My dorm room bed wasn’t very big, and if the Dean found out Ham was in here, there’d be all hell to pay, but I just couldn’t find it in me to give a fuck.

He and Romeo showed up not long after us a few days ago, and the both of them were meant to be staying in a hotel room a few blocks from campus, but I’d had to come in for class, and he’d followed along. He was heading back to Athens tomorrow, and neither of us were really sure on how things were going to work from here.

I loved the club.

But I also loved it here.

It gave me freedom and independence that I hadn’t ever had.

But it was also a six-hour flight away from Ham.

“Stop frowning will you,” he teased, using his thumb to rub the knot in between my eyes. “We’ll figure it out. We have time, okay? It’s not like I’m leaving forever. Like sayonara, don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

I rolled over into his body, bracing my chin on his chest. “I know. I just want to find a solution that doesn’t involve one of us flying every other weekend. I’ve got school. You’ve got club business.”

He grabbed the sides of my face. “Calm the fuck down.”

I slapped at his chest, and he laughed, the sound slightly warm and comforting, slightly annoying.

“Look, I got a couple things I want to talk to Op about that might get me down here more often. And with Romeo moving back to Vegas, and Phee in Cali, it would be nice to be closer to the West Coast sometimes.”

“You’re not gonna make the club angry, are you?”

He rolled his eyes. “You ever known the club to get angry for a man fighting to make things work with his Old Lady?”

Before I could answer, the door behind me creaked open, and Dakota walked in with her hand covering her eyes. “I’m not looking,” she called, standing beside the door.

I giggled but didn’t move.

Dakota had almost returned to her normal self, but there had still been a couple times over the past few days where I’d seen a fear in her eyes that I knew wasn’t there before. I felt responsible, but she kept trying to tell me it wasn’t my fault.

I felt like it was.

“You can look, weirdo,” I responded, sitting and throwing my legs over the edge of the bed.

She opened her fingers a crack, looking around before taking her hand away completely. “Oh, good, ‘cause grumpy McMotorcycle Man is waiting out front. I was gonna bring him in, but I wasn’t sure whether we were on friendly terms or whether we were still having daddy issues.”

I looked over my shoulder at Ham with wide eyes.

Huntsman was here?

Ham didn’t look surprised which instantly turned my shock to suspicion.

“What did you do?”

He started to laugh and shake his head. “What makes you—”

“What did you do?” I asked again, cutting him off. “Don’t try and tell me that my stubborn fucking Navy SEAL father, who could probably survive fifty-seven forms of torture, suddenly just felt a little bad and decided to drive six hours to Tucson to talk to me about it.”

Dakota didn’t miss a beat, cackling with laughter as she tossed her backpack onto her bed and walked over to her drawers to get her work uniform. “She’s got you there, Roast Beef.”

I rolled my eyes and leaped down off the bed. Dakota had taken to calling Ham a series of different lunch meats because she finds his name so amusing. Not even giving it up when she learned what his full name was or why he was called Hamlet.

“Luckily, no one asked for your opinion, Delaware,” Ham teased as he climbed off the bed and lifted me down to my feet.

Dakota narrowed her eyes at him. “You used the name of a small state on purpose, didn’t you?”

He gasped dramatically and put his hand over his heart. “I would never do that to you, Rhode Island.” Ham was fighting really hard not to burst out laughing, but Dakota looked like she was about to go all kinds of Kung Fu on his ass.

I screwed up my nose but allowed him to pull me toward the door. “Come on, he’s obviously here for a reason.”

The last time I’d seen Huntsman, he walked out, and I’d basically become resigned to the fact he didn’t want anything to do with me.

Did it hurt? Yeah. More than I expected it to, given that I’d only just met him, and he’d held his cards close to his chest the entire time.

Just before we reached the exit, Ham pulled me to a stop and turned me to face him. “You go, I’ll hang out here. We can do something when you get back. Like go and torment Connecticut at work or something.”

“Ham, what’s going on?” I demanded, seeing Huntsman through the glass, standing next to a big-ass truck that could rival Optimus’ beast. “Where’s his Harley?”

Ham grabbed my cheeks and pressed a chaste kiss to my lips. It was quick but hard, and I instantly wanted more, but he drew back. “Can you just trust me on this, please, fury fists?”

Of course.

I would trust him with anything.

So, I took a deep breath and turned around walking out through the double doors. I looked over my shoulder, but Ham was already gone, determined to let me deal with this on my own—at least, right at this moment. I knew he’d already done something.

Tucking my hands into the front pocket of my jeans, I slipped out into the cooling night air. It wasn’t exactly cold, but it had an edge to it, especially in the wind.

October was one of those months that seemed kind of confused. You had to prepare for five different weather situations just to step outside. And with Halloween only a couple days away, you really had to consider what your costume was going to be. Anything too revealing and you could fucking freeze—which was going to be the case for almost every girl in my dorm who’d chosen your typically slutty insert occupation or animal here.

