“You come back once you’ve cleared your head, but you won’t erupt at those guys again. Rock and Brewer are already trying to figure out how to dig up information, even though you completely withheld your life’s circumstance from us. So, come back with a better attitude. You hear me? We’re here to help you. We’re here brainstorming for you and the sake of your daughter. Understand the situation you’ve put us in by not divulging any of your life with us and own up to the mistakes you’ve made. Come back with a clear head and let’s get to work. Got it?”
And as I bit down into the inside of my cheek to keep from firing back at him, I nodded my head.
I cranked the engine up and pushed away from the clubhouse. The motor carried me away, up the coastline and straight into town. I soared by shops I’d become familiar with. I rode by food as my stomach growled out at me. I sure as hell wasn’t stopping for wings at a time like this, though. I didn’t deserve an ounce of nourishment or sleep until this shit was resolved. Until I had my daughter back in my arms. My own personal anger toward myself grew with every mile that fell behind me.
I should have never relied so heavily on Lyle watching her for all these years.
“Will someone get the fucking door!?”
Dad’s voice bounced off the walls as another knock came at the door. Then, the doorbell rang. I rushed out of my room, fumbling down the steps as I tried to get to it before he did. I heard her voice already laced with alcohol. And that only meant one thing.
Mom and I were in for it tonight.
“Don’t make me get up off this couch,” Dad glowered.
“Oh, shut up, old man. Your son’s getting the door,” Mom said.
“The fuck did you say to me?”
I felt a fight already striking up and prayed it was Lyle. Coming to whisk me away on some grand adventure. Or merely, to invite me to dinner. I pulled the door open and smiled, waiting to see my best friend on the other side of the door.
But instead, a soft hiccup greeted me at the door.
I ripped myself from my trance as a car horn honked. I swerved back into my lane, barely missing the Ferrari as it tore down the oncoming lane. I drew in a deep breath as the memory flashed through my mind. The first time I gazed upon Ariel’s face. The first time I looked into those deep hazel eyes. The first time I set my sights on that fiery red hair and understood exactly what had taken place.
At the time, I had no idea what to do.
And now, I still had no fucking clue what to do.
At sixteen years of age, I took on a kid. I mean, I didn't know what else to do at the time. I didn't know shit about adoption. And to be honest, the thought never crossed my mind. Maybe it should have, though. Ariel could have had a much better life with a stable couple prepared for a child. Whether that made me stupid or selfish, I’d never know. But the first time I cradled her in my arms that night, I understood what love meant. All my life, up until that point, I’d grown up knowing what fear meant. What anger meant. What disappointment meant. But never love. Despite how my mother shielded me from my father, in the end, she always did what she thought was best for her. Instead of getting us out of that situation, she stayed by him. Stuck with him. Despite what he did to us. She made selfish decisions, and that selfishness had been reflected in my own actions.
Fuck, I’m turning into my goddamn mother.
The thought made me sick, which only made me angrier. I kicked it into high gear, speeding up and down the highway as I racked my brain and came up with nothing. I didn't even know where to begin. I didn’t know how to start tracking my daughter down. My head felt cloudy. My eyes were masked with tears. I didn't even want to imagine the veritable tortures being brought down onto her head right now.
And all because I’d been selfish.
I couldn't imagine my life without Ariel. Even though I relied heavily on Lyle to babysit and watch her, I couldn't imagine my life without my baby girl. I turned off the highway and brought myself to a comfortable cruise. I remembered back to the first time Ariel ever rode on my bike. I kept her tight against me as I eased down the road, her arms tight around my neck. Her legs locked around my waist. I remembered the feel of her soft red locks pummeling me in the face. I remembered the searing looks I got from our neighbors as I slowly cruised through our neighborhood. We had a small house on the outskirts of the city. Nothing fancy. Nothing to boast about. But it was ours, and we’d been there ever since moving out of that dingy, disgusting apartment.
Fully paid off. So, no one could ever take it from us.
Why didn’t you tell the damn club about her, you idiot?
It wasn’t that I didn’t want them to find out. It was that I didn’t want Ariel to find out. I didn’t want her growing up in that kind of a lifestyle until I knew the lifestyle would be safe. Just like I kept her shielded from the work I did up until Knox came along, I wanted to keep her shielded from this. Which meant keeping both sides in the dark until they right time came along. It never did, though. From the second I became a prospect, it seemed as if problems poured in from all sides. So, I didn’t tell the guys about my daughter. And I didn’t tell her about the guys.
The biggest mistake you could’ve ever made, asshole.
I sighed as I came to a stop at a stoplight. Damn it, these Redding lights took forever to cycle through sometimes. And as I sat there, staring aimlessly at the red light glaring at me, I thought about how much it reminded me of Ariel’s hair.
Everything reminded me of her.
The rolodex of my memories continued to swirl and swivel about. It stopped on the first time she ever walked. Moving away from the couch and flinging herself at me because she wanted to cuddle against Daddy. I relived the first word she ever said. “Diaper,” believe it or not. She brought one to me one day and tossed it at me, then said the word. Commanding me to change her butt as she laid down on the floor. And I’d been so stunned and so excited that I called Lyle to tell him about it.
