“Uh, yeah, it is.” I am pissed now. “Just because you hate your parents doesn’t mean I have to hate mine!”
“What, so you’re just gonna take him back with open arms?” Jude half-shouts.
“I’m not saying that!”
“Well, then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying why do you care?” I snap. “And that it is none of your goddamn business whether I decide to have a relationship with my own father!”
“It ain’t, eh?” Jude glares at me, his eyes stormy. “Okay, then. Message received.”
He storms off, slamming the door behind him.
I stare at the door for a few seconds, immobile.
Then I throw the stuffed lion across the room.
23
Jude
Fuck. This. Shit.
I storm the hell out of the clubhouse, too pissed to be around anyone in the club right now. Goddamnit, I am sick of giving a damn about Lila. Giving more of a damn about her than she does about herself.
Part of me wishes to hell she hadn’t ever come back anywhere near the Lords of Carnage again. It fucks with my head, having her here. Plus, I was stupid as shit, sleeping with her. I let myself get in too deep. Let myself think we were in some kind of relationship or something. What a goddamn sap I am.
Here I’ve been doing my best to protect her, and be an ear to listen. A shoulder to fuckin’ cry on. I’ve been trying to be what she needs. Someone she can trust. And for what? She welcomes a father who has literally never fucking been there for her in her life with open arms. And pushes me the fuck away for giving a shit about her.
This shit is profoundly fucked up.
I can’t go to my own goddamn house, because my fucking parents are there. And I’m not in any mood to hang around the clubhouse knowing Lila’s there. So instead I ride up to the Smiling Skull and nurse beer after beer until I close the place down. When I get back to the clubhouse, the kids’ birthday party is over and Lila’s door is shut. I close myself inside my apartment, and try not to think about the fact that just on the other side of the wall is the woman I’ve been sharing a bed with for a week.
And that I was starting to hope we might be on a track to share a lot more than that.
The next day, I’m in no mood to be Lila’s guard dog, so I go find Angel in his office and ask him to put someone else on her for a while.
“I can do that,” Angel says from behind his desk. “You good? Something up?”
“Nah,” I lie. “I just got some stuff to do. Need a break.”
“Got ya.” I turn to go. “Hey, listen, Jude, since you’re here, have a seat. I wanna talk to you for a bit. Shut the door.”
I push the door closed, but instead of sitting, I lean against the wall. “What’s up?”
“Jewel told me she gave you the news about your dad’s diagnosis.”
“Yeah.”
“Wanted to let you know I’m sorry.”
I sidestep that. “How long’s he got?” I ask in spite of myself, just for something to say.
“Not too long, I guess. A few months at the most.”
I nod. “Fine by me.”
Angel frowns, studies the wall behind me for a few seconds. Then:
“Jude, when they first got here, your parents made Jewel promise not to tell you why they came. I guess they figured you’d eventually come around to see them. But now, time’s running out for your dad. They’re losing hope. So she broke her promise to them and decided to tell you.”
For some reason, a memory comes to me then: of Jewel’s face when I told her I wasn’t going to forgive them. They’re dead to me, I said.
The way Jewel flinched at my words makes more sense now.
I clear my throat. “Well, tell Jewel it doesn’t matter that she broke her word to them. I don’t give a shit either way, so it doesn’t change a thing.”
“Look, Jude. Jewel asked me to talk to you about all this. Try to get you to reconsider. She figured you might listen to me better than you listen to her.”
“You mean because you’re my prez, and you can kick my ass out of the club if I don’t do what you say?” I joke, even though joking is the last thing I feel like doing right now.
“Something like that,” Angel agrees. “But also, because my dad was a piece of shit, too. But when he came back to town, Jenna convinced me to give him a chance. Let him speak his piece about how he’d changed.”