“Hey…” That was the only word I could manage as I came to a stop a few feet away from him.

“You eaten?”

I almost smiled.

He wasn’t good at this. But that wasn’t the point. I was just hoping he might be willing to learn.

“No, but I know this awesome pizza place in town?”

He nodded and pulled the passenger door open. “Let’s go, I’m starved.”

We sat at a table and ordered our food. Two pizzas, meat, extra barbecue sauce, no weird shit—his words not mine.

“What are you doing back here?” I finally asked, ready to hear what he had to say. I wanted to have him in my life, but I wasn’t going to be the only one fighting for that. I needed to know he was going to fight for me too.

“Your man, he wasn’t gonna let this shit go easily.”

I leaned back in my chair. “So, he did say something.” I sighed. “Look, I want you to be here because you want to be here. Not because Hamlet made you feel guilty about shit. I don’t want that, Dad.”

He shook his head, his hand reaching up to scratch at his beard. “Couldn’t be further from the fucking truth. Thought you would have figured out by now, ain’t a person out there who could make me do anything I didn’t want to do.”

That was true. I couldn’t imagine any person ever quilting Huntsman into anything, but I was still confused.

“Nothing’s changed, you know. The club back home, it’s still a part of me. It’s a part of Ham. I’m his Old Lady.”

He pursed his lips. There it was. Huntsman had done a lot to change the rules within his club over the years, fighting for something better for the future of his men and their families. But he was still stuck in his ways with some traditions—one being the fact that his daughter having loyalties to another club made him feel like he wasn’t a strong enough president.

“In our world, it’s all about respect. If you’d been around growing up, your man would need to prove to me he could look after you. That he could take care of you when I passed over that responsibility. I don’t know him. I don’t know whether he’s worthy of that or not.” He looked tired like this had been something which had played on his mind for a long time.

How much did he fight all this new stuff, these new additions to his family?

Or did he just let the card fall wherever they would fall?

“I can appreciate and respect a man who will look me in the eye and tell me that nothing I say will change how much he loves you.”

I started to smile, thinking about the lengths Ham would go to—including walking into my father’s club, knowing how dangerous he was—because he loved me and because he had my back.

“So he passed?”

Huntsman just looked at me for a few seconds before he nodded. “Guess he did.”

“Good, because he really wasn’t going anywhere either way.”

The waiter arrived and placed a pizza in front of both of us, and I instantly grabbed a slice before it had even had a chance to cool, the cheese burning my tongue as I bit into it. I was so excited we could move on from this stupid hang up, and I just wanted to eat. I got two bites in, and he asked the question I’d been waiting for since the first time I’d told him who I was.

“What is your mom doing now?”

I stilled, licking my lips and placing down the half slice.

“She’s got her own cleaning company,” I answered, starting to pick at the toppings and not notice the way his eyes grew wide in shock.

I wasn’t stupid. I knew that cleaning other people’s houses and businesses wasn’t exactly what she thought she’d be doing for her life. Or what anyone thought she’d be doing with her life.

“I’ve got a little brother named Denver, his dad is MIA too, but I think she knows where he is just like she knew where you were this whole time.” I tried not to act angry or disappointed, shrugging it off like it was normal. “She kept us wrapped up in cotton wool, was nothing short of controlling.” His brow knitted together, but I quickly added, “She didn’t have a good few years. My grandparents died. She had me. She had Denver. She had custody of her sister, too. Then about five years ago, my aunt Kim died giving birth to my cousin.”

“Fucking hell.”

I sighed and nodded. “I love her more than life. But she has a lot of demons that she won’t face.”

“Me being one of them.” His body slumped, and suddenly I had a new look at this man. I’d had glimpses of it while we were in Vegas, but here he was. The wall was finally gone.

“Never meant to hurt her. Never meant to leave her to raise my damn child on her own either. Wish I could have been there to help. Not just for you, but for her, too.”

My entire body warmed.

Huntsman was hard, but like every hard-ass biker out there, above anything else, family came first.

“I ain’t got a lot of regrets in life, Meyah. I’m not the type of man to second guess my fucking choices,” he continued, a fierce look coming across his face. “But if I’d just given her my phone number, things would have been so fucking different. I was too fucking stupid, too fucking worried about my own shit, and not wanting another thing to argue with my wife about.” His hand gripped the table tightly like he was going to snap a piece off.

“It doesn’t matter now,” I told him, reaching out and placing my hand over his, prying his grip away. “We still got here. Everything that was meant to happen, it happened.”

He looked me in the eyes. I still couldn’t get over seeing my eyes staring back at me.

“I’d like to come see her.”

“She’ll probably try and cut your dick off with a rusty knife,” I warned, not even fucking joking one bit as I imagined my mom losing her shit as she saw the man that knocked her up walk through the door with me.

Huntsman just smirked though. “Some things never change.”