Took me damn near fifteen minutes to get her diaper changed that one time.
Does that make me a bad father?
I rushed through my other memories of her. More memories that had more selfish moments I’d stolen for myself. Like, the first solid meal she’d ever eaten. I cooked for her and she ate it, so the next night I cooked my favorite meal. Taking advantage of the opportunity to eat something I wanted to eat for once. And when she didn’t want to try it, I enacted punishment. She didn’t get dessert unless she took a bite of everything on her plate.
That had been our first-ever fight. The first time she ever screamed at me or bucked up to me. As shocking as it sounded, she’d never thrown a tantrum up until that point. Up until I put my foot down with the food she was eating. She flipped the damn plate onto the floor and smacked her hands against her highchair. Then, she screamed at me. A long, steady shriek that was forever ingrained into my memory.
I should’ve just cooked what I knew she’d eat.
The memories kept pouring through, reminding me of how selfish I’d been over the years. Taking her to parks I wanted to go to instead of ones she wanted to go to. Not taking her to the pool whenever she asked. Making her play outside whenever I wanted to be outside instead of cooped up in the house. Reading nighttime stories only twice instead of three times.
Why the fuck didn’t you just read the damn book one last time?
I might not ever get those moments back. She might not ever want to go to the pool with me again. Ariel might not ever want a bedtime story again. A car horn honking again pulled me from my mind, and I saw the green light in front of me. I revved my bike as cars whipped around me, flicking me off and yelling at me for being such an asshole. And while I would’ve yelled right back at them, I didn’t.
Because when I looked beyond the green light, I saw something familiar. I saw a red blob bouncing off in the distance. I saw those long legs. I heard that boisterous laughter. And it stopped me in my tracks.
As cars whizzed around my stalemated bike, I sq
uinted my eyes. Focusing on the small figure walking down the sidewalk.
Holy shit.
That’s Ariel.
6
Kaylynn
“How’s your food?” I asked.
Ariel shrugged. “Okay.”
“You need anything to go with it? Some more apple juice?”
“No.”
“Want another slice of peanut butter toast?”
“I’m okay.”
“What about a banana? I hear that’s good on peanut butter toast.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Daddy eats that. It’s gross looking.”
I snickered. “Well, if you need anything else, don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Can-we-go-out-somewhere-today?”
The question flew out of her mouth so quickly, I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right. I looked at her from beyond my coffee mug, watching how sheepish she became after firing the question out into the ethers. I’d been trying to get her to talk all through breakfast. She came downstairs, flopped down at the kitchen table, and didn't say a word while I cooked her food. All she did was yawn, nod her head, and sigh every time I asked her a question.
“You want to go out somewhere today?” I asked.
She blushed. “This house is kind of boring.”
I grinned. “I suppose it is, in a way.”
“Why don’t you have TV or anything?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess there’s so much negativity on television lately, I don’t feel like watching it.”
“TV has cartoons. Those are funny.”
“I haven’t watched cartoons in a very long time.”
“You could do Netflix, like Uncle Lyle. Then, you have cartoons and fun shows without the bad shows.”
“Uncle Lyle, huh? You like him?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s he like?”
She sighed. “He’s Uncle Lyle. I don’t know. He’s weird. Works on cars. Always comes home smelling like butthole.”
I giggled. “That’s a pretty rough smell.”
“Especially from Uncle Lyle,” she murmured.
I laughed softly to myself. “Want to go out and get a TV, then? You know, to watch Netflix?”
She perked up. “Really? We can do that?”
“Sure. Why not? We can get something for the living room so we can both watch it.”
“And the bedroom?”
“Maybe not the bedroom. But you can stay up an hour later and watch Netflix if you start coming down and socializing more. How does that sound?”
She thought about it hard. “Okay. Don’t ask questions about Daddy, though.”
I paused. “Why not?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t like it when you do.”
“Fair enough. Can I ask questions about Carlie, then?”
“Yeah.”
“And Uncle Lyle?”
“Mhm.”
“And school?”
“I guess.”
I held out my hand across the table. “Deal.”
We shook on it, then finished up our breakfast. I sipped down two cups of coffee while Ariel finished her peanut butter toast and juice. Then, we set off for the store. I mean it wasn’t as if I had to keep us cooped up in this house. I just had to make sure she didn’t get away from me. So, I kept her close. We drove to the electronics store and I talked to one of the customer service reps about what I wanted. A television and Netflix, however that worked. I wasn’t savvy when it came to technology. I kept myself as far away from it as possible, actually. My cell phone was a smart phone, simply because my brother demanded it to be one. But I didn’t use all its functions. Just for calling, and the occasional text message.
After forty-five minutes with the customer service representative, Ariel and I walked out to the car with a fifty-inch flat-screen television and something called a Roku. The guy said the directions were simple, so I didn’t bombard him with too many questions. And judging by the pep in Ariel’s step, she probably knew how to use the thing anyway.