I remember that time. Shit, it was almost four years ago now, I think. I was a hang-around back then, or maybe I had just started prospecting, I don’t know. It was Christmastime, and Angel and Jenna’s dad, Abe Abbott, showed up in Tanner Springs after being AWOL for years. He had betrayed Jenna and Angel, and fucked over the club, too. But he came here to own up for his mistakes, and accept whatever judgment and punishment they felt like he deserved. Since I wasn’t a Lord yet, I don’t know the particulars, but I do know that Jenna and Angel forgave him. Now Abe is married to Trudy, the widow of the ex-president of our MC before Angel took over.
“It’s been good to have Abe in our kids’ lives,” Angel admits, as he leans back in his chair. “And Trudy, too. He and I have mended fences, but what’s been more important is that our kids have grandparents now.” He waits a beat. “And now, with your folks here, they have a chance to know their other set of grandparents. And your mom will have family when your dad dies.” He pauses. “Sometimes you have to forgive.”
“And sometimes you don’t,” I retort. “More power to all of you, Angel.” I push myself off the wall. “I mean that shit. I guess I’m glad Jewel can forgive and forget so easily. But that doesn’t mean I have to. I’m only lettin’ them stay at my place for Jewel’s sake. Far as I’m concerned, I don’t have parents.”
Before Angel can say any more, I’m gone. I straddle my bike, fire up the engine, and skid out of the lot. I don’t know where I wanna be right now, but here ain’t it. Goddamnit, this is the second time in as many days that I’ve bolted out of here to stop having a conversation I didn’t want to have.
But this time, the conversation keeps unfurling in my head, before I can stop it.
Jewel thinks she knows why I’m done with our parents. She thinks she understands why I’m pissed they sent me away.
Jewel doesn’t know shit.
God, I missed Jewel like hell when she left home at seventeen. Don’t get me wrong, I understood why she left. She was their favorite verbal punching bag. As soon as she hit puberty and started to fill out, they took to calling her “slut” or “whore” almost as often as they did her actual name. That shit was toxic as hell for her. Anyone with sense would have done what she did.
But when she was there, our parents mostly ignored me, as long as I kept my head down and didn’t get into the kind of trouble that a teacher or a principal would call them about. Once Jewel was gone, though, suddenly I was the shitty kid who was gonna turn out bad and ruin their lives, instead of her.
They were especially mad at Jewel for leaving because the jobs she did part-time after school brought in some extra money that the family needed. As I got older, they started talking about me needing to pull my weight to help out. At fourteen, I wasn’t old enough to legally work yet. But my father found a workaround. He had a friend — maybe his only friend, to be honest — who had a small liquor store, in an area of town that barely brought him in any customers. He was more or less a one-man shop because business wasn’t good enough for him to have more employees. But he told my father he could use me working there for a few hours a day, stocking shelves and stuff. He’d pay me in cash under the table and no one would be the wiser. If anyone came in asking questions, he’d tell them I was his son.
My parents didn’t need to be asked twice. They made a deal with the friend that I’d ride my bike over there after school a couple times a week, and work there half-time in the summer. I didn’t really want to do it, but I didn’t have much of a choice. I figured I could skim some of the money I made off the top before I gave it to my paren
ts, and make it worth my while that way.
For the first couple weeks, everything was fine. Until the day my dad’s friend trapped me in the back of the store room and tried to get me to suck his dick.
Ma and Tata didn’t believe me when I told them what had happened. They told me to stop spouting evil lies, and sent me back to work again the next day.
The second time it happened I punched him in the face and left.
That was when shit turned bad at home. Ma and Tata were mad as hell when I told them I wasn’t going back to work at the liquor store. I was sick to my stomach, profoundly sick, that my own parents cared so much about the extra cash I could bring in that they’d refuse to believe a story so fucked up, they had to know I wouldn’t have invented it. I started looking for every excuse not to spend time at home. I fell in with a bunch of kids who had it even worse at home than I did. We went around looking for trouble. More often than not, it found us.
By the time I was seventeen, I got sent to juvie. When I got out, Ma and Tata had gotten a taste of what life was like without me. They decided they liked it better that way. So they sent me to Tanner Springs, so I could be Jewel’s problem instead of theirs.
