I LEFT THE CLUBHOUSE alone and went for a ride. I needed some wind therapy. The sorry thing was, even the wind whipping past me as I flew down the highway did little to still or calm my crazy fucking mind. My thoughts were all over the place. I felt angry. I felt betrayed for some stupid goddamn reason. I felt hopeless… and for the first time in a long while, I felt like giving up.
As I approached a sharp curve in the road, it crossed my mind to just keep going straight. At the last minute, I slowed, leaning into the curve and accelerating on the throttle as I continued through the curve. I took the next turn and followed the road as it curved again, past the lake, pulling into a boat loading and unloading area.
I hit the kill switch and put my kickstand down as I sat on my bike, leaning over my handlebars and staring out at the sun reflecting and glittering on the water. I took a deep breath. I didn’t know what to fucking do with myself…
I leaned against a crumbling wall, gunfire and explosions coming from all around us. Mason sat next to me and took a quick glance through a hole in the wall. There was no sign of our extraction team yet. We had taken out our target and had made it to the rendezvous spot. We looked at each other and leaned our heads back against the shitty wall again.
I pulled my phone out. I didn’t have service, of course, but I brought it with me and kept it charged just so I could look at the picture of her smile. I told myself, when I got home, I would find her no matter what it took.
I would tell her that it may sound crazy, but she had kept me sane while I was gone and I was pretty sure I loved her. In my mind, she would hug me, telling me she loved me too and she had been waiting for me. I kissed the screen, turning the phone off and tucking it back into my IBA. I looked at Mason and he shook his head and smiled as we heard the sound of the Blackhawk getting closer. Mason and I raced up to the top of the hill, and I sent up a thank you to my angel for getting me through again.
I shook my head, clearing out the memory that had taken over and felt so incredibly real. I needed to just fucking move on. I needed to accept that she wasn’t my damn guardian angel anymore and the dream that had kept me sane had come to an end.
I had a job coming up that required me to have my fucking head screwed on straight if I didn’t want to let my brothers down. It was time to get all my fucking shit in one sack and deal. Hell, I didn’t know how much more crap I could handle on my plate, but I had dealt with worse before and came out just fucking fine.
Fucking A.
I leaned back, starting up my bike again and heading back toward town. I needed a fucking beer.
Shit.
The closer I got toward town, the clearer my head was beginning to feel. Fuck her, I didn’t need her shit in my life if she was going to fuck around on her guy with me anyway. She obviously wasn’t the girl my imagination built her ass up to be. Reality never lived up to fantasy.
Before I knew it, I was pulling up to the Oasis. Backing my bike up to the curb, I hit the kill switch, and flipped down the kickstand. After getting off my bike, I slid my shades off and stepped into the dim interior. I walked up to the bar and Mama handed me my Corona then asked me who fucking kicked my puppy. A self-depreciating laugh escaped me.
“Let’s just say I’ve come to some realizations and life isn’t always what you think it’s gonna be.” I took my beer to a booth in the back where I could sit in the shadows and not have anyone bother me.
I had been nursing my beer for a while when I heard the door open and someone come in and a child squealed in laughter. It was a melodious sound and it made me smile as I took another drink of my beer, realizing it had begun to grow warm. I drew lines in the condensation as I absently listened to the murmur of voices from up front. Suddenly, there were quick little footsteps running toward me, and a little kid scrambled up into the other side of my booth. As she placed her hands flat on the table, she peered at me, giving me a big dimpled grin and said “Hi!” just as I heard a familiar woman’s voice coming closer.
“Remi, you cannot just run off! And you can’t just hop up and bother people… I’m so sorry, sirrrrr….” Her voice trailed off, and I looked up to see Stephanie going white as a sheet for the second time in two days as she stood stock-still by the table. My heart raced just seeing her. It made me wish the traitorous chunk of muscle in my chest was still dead inside.
I didn’t know what finally clued me in, but I looked from her to the little girl who was obviously around two years old or so. I took in the dimples, the ice-blue eyes, the dark head of hair—though with curls just like her mother—and I tried to do the math.
No. No fucking way. I flashed my eyes to Steph who was trying to pick up the little girl she called Remi, but the little one was having none of it. I reached out, placing my hand on her arm.
“Leave her. Sit.” My tone left no room for argument. My nostrils flared. My breathing sped up. She slid into the booth next to the little girl, twisting her hands on the tabletop and staring at them so she didn’t have to meet my eyes.
“Is she…?” I couldn’t say it. The words got stuck in my throat, and I couldn’t swallow.
“Yes,” I barely heard her whisper.
