time leaving their houses. Twice a week she would make her rounds, going to them.
Not gonna lie, I was totally a momma’s boy. Not that I let her do everything for me. No, I did shit on my own and took care of her and my three sisters, as well as my son.
Growing up, Axe was the closest thing to a brother I had. I was just fourteen when Cal brought him to the club. The kid was dirty and covered in bruises and had dried, caked on blood all over his body. I’d known him from school, but since I was two years older than him, I didn’t really ever hang out around him. Back then, I knew he didn’t have the easiest home life but being so young and not having been around any kind of unhappy home life, I had no idea what the dirty clothes and marred skin really meant. I soon learned that his home life was fucking shit.
Cal made the right call in my book that day he found Axe on the side of the road.
Cal took Axe in and you would never have guessed Axe wasn’t his real son from that point on. Axe lived at the compound, Cal giving him a room in the back right next to his. Being that my dad was part of the MC, I was at the compound practically all the time.
I prospected at seventeen and two years later, so did Axe. He took all the crap same as all of us, never once trying to get out of anything because he was, in a sense, Cal’s boy. I respected the hell out of it and I knew the club did too. The day he got his patch was the one and only day I’d ever seen Cal get a little choked up. That wasn’t to say the man was an emotionless asshole, he just knew how to hold it together long enough to let it all out behind closed doors.
“Yeah, I should get her to do mine soon,” I said, running my hand through my long hair.
My mom loved my hair and since she was the one that always cut it, she would never cut it short. In fact, it was usually long enough in the front to get on my damn nerves. I felt like most of the fucking time I spent trying to keep it pushed back off my face. For the longest time, we were on lockdown and I wasn’t able to get her to trim it up. Then, lockdown was lifted and the last few months a haircut had been the last thing on my mind. At that point, it was practically down to my shoulders. I debated on using those elastic things to keep it out of my face, but in all honesty, that just wasn’t me.
“Nah, brother, just let it grow. According to Bocca, ladies love that shit,” he said in a pretty flat tone.
I knew him well enough that everything he said came out in the same tone. The thing was, you really had to pay attention to his words and his face to tell when he was joking, or being sarcastic, or really any other kind of emotion. The lack of inflection in his voice usually threw people off, but then sometimes it could be a big advantage.
“I think we all know that I’m good on that front,” I said giving my head a little shake.
“Yeah, I know.” He rolled his eyes as he pulled out a cigarette and put it between his lips. He knew better than to smoke in my mom’s house, so I took it as a sign that he was ready to head out. “See you later at the clubhouse?”
“No, Grass and I are having dinner at Diesel’s tonight. Then I think we are gonna drink some beers at my place after Grass goes to bed. You wanna come over?” I asked, knowing the answer but feeling like I had to extend the invitation anyway.
“No. Think Jessica said something about wanting to watch a movie or some shit,” he said.
I didn’t miss the slight tick of his jaw and I had a feeling it didn’t have much to do with having to watch a movie. It seemed like it was about that time again for those two.
You see, Jessica was a club girl. While she was actually the coolest one there, she was still broken just like all the rest of them. And Axe was pretty messed up himself. The two of them, no matter how many times they tried, would never work. It may sound like I’m being a dick, but I’m not. It was just the cold hard truth. You would think that after two years they would just give up. But then again, I wasn’t them and I had no idea what went on in their heads.
“Later, brother,” I said with a clap on the back as I passed him in search of my mom.
“Noah? That you?” Mom’s voice rang out from the back of the house.
Yes, Noah, because according to my mom, ‘I shot you out of my vagina so, therefore, I get to call you whatever the fuck I want to call you.’ And while my mom had respect for the MC and the lifestyle, she never called me Tank outside of the club. When I was in her home, I was her baby.
“Yeah, it’s me, Mom,” I called out as I made my way to the kitchen. “Where’s Logan?” I asked not hearing the commotion of a small child anywhere around and knew that my son was never one for being quiet.
“Your sister took him to the park.” She angled her cheek up as I approached and like always, I leaned down and gave her my typical mom kiss.
I snagged a couple of grapes that were on the counter and popped them into my mouth. I knew this was my mom’s way of getting a few moments alone to talk to me. And there was only one thing that it could be about. I chomped down on each grape working my frustration out on them one at a time.
“Noah, you’re almost thirty. When are you going to find a nice girl and give me more babies?”
“Mom.” I pushed a long breath out of my lungs. I meant no disrespect to her, but damn, the woman wouldn’t give that shit up. “Logan is all I need. We’re good the way we are. You want more grandkids, then you got three girls that can help you out with that. Harp on them to find a good man.” I chuckled inside knowing that my sisters were not anywhere near ready to settle down.
“Look, I know it’s hard after what that bitch did to you, but at some point, you have to let it go and realize that not every woman out there is like her.” She looked at me with soft eyes and I felt bad for going off a bit.
I trusted few women. Other than my mom and sisters, there was Reagan and Ellie and they were already taken. Not that I had anything other than sisterly feelings for either one of them. I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t need anything other than my son. And I sure as fuck wasn’t thinking about having another kid. I was good on that front. One kid was more than plenty for me, especially with as hyper as he was. Two of them would be the death of me.
“Is it so wrong for a mother to want her son to find a good woman to take care of him?” she asked with complete dismay in her voice.
