She looked suspicious, though she didn’t have any reason to be. I was telling the truth, and Lance’s absence was the perfect opportunity to get out of there for a little while.
“Really, what am I going to do? I’m not even asking to take Gigi with me. Just switching out clothes, picking up the mail. That’s it.”
“I guess so,” she said, chewing her lip. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, though.”
“What would happen to me?” I shrugged, honestly unsure why any of them seemed to think I was in danger. I was the last person on anybody’s radar. I wasn’t even part of the MC world, the way they rest of them were. Heck, Erica was probably at greater risk than I was…though I wouldn’t tell her that.
“Okay. I’ll cover for you with Gigi.”
“Thanks.” I gave her a quick hug, then grabbed my coat and purse before slipping out the front door. The first deep breath of fresh air was like heaven after breathing the stale air in the clubhouse for days. I didn’t know how any of them survived during lockdown, I really didn’t. I’d never considered myself an outdoor person—I was more of a homebody. I had just never spent that much time cooped up before, without being sick.
It was nice to get behind the wheel of my car again, to feel in control of my life. Amazing how little time it took to feel like I’d lost control. Only a couple of days. On Friday evening, before showing up at the MC’s front door, I was one person. By Monday afternoon, I felt like somebody else. A different girl. One who had to get permission to go home and pick up a few things. I said a silent prayer as I drove, hoping Lance was able to find Rae and put an end to the madness.
What then? What would happen to Gigi? She’d be totally in his hands. I didn’t like the idea at all. I might have slept with him, but I didn’t trust his parenting skills. What would he do, lock her away in her room? She was already going crazy, and it had only been a week. He couldn’t make her stay there forever. It was too far from school, too, unless he planned to transfer to another school. My heart ached at the thought. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t say goodbye to Gigi.
There had to be a middle ground, something I could work out with him. I might not have been a blood relation, but I cared too much about that little girl to be pushed out of her life. I wouldn’t let him do that to me. I had to be smart, work with him, around him—anything necessary to get what I wanted: Gigi’s happiness.
But who was I to assume I knew what would make her happy? A degree in early childhood education didn’t make a parent, or even an expert on development. Loving her didn’t make me an expert either. Still, I was convinced I knew her better than he did. I knew what was best for her, best for any child. And it wasn’t spending night and day in an MC clubhouse, surrounded by trashy women and criminals—even if they were nice people, that was still who they were.
The closer I got to home, the calmer I felt. The tension of the past few days slipped away until I felt rather Zen-like as I pulled into my driveway. I even had an appetite, in stark contrast to the way I felt while sitting down to dinner.
It was like stepping into a different world, entering my house. Everything was just the way I left it. I breathed a sigh of relief and, for a split second, considered staying. I didn’t have to go back to the clubhouse. I didn’t ever have to go back to that world. It would be easier if I stayed away—after all, it would mean never having to see Lance again. It would be better if I didn’t.
Better for whom? I asked myself the question as I puttered around, running my hands over my TV, my couch, the photos on the end tables. Photos of my parents in happier days, before I lost them to a drunk driver.
It would be better for me, of course. I didn’t need the complication of falling for a criminal. I hated that world, hated everything about it. It went against everything I believed in. I’d spent my life walking the straight and narrow, being a good citizen, doing the right thing. That was the way my parents brought me up. I looked at their smiling faces, frozen in time, and wondered what they would think of me sleeping with a man who had most certainly hurt a lot of people in his short life. He was a thief, a violent man. He might even have killed people. I was too afraid to ask.
He was also the little boy whose mother couldn’t take care of him. Whose foster father abused him, put out lit cigarettes on his bare skin. Who was so badly burned, his teacher cried when he saw the result. He was that person, too. If he’d never been that person, he might not have been the man he grew into. He might have had a chance. He was smart enough. He had charm, charisma. He was a natural leader. He could have grown up to be a CEO instead of the president of an outlaw motorcycle club. Life turned on a dime.