So now they’re here, hoping to make themselves Jewel’s and my problem. Well, fuck that. Jewel can do what she wants. She’s got her own history with them, and her own relationship with them. Me? I made my decision a long time ago.
I consider going back to the Skull and spending another day at the bottom of a glass of beer. But instead, I head to Rebel Ink, to see if Stacia can finish up this sleeve today.
Sometimes physical pain is the best distraction from the pain inside your head.
24
Lila
In the days after my fight with Jude, he keeps his distance, and that’s just fine by me.
Angel tells me Jude has some other business he needs to take care of, and that Steeze has volunteered to be my driver and bodyguard for a while.
I don’t ask Angel if he knows that Jude and I had a fight. After all, no one knows that there was anything between us other than just being friends. And the idea of having a relationship talk with the president of the Lords of Carnage makes my face flame.
Steeze definitely seems to know something’s up, though.
“You and Golden Boy have a lovers’ spat?” he tosses at me one day as he’s driving me to the library.
“No comment,” I mutter.
“He acts like his shit don’t stink, but Jude ain’t all that. You should give a real man a try.”
“And by ‘real man,’ I suppose you mean you?” I shoot back.
Steeze looks over at me and grins. “Ain’t no realer, baby.”
Suddenly, I’ve had about all I can take of his attempts to get into my pants. “You know what, Steeze?” I spit out. “Not all women want to be treated like a damn sex object every hour of the day. I’m tired of your bullshit. You wanna fantasize about me? You wanna pull your meat at night thinking about me without my clothes on? Go crazy, there’s nothing I can do about it. But leave me out of it, okay? Can it with the come-ons. I am not interested. Got it? Not today, not tomorrow, not ever!”
Steeze reddens. His jaw clenches. I’ve pissed him off, and maybe I could have been less blunt, but at this point, I don’t care.
“You’re a fuckin’ bitch, you know that?” he snarls. “You come off like this poor little girl, down on her luck. ‘Oh, protect me, protect me!’ You expect people to fuckin’ bow down to you, and you don’t give them shit in return. Oh, except for Jude, right? You’ll spread your legs for him easy enough.”
“You shut your mouth,” I snap. “My business is my business. And it’s got nothing to do with you.”
“Someday you’re gonna get what’s coming to you. You know that?” Steeze narrows his eyes at me. “And I’m gonna laugh like hell when you do.”
He turns his eyes back to the road and doesn’t say another word. I cross my arms and turn toward my window. Fine by me. I’d rather he keep his mouth shut if this is the way he’s gonna be. I’m sick of him not taking no for an answer. Between that and him hating me, I’ll take him hating me any day. At least maybe he’ll leave me alone.
I don’t call Hunter Dunn. At least not right away. I don’t even ask Tweak for his number. The days tick down until he leaves again for Seattle, but like he promised, he doesn’t try to contact me. He leaves me space. He leaves me distance.
It’s the best gift he could possibly give me.
On the fifth day — two days before Hunter is scheduled to leave — I go to the tiny closet in my apartment and pull out my battered backpack. Unzipping it, I reach in toward the bottom and take out one of the only items left inside: the small box that I grabbed from my nightstand on the day we found André’s dead body.
I lower myself to sit on the floor. Spike comes up next to me and climbs into my lap. She’s definitely pregnant, as Jude guessed. She’s getting bigger all the time. No one else at the clubhouse seems to have noticed yet. I should probably tell Angel, though, before she has her kittens on the pool table or something.
The hinges on the tiny box are stiff. I haven’t opened it in years. Truth is, I’m surprised I even remembered I had it, much less thought to grab it from the house at the last minute.
I pry it open. Inside is a simple gold ring with a tiny stone. It looks like a diamond, but I have no idea whether it’s real. Hesitating, I take it out and put it on my left ring finger. It fits almost perfectly. The last time I did this, it was way too big for my child’s finger.