“Why?” I joked. “You and I both know that there isn’t a woman out there who could do it as well as you.” That was true, too. No one could ever take care of me better than my mom.
I grew up with one hell of a woman at the wheel. She was always the backbone of the family. Strict and always ran a tight ship. Dinner was always on the table at six and your ass better be in your seat by the time the clock rolled over to the hour. Homework was always done before we ate and bedtime was always the same time every night. She kept a schedule even when we weren’t in school, believing that balance was the key to life, and with four kids, you had to have some sort of order.
And heaven forbid you ever did something you weren’t supposed to. Mom never raised her hand to any of us and she never uttered the words ‘I’m calling your father.’ No, because she had her own brand of punishment. Whether it was having to scrub down the walls, or clean all the bathrooms in the clubhouse, or mow every lawn on the street it always came with the heavy feeling of disappointment. Because there wasn’t a worse thing you could do than disappoint your mother.
But even with the strictness of it all, she was still fun and caring. She was loving and amazing in so many ways. Birthdays were always over the top and not in a gifts sort of way. Growing up, I learned that love and family were the greatest treasures. So, while I didn’t get every toy or whatever I wanted, I always had a huge party at the clubhouse where there was any kind of food I could ever want and a yard full of people who treated me like I was their own blood, despite the fact that I wasn’t.
I had a pretty great childhood. It wasn’t easy by any kind of means, but I think it made me turn out to be a decent man. And that was what I was trying to give my son. I thought I was doing a pretty good job despite the hand I’d been dealt.
“I gotta go get Logan and get him cleaned up before we head over to D’s,” I said tossing my arms around her shoulders and pulling her in for a hug. “Love you, Mom.”
“Love you, too. But that doesn’t mean I will stop.” She cocked a brow at me and pinned me with a hard stare.
“I know. I’d expect nothing less,” I said with a deep laugh as I made my way back out of the house.
“Give that little baby kisses for me,” she hollered out before the screen door shut behind me.
“You can adopt Fate and get over your grandbaby fever,” I said, knowing she was standing at the screen door making sure I got to my truck okay. Like something might happen to me in those few steps. I tossed my hand up in a lazy wave as I backed out of the driveway.
Getting Grass to leave the park was a fuck of a lot easier than giving him a bath and getting him dressed and ready to go. I had hoped that playing outside would have worn him out a bit, but no such fucking luck.
He was currently tossing out everything in his shirt drawer trying to find a particular shirt. One that he swore he had, but I couldn’t recall at the moment.
“Maybe it’s at grandma’s,” I said trying to get him off the set path he was on. “How about this one?” I held up the shirt that had been his favorite last week and by the scrunched up nose and pinched lips, I could tell it wasn’t going to work right then.
Taking in a deep calming breath, so slow that he wouldn’t notice, I moved to help him clear out the rest of his drawer. And as I suspected, whatever he was looking for wasn’t in there, because I was pretty sure that shirt didn’t even exist. But you couldn’t tell a five-year-old that.
“Dad, I have to look nice,” he said with all seriousness as I held up another shirt that had a picture of a ninja on it.
Whatever that meant I didn’t understand. The shirt was clean and didn’t have any holes in it, so to me, it was good enough. I looked down at my worn, black tee and wondered if I should change. But then again, my wardrobe consisted of more shirts just like the one I was wearing. Okay, and a few plaid flannels because sometimes it got chilly but not cold enough for a jacket.
That was the moment that my mom’s words hit me. I won’t lie, there were moments I wondered if I could do the single dad thing. But figuring that I had no choice in the matter, I made it work. I did the best I could. I’d never questioned if it was everything he needed until then. However, it wasn’t enough for me to ever want to entertain the idea of letting another woman close enough to fuck up our lives again.
“I guess I’ll just wear this,” he said letting out a resigned sigh. I had to chuckle at that. Sometimes he seemed so grown-up. He slipped on the not-good-enough shirt while I dug through to find some jeans and prayed like hell that they were the right ones. “Thanks, dad.” He gave me a tiny smile as he took the pants out of my hands. Cute as fuck that kid was.
“No problem, buddy,” I said as I stood and ruffled his mop of huge curls.
When I looked at him all I saw was myself. I thanked God for that. He was like a mini-me with his solid build and steel eyes. Even the light brown hair with honeyed highlights was exactly like mine. The only thing that I could tell he got from his mother was the slightly lighter tint to his skin and the few freckles that dotted the bridge of his nose.
“You think Fate will be awake when we get there? You think Auntie Ellie will let me hold her?” he asked taking my hand as we stepped off the porch and started walking up the road to Diesel and Ellie’s house.
I had no idea what it was about that baby, but since the moment she was born he had this need to always make sure she was alright. I was a little nervous the first time he held her, she wasn’t even a week old, but Ellie assured me he’d be fine. And I’ll be damned if he wasn’t because the moment he sat down on that couch and Ellie placed Fate in his arms, he was the calmest I’d ever fucking seen him. He was like that every time with her. I half-joked to Diesel all the time about putting one of those baby front packs on Grass and letting him carry her around everywhere just to keep him from getting into shit.
In the back of my mind, I was terrified he would ask me for a baby sister, or brother. That was a conversation I wasn’t ready to have because I knew I’d have to disappoint him with my answer.