I was in shock. This bitch had my baby? And kept her from me to have some other asshole raise her? I clenched my jaw as I struggled to maintain my cool so as not to frighten the little sweetheart sitting at the table organizing the ketchup, salt, and pepper containers.
On that night so many years ago, I had told her I had no family I knew of and I wished it were different. I didn’t discuss a lot about myself, but I remembered that being mentioned. How could she think it was okay to keep her from me, knowing I had no one? I wanted to throttle her, and I didn’t hurt women. Never did I hurt women. I felt like I had just been dealt the deepest betrayal anyone could have given me. I had made her into an untouchable guardian angel these past few years, and I now realized how incredibly foolish that unrealistic ideal had been.
As I stood, I looked her dead in the eye. I felt indescribable anger toward her, and I was having a hard time reining in my rage. I wanted to scoop the little girl—my little girl—up and run off with her, but I knew I was in no state of mind to be around her.
“So you had my baby, didn’t even try to find me, and then just replaced me in her life?” It came out an angry whisper. I could only shake my head in disbelief. Ignoring the look of shocked incredulity on her face, I walked around her and stormed out the door. She had no right to look shocked. No right at all. I also ignored her franticly calling my name when she burst out the door of the bar as I revved my engine to drown out her voice and rode off like a bat out of hell down the street and out of town.
I was the one who needed to gather my thoughts now. And when I was done, she and I were going to sit down and I was going to get some fucking answers.
I found myself back at the boat landing. I was lying on the end of the ancient small dock that jutted out into the lake, staring at the pale blue sky with the clouds drifting slowly past. The color reminded me of the sheets we wrinkled and scattered off the bed that night so long ago. I imagined them tucked around her full tits in the pic I still carried with me on my phone’s memory card. What a pathetic piece of shit I was. No matter what I did, I couldn’t fucking reconcile the angel of my memories with the woman she really was, and it was fucking killing me. I slammed both fists down to the dock beside me, feeling the ancient boards rattle and shake with the force of the connection.
I sat up, leaning my head on my crossed arms as they rested on my knees, and closed my eyes, focusing on the sound of the birds, the water lapping gently against the pilings of the dock and the shore, and my breath as it entered and exited my body. It felt like I had been transported back to my time in the hospital—feeling dead and disillusioned inside, but knowing I was alive by the sounds around me.
After my mind calmed, I felt a little guilty for the way I treated her. I was a real dick. Sometimes I just couldn’t control my anger, despite working so fucking hard at holding that part of my wicked inner demons at bay. It was as if the dam didn’t just burst, it fucking exploded.
I pictured the little girl… my little girl. Damn, I just couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that I was a father. She had my dark hair and the same fucking dimples that chicks seemed to go apeshit over, not that I had ever used that to my advantage.
Yeah, whatever.
Her eyes were the same blue as mine, not pale and soft like her mother’s, but clear and vibrant, with the darker blue flecks I saw every time I looked in the mirror. More than those few things, I couldn’t recall because I began seeing red soon after she had climbed up to the table with me and things clicked into place.
One thing I knew for a certainty was I wanted to have a relationship with her. Tough shit if her mother had replaced me in her life. My child was going to know me. I would never have her growing up like I had, not knowing her father. I needed to talk to Stephanie now that I had calmed the fuck down and pulled my stupid hot head out of my ass… sort of.
I removed my phone from my back pocket and pulled up the message she sent me. I shot off a reply and stuck it back in my pocket after I received her brief response.
Me: We need to talk. Tonight. Meet me at the Oasis. Dress for a ride.
Stephanie: I’ll see what I can do.
I needed to get back to the clubhouse and talk to Hacker. We needed to fix that shit from this morning. We were brothers, and I couldn’t have shit like that hanging over us and coming between us. He needed to know that the “kid” Steph had was mine. My kid. My daughter. I also needed him to look into what she had been up to over the last three years. I wanted to know who the preppy fuck she was with was and everything about him. I wanted to know the first time he took a shit and who changed it. I wanted to know what he ate for breakfast. I wanted to know what his throat felt like as it was being squeezed by my bare hands because he had touched her. I wanted to know how and where she had been raising my child.
My daughter.
Fuck. I had a daughter.
I was a fucking father.
Jesus, help me.
Stephanie… My Stephanie. I finally had her name, and yet she wasn’t mine and never would be. She had moved on just like I knew and hoped she would. I was never meant for her. I was damaged and evil. My soul was black and rotting. I had snuffed out the lives of human beings without batting an eye. I was scarred and broken. No good for her. I could only hope that I could be a better father than I was a man.