My mom’s ring. The one Hunter gave her when he proposed.
It’s literally the only thing I have from my father. And now, one of the only things I have that once belonged to my mother.
Not that she gave it to me. Oh, she showed it to me, one day when she was pretty drunk and feeling uncharacteristically nostalgic. She probably forgot she had done it by the next day. I knew where she kept it, at the bottom of a dresser drawer thrown in with a bunch of other stuff. Once, when I was about twelve, money was really tight, and she was drunk and rambling about stuff she could sell to get some extra cash. One of the things she mentioned was the ring. I waited until she was passed out on the couch that night, then stole into the bedroom and took the box. A few weeks later, I heard her rummaging around in her drawers, swearing under her breath. I guessed she was searching for it. She never asked me if I knew where it was, though. She must have figured she lost it somehow.
I don’t know why that ring felt important enough to me to hide it so my mom wouldn’t sell it. It’s not that I missed my father. After all, I never even had a memory of him. But in a way, it was at least a reminder that he existed. And proof that my parents were actually married at one time. That at one point prior to my existence, there was hope. Hope for a family. Something they planned on, and wanted. Even if that hope was long gone by the time I came on the scene.
Taking the ring from André’s house — remembering it, and not leaving it behind — felt like taking a piece of my mom with me. But it was a piece of my dad, too.
And unlike my mom, my dad is still here.
Pensively, I twist the ring off of my left finger and place it on my right. Then I move Spike off my lap and go to find Tweak.
Hunter Dunn answers my call on the second ring.
“Hello, Dad?” I say.
Hunter — Dad — takes me out for dinner the night before he leaves, after clearing it with Angel and Beast. We spent the day before mostly at the clubhouse, just playing pool and darts and catching up on all the years of our lives we missed out on. He tells me more about how his and my mom’s relationship turned sour, not sugarcoating his role in how things went bad. He tells me that losing out on seeing me grow up is the biggest regret of his life.
I try to believe him. I find myself hoping it’s true — that he actually did want to be in my life back then. That this isn’t just something he’s making up to make himself look better to me, now that he’s here and we�
�ve reconnected. Human beings love to tell stories, I know. After all, the library I’m so fond of is full of them. We have all sorts of needs for them, in all sorts of situations. Sometimes they’re to entertain others, and sometimes they’re to soothe ourselves. Sometimes, they’re a little bit of both.
I know on some level, everyone wants to believe they’re the hero or heroine of their own story. No matter how honest we try to be with ourselves, on some level, we’re drawn to the version of our tale that makes our motives clean, our goals pure of intention.
Dad says he wants to be my father. That he always wanted to be in my life. Whether it’s true or not, I think it’s what both of us want to believe. I’m not quite willing to accept it yet. But maybe the fact that it’s a story we both want to be true can be enough for us, going forward. I don’t know.
I guess time will tell.
Dad pushes pretty hard to take me back with him once he knows more about why I’m staying under guard at the Lords of Carnage clubhouse. But Beast manages to convince him that I’m safer here right now. I tell him I’m not ready to pack up my entire life — such as it is — and move someplace new, with a father I’ve known for less than a week.
At the end of our last night before he leaves, he gives me a kiss on my forehead — which feels awkward as hell, but still nice.
“You’re an adult now, Lila,” he says. “You’re free to make your own decisions. But remember, I want you to come to Seattle. It would make me happier than anything. So, whenever, if ever you change your mind, just come, okay? Promise me?”
I promise.
As he pulls away after dropping me off at the clubhouse, I watch him go, marveling that I finally, actually have a dad. It’s something I didn’t even think to wish for, even a month ago. And now, here he is. Part of me wishes I could go back in time, and at least have a little while of him being here when I was a kid. He would teach me about cars or something, and tell me what to do. Maybe he’d be really strict, and tell me I couldn’t go on a date, or ground me, or something. Put his foot down about stuff, like dads in movies and books do.
JUDE: Lords of Carnage MC Page 14