A nine-year-old.
Knowing how to use technology more than a twenty-seven-year-old.
“Can we go do something else now?” she asked.
I closed the trunk, shutting the electronics inside. “I don’t know. What were you thinking?”
“Lunch.”
I giggled. “We just had breakfast, silly town.”
“So, a snack?”
“What in the world kind of snack would you want?”
She smiled brightly. “Ice cream.”
“Oh. I see where this is going. A big, fat ice cream first thing in the morning.”
“I mean it’s not really first thing in the morning.”
I grinned. “You’re good at getting what you want, aren’t you?”
Her smile faltered a little. “Not really.”
I wanted to press on about her statement, but I also didn’t want to upset her. This was the most playful she’d been since being dropped into my care over two weeks ago. And I was enjoying it.
“Well, ice cream it is, then,” I said.
“Really!?” she exclaimed.
“Really, really, really.”
She threw her arms around my waist and hugged me tightly, her head falling just between my breasts. It shocked me, the contact. She hadn’t so much as touched me for more than a high-five since she’d been here. Of her own volition, that is. I softly wrapped my arms around her, cradling the back of her head in the palm of my hand. I closed my eyes. I reveled in the moment.
Did this mean she was starting to trust me?
I mean if that was what this meant, then I might be able to get her to talk about her parents a little more. Figure out who they are. What their names are. You know, other than Uncle Lyle. If I could figure out who her parents were—or who her father was—I might be able to get her back to them without my brother knowing.
It was a super-risky plan. Especially since I wasn’t quite sure whether or not we were being followed.
But, for Ariel’s sake, I had to take the shot.
“Ready for that ice cream?” I asked.
I ran my fingers through her beautiful hair as she nodded.
“Ready.”
We climbed into my car and I watched her gaze out the window in the backseat. She kicked her legs around as a massive smile crawled across her face. I drove to the nearest ice cream place I could think of that might be open at ten in the morning. And still, it took me going to two separate places before I found a place that opened around eleven. That meant sitting in the car for a little while to wait. But Ariel didn’t seem to mind.
“Wanna listen to some music while we wait?” I asked.
“Okay.”
“Do you have a favorite kind of music?”
“Um… the one with the instruments?”
“I think all music uses instruments.”
“No, no. The stuff with real instruments. Like ‘jellos,’ and ‘bases,’ and ‘flouts.’”
I paused. “You mean ‘classical?’”
“Yeah! That’s it. Can we listen to that?”
“You like classical music?”
She nodded. “Mhm. Daddy and I listen to it all the time. He loves it.”
Huh.
“Well, you’re in luck. Because I love things like opera and symphonies,” I said.
Then, I turned on my favorite classical music radio station.
I watched her in the rearview mirror as she swayed and bobbed with the beat. Her little hands started flailing around softly. Almost as if she were conducting the philharmonic herself. It made me smile. Such a precious girl when she wasn’t so angry.
Maybe it was good she was in my care.
Part of me wanted to return her to her family. To her father, at least. But I’d gotten a glimpse of how angry this little girl had become. And it made me wonder if she even came from a good family. At the very least, she came from someone who didn’t understand how to deal with kids. She’d made t
hat painfully clear. Ariel reminded me a lot of my brother and how he’d act out as a child. Back when my father was grooming him to take over the role he had now. She had the same kind of anger that silently devoured my childhood. That made me regret a lot of decisions I’d made with my life.
And that kind of anger didn’t come from good parents.
We listened to song after song until the ice cream parlor in front of us opened. And still, once they were opened, we listened to two more songs before we finally got out of the car. We walked inside, trying to make up our minds while the owner of the small store got everything in order. Ariel stood next to me, pressing herself close. She took my arm and wrapped it around her, placing my hand where she wanted it. She wanted me to hold her. To touch her. To cradle her against my side. So, I did. With great pleasure.
She wrapped her hands around my waist.
“You two know what you want yet?” the owner asked.
“Actually, yes. I think I’m going to get a medium birthday cake surprise. Just without the whipped cream,” I said.
“I can do that. And you?” he asked, looking down at Ariel.
“That sounds really good. Can I have one, too?” she asked.
“You can get whatever you want, you know,” I said.
“I know. It’s just—I kinda had my eye on that one, too.”
“Well, then it’s yours.”
“Can I get extra birthday cake bits?”
“Of course. Just tell the man what you want.”
She smiled. “I want extra birthday cake pieces in it, too, please.”
My eyebrows rose. Please. That sure as hell was the first time, I’d ever heard her say that.
“Coming right up,” the man said.
He got to work on our massive ice cream birthday cake surprises, and I couldn't wait to eat it. Ariel was in such a good mood, and I knew I’d cherish this day for a while to come. I paid for the ice cream in cash and we sat down, taking up a table in the corner. I sat back against the wall, keeping my eyes out the window. Just in case my brother “happened to find us.”
Just in case someone was watching.
Ryker: Dead Souls MC: Prospects #4 Page 4
